I found an item of note on the conference schedule of MOAC 2005:
Thursday, September 8
Class Session #2: 4:00 pmForum: Paradigms of Brotherhood & Church Cooperation
How do we simplify the criteria of effective unity? In what areas do we need cooperation? What, if any, is the role of one church mentoring another? How do we handle doctrinal and opinion differences? How can we effectively work together to continue evangelizing the world? Steve Staten & Thierry Fender will moderate a forum of several presenters, followed by question & answer, on the shape of our future unity.
I truly wish I could be there. I would want to ask two questions:
- What are we going to do about those that promote division, specifically Thomas?
- Are we only looking to cooperate with churches of the former and present ICC?
There’s a part of me that looks at the “how to deal with doctrinal differences” question and sigh. It appears that, if we follow the path we’ve started so far, the answer will be to quote Ephesians 4:29
, challenge indrectly, play nice, and hope for change. When did Ephesians 4:29 become “thou shalt not raise your voice or publicly disagree with your brother”? Paul, the same person that wrote Ephesians 4:29, also publicly confronted Peter. But I digress…
Then, there’s a part of me that thinks, “this could be great”. There is a question and answer on this, not just a bunch of papers. It is a moderated discussion. It can demonstrate to Thomas and his ilk that there are many of us that have zero interest in ‘overseeing evangelists’ or being replanted or ‘one-over-another’ discipling. We can sit down and work through issues before and after the forum. For this alone, I wish I could be there.
At least I hope this will be fruitful. I pray to keep this hope because the speakers are all the same cast of characters as before. (When is Sean Wooten actually in Russia.) The other bit of discouragemnet comes from other speeches on the program:
Friday, September 9
Class Session #3: 2:00 pm
Revival: Son of Man, Can These Bones Live?—Kip McKean
Principles of faith-building revival culled from the two-year turnaround experience of the Portland International Church of Christ
and
Victory: Re-Defining the Abundantly Fruitful Church—Mike Fontenot
How do we know when a church is succeeding or struggling? As leaders, what should we pray for and expect in evangelizing and in baptizing? Drawing from the outstanding example of the Hampton Roads church of Christ, an elder & evangelist tackles the crucial topic of “success†in the church.
Lord, please help us despite ourselves.
Update: Joe Beam, the creator of Family Dynamics is coming to MOAC 2005! I actually want to go – unfortunately, he is speaking at the same time as the forum. I wish he could be at the Friday 2pm slot 
In any case, this is shaping up to be a good conference. A forum, Dr. Reese, Joe Beam of Family Dynamics… How about that?
What do you know about Family Dynamics? My wife and I have the opportunity in October to go to Chicago to take the training class to become facilitators. I was excited about it at first, but I’m now a bit apprehensive. I’m not sure I want to become a leader of a “program”. I’ve tried to find some more info on Family dynamics on the web, but a Google search only turns up what amounts to advertisements for folks offering their marriage course. I’d love to find out more about it.
The program is very good. It is focused more on facilitating rather than leading. The key is that a group of couples goes through assignments and discusses their answers. Most of the training involved is going through the program yourself and learning how to faciliatate a group and keep it moving.
They will tell you, though, that you shouldn’t do more than three classes in two years. The two trained couples here will tell you that it is VERY rewarding, but it takes energy .
To get an idea of what is covered, there are two books, His Needs, Her Needs & Love Busters. Most of the material in the course is in those two books. My wife and I went through the His Needs, Her Needs book before we got married and it has helped a lot.
Anywho, those are my random comments. As far as being seen as the leader of a program, after the first one, you may have quite a few folks willing to go to the facilitator training themselves. It has been a truly positive thing here.
Thanks. I had given their site a once over and it seemed filled with Christian-speak and marketing mist, both of which I have a rather strong aversion to.
It also seems rather expensive, Cincinnati is putting on a class series and it’s $150 per couple for the materials and the Chicago training session is $400 per couple. It seemed like a money making enterprise, or maybe help for the middle class and wealthy. That’s all most likely the cynic in me.
We have 6-8 couples here wanting to go get trained here in Columbus.
It is expensive, no doubt. I can say that it is not the Market Driven Marriage Kit. $150 is four books, two workbooks, a messenger bag, etc. I know, it sounds like Market Driven stuff, but it is different. Like I said, if you get His Needs, Her Needs and Lovebusters, that’s basically the entire program.
I think the thing that I liked was that all participants had to sign a confidentiality agreement to not discuss what happens during meetings. After having people’s sins discussed in leaders’ meetings, it felt good that others would be putting their integrity on the line.
I wish you well with the program. I agree that it seems too expensive.