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Well, I just got back from the Northwest Christian Singles Conference at Cedar Park Church in Bothell. I'd say overall I had a really great time, I enjoyed the various speakers, and it was nice that there were a handful of people I knew from Antioch, plus a few others from Antioch that I'd never met before. I'm not really sure if I got much out of the messages that really spoke to me. It seemed like a lot of it was stuff that I already knew--particularly any stuff along the lines of being single does not mean you're an incomplete person, or that we need to be content where God has placed us, or that a single person's place in the church is just the same as that of anybody else in the church. I do realize that a lot of single people struggle with those kinds of issues, but I don't. But they were still good messages for me to hear, because I need a constant reminder that my life belongs to God, and that the only things I need to worry about are trusting and obeying Him, and the commands to love God with all my heart, mind, and strength, and to love other people.
That's why I especially enjoyed the "Loving Every Single Moment" workshop, because it wasn't so much the "how to enjoy being single" type of subject that I thought it was going to be. Instead, it emphasized the importance of loving other people and drawing our own needed love from God. And the handout provided a list of possible signs or areas where we might be lacking in love and nurture and would need God's love to fill those areas. In my case, I identified my own tendency to isolate myself from God and others, my struggles with fantasy life, and consistent tiredness. While I may often feel content with my life, isolating myself from God and others is never a good thing, because it goes against what God commands us as Christians to do. So for me it's really about making sure I stay constantly connected to God, receiving His love and giving it back. The verse printed at the very top of the handout pretty much sums it up: "Remain in Me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commandments and remain in His love. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." --John 15:4,9-12
It was also nice that it was a workshop geared toward single adults but not actually being about singleness. Because one thing that I highly agree with is that as single Christians, we shouldn't be focusing on our singleness, and that we should mainly be focusing on our relationship with God, just like any other Christian should. But I still think it's nice to hear general messages like this that are geared toward single adults. Like, even though this concept applies to all Christians, I suspect that if it had been catered to an audience of married people, there would have been some marriage issues brought up as part of the topic.
The workshop I went to before that, "Dating With a Purpose", was just as useless to me as I suspected it would be. It was led by a guy who works for Equally Yoked Christian Singles, and he basically plugged a bunch of books that are supposed to teach us how to date such that it leads to a healthy marriage. Things like how to know what to look for in a person, how to balance wisdom with passion, how to protect yourself in relationships, how to truly get to know each other, and how to keep the love alive once you're married. While I agree that these are all very important concepts for anyone who wishes to eventually get married, I just couldn't help but think that this is all just common sense more than anything else. It's like, I couldn't imagine that I'd even WANT to make the types of mistakes he was telling us to avoid. But then it might just be because I haven't had much actual dating or relationship experience, so it's easy for me to look at it from the outside in. So for all I know, my reaction to all this dating and relationship material could merely be like a kid in school wondering why he needs to learn how to multiply fractions or about the history of the Roman Empire or the structure of a plant cell. It may seem like totally useless information at the time, but it just may end up being important later on.
One interesting thing to note about the people who attended the conference, which one of the girls I know from Antioch commented on, is that there were hardly any other people in our age group. Most of the people were a lot older than us. Personally, I wasn't surprised at all, since pretty much every singles group I've encountered that doesn't have an age specification is comprised of mostly older single adults, many of them divorced or widowed single parents. Not that there's anything wrong with those people being in the group--after all, they certainly need the fellowship of other singles just as we do--but it was more of a disappointment that there weren't MORE people our age. And we were both wondering why that is. After all, the pastor of CrossCulture (Antioch's 23-33 singles group) kept repeatedly mentioning this conference for like the last two months, so it's not like people didn't have enough advanced warning to mark it in their calendars. So we were wondering if it's a commitment issue with people our age, or if there's just something about a singles conference that doesn't appeal to people our age. And I honestly don't know the answer to that. After all, I was there.
The conference ended with a concert by Jaime Jamgochian, a local contemporary Christian singer who's recorded a couple of CD's and even had a song played on Spirit 105.3 earlier this year called "Heart of Heaven". The neat thing was that it didn't really feel like a concert, since it was more of an intimate setting in a small chapel, so it was more like she was leading worship in church, and she shared her testimony. Also, I knew from reading the conference program that Jamie had a hit song played on Spirit 105.3, but I didn't know what song that was until she actually performed it, then I remembered hearing it on the radio. What's funny was, as she was singing "Heart of Heaven", I kept picturing myself driving to work, because that's what I was doing every time I'd heard the song before! Like, I had images of actual streets and intersections in Redmond in my head! She got a kick out of that when I told her afterwards as I was buying her CD. And she autographed the cover.
Anyway, I would say overall I'm glad I went to this conference, or at least that it was worth the $45 I paid for it. I would definitely consider going again next year if they do it again (and they don't jack up the cost).
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