Pastors, Lay-Leaders Invited to Learn Effective Premarital Preparation at March 4 Workshop

•  How confident do you feel when doing premarital counseling?
•  Do you have a tool to effectively assess a couple in their strengths and needs before marriage?
•  Do you have comprehensive materials to prepare a couple to marry?
•  Would you like to learn how lay leaders can prepare couples for marriage?

Marriage Network Oklahoma is again presenting a training workshop for church and marriage ministry leaders —Preparing Couples for Marriage - "The Foundation of Marriage Ministry"

Workshop will include training for premarital education classes, premarital counseling, resources, and effectiveness

Thursday, March 4, 2010, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Location: 301 NW 63rd St. (just W of Broadway Ext.), Suite 110, Oklahoma City

Cost: $50 person (spouse comes free), MNO partner churches: no charge (partner churches email to register), includes lunch

Deadline for registration: February 26

To register: go to the http://www.marriagenetworkok.net/ , or call Donna Edwards, 405.792.2586, or email donna@marriagenetworkok.net

How Did the Early Christians of Rome Defeat Pagan Sexuality?

That's the interesting topic to be addressed during a free Family Policy Lecture at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. next Thursday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m. CST. Thankfully, the lecture will be webcast worldwide by FRC, so you can listen in on the Web if you preregister here.

The speaker will be Dr. Peter Jones., the foremost evangelical scholar on neo-paganism. Dr. Jones, who has advanced degrees from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, and Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote a fascinating book in 2006, The God of Sex: How Worldview Determines Sexuality. The book, which is available here (type Peter Jones in Amazon box), was an exploration of how God's view of sex (after all, He invented it) has been corrupted by today's cultural gatekeepers, who are influenced not by Christian truth, but by Playboy philosophy and neo-pagan spirituality.

Jones, in the book, made a fascinating assertion. He believes the primary goal, related to sexuality, of popular culture, Hollywood, music, new age spirituality, etc., is to convince young people to buy into the idea -- not that they are homosexual or heterosexual -- but that they are personally bisexual. That's why we are seeing things like the infamous on-stage kiss between Britney Spears and Madonna, the emergence of Lady Gaga, etc. Kids are being taught today by popular culture and peers that they can go back and forth like a revolving door between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

It light of this background, it will be wonderful to hear Dr. Jones discuss, How Did the Early Christians of Rome Defeat Pagan Sexuality? Preregister for the Webcast here.