Cultivating Connections 2017

Our first regional marriage conference was held on October 28^th, 2017, in Gridley, IL. Over 90 couples of all ages from 24 churches gathered to strengthen their marriage relationships together.

Topics Included:

• Marriage and the Church:  Handout  Audio
  Healthy Marriages lead to Healthy Churches which lead to a Healthy Witness to the world around us. This introductory session highlighted encouragements and challenges to marriage within the church today.
• Strengthening Emotional Connections:  Handout  Audio
  This session focused on raising the awareness of the need for emotional connection within a couple’s relationship. It walked through key concepts and strategies for strengthening this connection with your spouse.
• Nurturing Joy in Marriage:  Handout   Booklet   Audio
  Joy in marriage is a powerful bonding agent. This session walked through several simple, practical, and yet profound ways in which joy can be nurtured in marriages each day.
• A Gospel-Centered Marriage:  Handout   Audio
  Marriage is a living testimony of the Gospel. Learning to speak and model the Gospel to each other holds wonderful health and hope for our marriages.
• Attachment Styles in Marriage:  Handout   Audio
  Attachment styles are impacted by early childhood experiences and shape our behavior, beliefs, and expectations in marriage. This talk focused on helping participants identify their own attachment style and their spouses, while also understanding how these styles impact how they relate as a couple.
• Building up Marriages in Others:  Handout   Audio   Video
  God blesses our marriages not just for ourselves but also so that we can bless others. This session looked at ways to encourage, challenge, and mentor other marriages in your church family and community.
• Developing Spiritual Union in Marriage: Handout Packet
  This workshop included activities designed to create focus and intimacy in the areas of: Scripture, Prayer, Worship, Fellowship and Service.
• Interests and Needs of Mature, Seasoned Couples:  Handout  Audio
  Our marriage relationship will continue to evolve as we experience life together. Our later years can bring a variety of unique challenges and wonderful opportunities. In a small group setting, we discussed such scenarios as empty nesting, grandkids, navigating health issues, and more.
• Leaving, Cleaving, & Weaving: Handout
  A marriage relationship will inherently create tension between balancing desires for your spouse and your other relationships (parents, kids, work, etc.). This talk focused on identifying aspects that can inhibit the leaving and facilitate the cleaving process.
• Navigating Sex Education with your Children:  Handout   Audio  Video
  This session focused on helping couples educate their children about God’s design for sex. Resources were supplied to help a couple be in agreement with how to approach this difficult, yet necessary topic with their children.
• Sexuality in Christian Marriage:  Handout   Audio  Video
  This presentation focused on five practical steps couples can take to enhance their sexual relationship. Couples of all ages can benefit from intentionally focusing on ways to strengthen and protect their sexual relationship and experience God’s design for sexuality in their marriage.
• Staying Connected as you Raise your Children:  Handout  Audio
  Parenting requires a great deal of our energy and focus. Often there are not enough hours in the day or enough energy left to connect with our spouses. This session focused on practical ways to purposefully carve out time and space to stay connected through the seasons of parenting.
• Strengthening your Marriage when your Children are Struggling: Handout
  Children are a gift from the Lord that can not only bring joy, but also hurt and challenges to a marriage. This small group session explored the stress and strain struggling children bring to family functioning and how couples can build resiliency and refinement through these seasons.
• The Opposites of Marriage:  Handout  Audio
  Why doesn’t she understand me? Why is he always so frustrating to me? Marriage can bring us face-to-face with the uniqueness of how God has designed ourselves and our spouse. This session walked through navigating the “opposites” of marriage.