Women's conference

This past weekend our church had our first annual women's conference. The keynote speaker was Holly Stratton, the wife of the president of Clearwater Christian College. It was a wonderful conference.
Here are some of the highlights . First of all, the men served us and they even wore aprons. Nothing like a man in a uniform. The food was incredible. When we first arrived last Friday there were mountains of all kinds of delectable desserts that we could partake of during the entire conference. The decorations were incredible. I took part of them home in the form of a Betta fish vase. I have wanted one for quite some time, but did not know what kind of plants to put in them, now I have one that someone else put together and I just had to pay for it. Can't get much better than that.
The first session was given by our pastor, Pastor Bob Bixby. His main points were that we are not perfect and we will not reach perfection on this earth and that we were made in God's image.
Sin destroys our relationships and He saves us so that our relationships can be restored to a new creation.
He also said that " we are not wholly woman until you are wholly Christian and that you are never wholly Christian until you are wholly woman." Because again, we are created in the image of God.
We are called to be like Christ
We are to return to the shepherd of our souls
To be like Christ we are to submit to our husbands

The next speaker was Tricia Brown and she spoke on modesty. A subject that has some gray areas. She had to remind all of us that it is her opinions and she is not trying to judge anyone and that she had no one in mind when she wrote her notes. The title was Modesty Matters.
Her text was 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Our choices reflect our hearts. At the root of every problem is a problem with our Theology.
We should ask ourselves how we can bring honor and glory to God's temple.
It is our job to edify and protect--keep stumblingblocks out of the way
Because we are representing Christ, even if on a deserted island we need to be modest, even
if it is all women.
If you have physical clothing trouble spots, you should pool your resources and spend a little more money on those trouble spots and DONT trust the clearance racks.

The third session was by Suzanne Altizer on Hospitality.
She gave some great ideas on how we can entertain others on short notice. A couple of my favorite examples that she used was the tea light in the apples and the triple candles on a plate with stuff around it like Jelly beans, mint balls, beans, or coffee beans. We could use anything that we want for centerpieces for the tables.
Also, we do not have to apoligize if our house is not in order when people come over. Sometimes we can do the best we can and still not get it perfect. I was so glad to hear that, but I will still be embarrassed if someone came over on short notice and saw my house messy. I was convicted to try harder to keep it clean on a regular basis so that it will not be as hard and time consuming to pick the extra things on short notice.

The fourth session was by Holly.
Her points fell under the question : What is Righteous Thirst?
1. righteous thirsting involves righteous waiting,
2. righteous thirsting is always God centered and never man centered,
3. there are cheap substitutes for righteous thirsting.
a. anything that we are substituting for the Gospel
b. three specific substitutes for righteous thirsting
1). Intellectualism:
focus on the mind, hunger for knowledge and love books on theology
2). Passivism/emotionalism
emphasis on emotions, we do not always make choices based on God's word.
3). Moralism
emphasis on the will and the purpose to do right.
c. problems with cheap substitutions
will only get us so far and cause selfishness and pride.
The more we grow, the more we will see how sin prone we really are.

Then we had a wonderful meal (after eating all those delectable goodies. I probably gained 5 pounds (like it will matter anyway on this body that still contains lots of baby weight).

On Saturday we were greeted by those men in aprons again and a nice continental breakfast.

Holly spoke again on thristing for God.
Only God fully knows and understands our needs, abilities, emotions, and our mind (I am glad that somebody knows THAT).

I. A righteous thirst revealed
I desire most to understand than to be understood.
I can't figure out myself, how can I understand anyone else.
I focus on understanding God's will.
There is a difference between fact and truth. talk about the facts and focus on those facts.
Keep our attention on the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is fact.
Because I have a righteous thirst, I do not have a dependence on man.
I know my identity and I know that God has accepted me into His family. No matter how others see me, my identity is in Jesus Christ.

My sister in law, Anouk, a financial and budgeting genius, talked about the benefits of keeping finances in order, saving money, and budgeting. Because she is related to me, she had given many of those pointers to me before, so most of it was not new. I also had the inside scoop on one of her favorite freebees, she calls them. We should make a budget (it does not have to be ridged, but should have some type of saving in it. She has found that the best way to save is to catagorize her savings into several categories, such as car, clothes, groceries, etc..., that way if something goes wrong with the car, for example, there will be money there so you do not have to go into debt with credit cards (been there). Also, she talked about coupon shopping and rebates, e.g. Walgreens rebate program. It really works. A couple books she mentioned are both by Mary Hunt. They are DEBT PROOF LIVING and LIVING LIFE AT HALF THE PRICE.

I was feeding my infant during the last session with Holly, so I missed most of what she had to say, but over all it was a great conference and am looking forward to next year.