not yours... but mine!

[chestnutcurls]

I will now share some things from my seminars at conference! They were helpful to me, so I hope they might help you too.

The first seminar I took was about life after graduation, and transitioning into the Real World. It has now been a year since I graduated, but since I still don't know what's going on, I thought the class could only help me. We focused on four areas: Christian living, finances, work, and relationships. The work part really got me. He listed three wrong approaches to work, and unfortunately, I do them all:
1) I work so I can do what I want on the weekends (hedonism)
2) I work so I can get stuff (materialism)
3) I work because I have to (fatalism)
He then went on to explain that whatever we do, we are working as unto God. He said some good things, but I was stuck on the fact that I'm approaching my work wrongly. I talked to Evan about my worries, and he pointed out that (as we learned in the class) most people only spend half of their work lives doing something they enjoy, and I don't enjoy what I do, so it's normal that I struggle with those things. I'm still working this out in my mind, but I'm very glad that it was brought to my attention.

I also went to a class on the role of the Church, taught by Les Newsom, our former campus minister and one of the best teachers I have ever known. It would take forever to share all that I learned, so I will just refer you to Les's book on the Church. Well worth reading. One thing that stuck in my mind from the class: only 4% of Christians actually tithe. That baffles me.

I also took a seminar on prayer. It was good, but the speaker was very calm and quiet, and I missed a lot of what was said because I was so sleepy. :(

On Friday, I went to the excellent Decision-Making seminar, which I took two years ago and which my friends were going to in droves. It happened to be meeting with the Dating & Marriage group that day. John Stone from UTK was teaching, and he was great. I was encouraged and comforted by what he said on male-female friendship:
1) When a girl spends lots of time with a guy and is close to him, she is inevitably going to love him. And it's not a sign of weakness or being silly, but actually a sign of how strong and mature she is, because she is wanting and planning for mature things like marriage.
2) The reason it often doesn't work out for the girls is based on this maturity difference. Girls accept "their" guys as they are. They understand that they have faults. But guys our age still believe in the perfect woman. So they pass over normal, flawed girls [who already love them], because they're convinced that their perfect ideal is out there somewhere.
3) And here I quote: "When you have a guy and a girl who are best friends, one of them is going to have feelings for the other. If you think you're just friends and nothing's going on, you better know that your best friend's crying into her pillow every night because you don't have a clue! She's got her friends praying and fasting for you!" LOL. I loved that.

Anyway, that's what I got out of my seminars. All this has been filtered through my brain, so I'm sure I haven't explained things exactly. But I love to talk about all this kind of stuff, so if you want to discuss or know more about something, I'm happy to share my notes. :)

Comments

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Hey, all of that is really interesting. I read the whole thing. I think that's totally true about the guy/girl friendship thing. It's almost impossible to have a totally platonic and yet close friendship with a member of the opposite sex without ONE of the people liking the other one. People will always say "We're just best friends" but I doubt that both have NO intention or wonderings about something more.

The work thing is also so true for me. I want a job where I really like and value my time there, but I just do my job now by getting through the day so I can have my evenings and weekends. It's pathetic. I need to learn to appreciate my current job, I realize, but it's difficult.

[yakk0dotorg]

that goodtheology.com site looked...familiar. I would hope they got permission from amazon.com. Plagarism isn't a good witnessing tool. ;-)

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Hey, the colors are different! :)

[aardwolf.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with the last three points (about best friends). I've often wondered if it's possible to have a totally plutonic friendship...

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Plutonic? Like plutonium? Sounds dangerous.

[aardwolf.livejournal.com]

Haha yeah yeah.. platonic, or whatever. The definition for plutonic is:

formed by solidification of magma deep within the earth and crystalline throughout

[lucard2525.livejournal.com]

That summer conference sounds amazing. I belonged to Intervarsity in college and it reminds me of the IV conferences that used to happen every summer... although our college large group was very small (we were christians at a sort of anti-christian college). The points on approaches to work, relationships, and friendships were especially interesting. The work part especially sort of told me something I needed to be reminded of. Thanks. :)

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I'm so glad everyone is excited about this. I've never generated so much discussion. :) It really is an amazing conference. I almost learn more in that week than I do the whole rest of the year.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Two things I like in this entry.

First, the job thing. I work two jobs. One of them, is for all three of those reasons to varying degree. The other one, while it's sometimes frustrating, is doing something I enjoy doing and the only reason I could see leaving that job is to do that type of work somewhere else. At least I'm trying to at least cut back the job that I do for the wrong reasons.

And then the male/female friendship thing. I have a friend who means a lot to me (unfortunately more than I think I mean to her) who I saw a couple of months ago (we live in different cities). And I was unsure whether she meant to stay as friends or to move up to something else. I was hoping the latter.

But then, near the end of the evening, she mentioned her boyfriend. Oops! Oh, well...she's changed a bit since I had seen her last (we'd lost touch for a while). I think it could have been overcome, but I guess it wasn't to be. *sigh*

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Thanks for relating. It's encouraging for me to see that guys can have feelings for their girl friends, too. I've generally believed that it's just a female thing.