Saturday, August 20, 2011

Marriage Conference Day #2

This morning was the second day of Dr. Gary Chapman's marriage conference at the West End Assembly of God, in Richmond, Va. Yesterday he talked about 'The Five Love Languages' and the 'Five Languages of Apology'.

Todays critical marriage information was based out of his book 'The Marriage You've Always Wanted'. The main topic of the book is focused toward communication in our marriage. Communication is a necessity for a great marriage! Since we know ourself better than anyone else, we have to communicate what we like and don't like to our spouse.

Communication has to be a two way street in a marriage. This means a few things. We must be able to talk comfortably with each other. We must be able to clearly express what we are trying to say. And we must listen when the other person is talking. Are you listening yet? :) Sometimes its even a great idea to express your thoughts and have the other person paraphrase those thoughts back to you. This way you know your getting the right message across. Assuming is never a good idea.

We also discussed the topic of sex. Sex was created by God, and He even said it was very good. Notice that all the other days were good, but the day that male and female were created were really good. The culture has really taken its toll on this topic, but the Bible is very clear on the specifics of sex. Overall marriages need to keep a positive attitude on sex and keep the lines of communication open in this area. This should be an incentive to read the paragraph on communication again. Still listening?

Finally, we need to realize that marriage is a ministry. As Christ came to serve, so we need to serve. And we need to serve our spouse. The conference and the book go into a lot more detail on these subjects and many more. The experience was great and I would recommend this conference or any other marriage conference to married couples. Love accepts many imperfections. Thoughts?

Check out more information on Dr. Gary Chapman and his ministries.
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/


No comments:

Post a Comment