CCEF Conference: ONE for Better and Worse
Even though almost 3,000 of you have already clicked through to Replays of my CCEF Conference LiveBlogs, I have to assume that most of my readers won’t take the time to scroll through the tens of thousands of words I typed. Thus, I’m putting up this blog to summarize just a few nuggets from the conference.
(Many of these were tweets! Yes. Yes. I finally tackled my fear of Twitter and tiptoed a little more into the 21st century. Can you believe it? Almost as scary as .mp3/Ipod thingies and cooking. Almost. You can follow me on Twitter at @tarabarthel.)
Ed Welch:
“Anything divisive in your marriage is against the truth, it is not connected to Christ.”
“If you’ve ever had someone pray for you, your relationship is different. They have echoed something of Heaven to you.”
David Powlison:
“My wife Nan and I have different gifts. I would rather counsel a couple who are both manic depressive and holding knives than try to get twenty 4-year olds to sit in a circle. But not Nan. She’s like the Pied Piper and Mary Poppins rolled into one. They encircle her and quiet down. The chaos ends and she teaches them the things of Christ.”
‘When you’re having a dispute and you say, ‘I was wrong.’ There is no more dispute. It’s an agreement.’
“After we forgive, the next day we sometimes try to reconstruct the fight and we can’t. It’s been washed away. We don’t pile up offenses or hold grudges.”
“I am to move toward my wife in mercy. This is hard to do! I need the blazing Sun or else I become a flickering 3-watt light bulb.”
“Oriented in the fear of God; we have a fundamental awareness that there is someone over us to whom we are accountable.”
“Submission is my liberation. Submission is a joy.”
Mike Emlet: “Unity is both the starting point and the ending point for the church.”
Dave Harvey: “Healthy marriage: Two people, each defining themselves not first in reference to each other, but in reference to God.”
Bob Lepine: “You were dead, but now God has made you alive. You are God’s workmanship; made to walk in good works. Be who you are.”
Winston Smith:
“To make marriage counseling safe, you must establish and enforce the basics of biblical communication immediately.”
“Fearful people often don’t talk like fearful people; they talk like angry people.”
Tim Lane: “True change is not just changing behavior. Christian change is not less than that, but it is so much more.”
And of course it was super fun to see friends from this blog (Hi A!), old Peacemaker Ministries relationships (Hi M&B!), past CCEF Conferences, readers of “Peacemaking Women” and “Living the Gospel in Relationships”, and new friends too …
We’re one flight down for the night (only two more to go!) and hopeful that we’ll be kissing dear Sophia and Ella around 1AM this time zone—
Blessings and g’nite!
Yours,
Tara B.