GYC SE Conference 2021: If Not Now, When? If Not I, Who?

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GYC Southeast

Breakout Seminars

Alan Parker

Finding the Right Person and Healthy Relationships

All right, so there's going to be 2 parts to this.

So the first part is kind of the process of finding the right 1.

And the second part has to do with how to have a healthy relationship.

So I've tried to go across the spectrum of where different people's needs are.

And so that's how I decided to organize it.

Well, I don't know if we should begin, but let's go ahead.

I did some introductions, but let's just do it 1 more time for the sake of those who are here.

And Laurent, are you from Southern or somewhere else?

So Hopefully you guys, you are the remnant who have decided not to go into the great outdoors for which we admire you.

All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and begin And why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer as we start.

We pray for your Holy Spirit to guide and lead.

We know that we cannot succeed without your help.

And so when we bring to you our relationships we fully expect you to be able to help us to navigate those relationships in your strength.

And we pray Lord that this time this afternoon will be productive and useful.

Bring those who still need to come, who are still getting away from lunch, help them to arrive here on time, and help us to be able to navigate relationships in a way that brings you glory.

All right, so I teach in the School of Religion.

My wife and I do relationship things on the side.

We also do a graduate program in biblical counseling at the School of religion.

So it's the only biblical counseling program that I'm aware of in the Adventist denomination.

So what we're taking a look at, as I say, 2 components this afternoon.

The first 1 is fit to be tied, how you find the right person and navigate all the way through to marriage, and then the second 1, how you have a healthy relationship.

I'm sure a number of you have done dating.

There's nothing like the experience of getting to know someone.

There's nothing like the experience of getting to know someone, there's nothing like the experience of falling in love.

All right, so it's fun but it's also dangerous.

The average teenage relationship lasts 14 months.

So if you've been dating a year you have about 4 months.

So it only lasts 14 months which means some are really short.

The younger you are, the shorter the dating period tends to be.

As you get older, you're able to hang in there a little bit more.

So just for those of you coming in now, our first 1 is how you find the right person and what that process is.

And our second seminar is going to be how to have a healthy relationship when you're in a relationship.

Only 2% of new marriages are from high school sweethearts.

So that means that 98% of high school sweethearts do not get married.

More than 50% of all marriages started between the ages of 20 to 25 end in divorce.

I mean, that'd be like, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the matrimonial airlines.

We're so glad you've decided to join us on this trip and we want you to buckle up.

Now we do need to warn you in advance before we take off that 50% of our flights end like this.

How many of you are still keen on flying matrimonial airlines?

So what we have to do is recognize as we go into relationships that they don't have to end in disaster.

But there is a chance, particularly before you get married when you're just dating, there's a significant chance that you're gonna end up in a breakup.

And so is there a problem with today's dating strategy?

I was gonna put up Tinder, but in the end I went with Friendly because it sounded friendlier.

And what do you, is it Tinder, is it swipe right?

I don't know either, But anyway, whichever swiping way you go, the idea with the dating apps is you see somebody who's attractive and you respond.

1 is that you are choosing a partner who could end up becoming your life partner based on simply attraction or circumstances rather than character and personality.

Like you get a feeling and it's not really choice and conviction, but it's how you felt towards that person.

And then you end up becoming intimate and even bonding with someone you don't really know.

I remember when it was a friend of mine was getting married and I was like the emcee, come on in guys, if we need extra chairs, could we check in that little room over there?

What happens is, you become intimate with a person you don't really know.

I was the MC for the reception, and we were hanging out Saturday afternoon and 1 of the girls who was there caught my eye.

She was this redhead and we ended up walking next to each other and our hands accidentally kind of brushed you know as you're walking and I'm like that felt good and then we we ended up sitting down on the beach and here she's chatting to me and I'm chatting with her and I could just feel the electricity.

And then I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow everyone left us alone, and I ended up putting my hand on hers.

And I just felt this connection, like soul to soul, you know, heart to heart.

And there I am holding her hand, and she's chatting to me, and I'm feeling this warm fuzzy glow and then as she's talking more she starts saying things that are totally unlike me.

I discover she is a Pentecostal and I'm a very intellectual guy and She believes completely differently from me and she has completely different politics from me.

Everything was just different and as I'm there, suddenly I feel it grow cold.

And I'm moving my hand away and I'm like, Oh my, who are you?

I had allowed intimacy to get ahead of my knowledge of that person.

So painful breakups that could have been avoided happen when we follow the regular dating methods that we see out there.

Kyle Allen

End Time Evangelism

What a blessing we have, those of us that are here and that have been able to go to Southern and have Adventist education.

And to be able to live in this time in Earth's history is incredible.

And I hope that as you come to the seminar today, you will be inspired by what God is doing around the world, and that that will give you courage in your own life for what God wants to do in your life.

So before we get started today, I just want to ask us to bow our heads for a word of prayer and ask the Lord to be with us.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this beautiful Sabbath day.

Lord, we are inside today, but we're grateful for the opportunity to be together and to think about the incredible ways that you are moving around the world.

And Lord, we recognize that we are living in the last days.

I pray that in the next hour or 2 that we will gain a new sense of how your Holy Spirit is working and that we would be inspired for the mission that you've called each 1 of us to, Lord.

Thank you for the privilege we have of serving you and we ask that your Holy Spirit would be here today in Jesus name.

And by the way, let's make it interactive because it's a seminar, right?

So if I ask you some questions, you guys can give me some feedback.

I see Daniel Ramley, he's gonna answer me there, amen.

I wanna ask you guys a question as we start.

How many of you, well, First of all, and I know this is cliche for Adventists to say this, but how many of you really believe Jesus is coming soon?

Now let me ask you this question, and we'll get to this more in a minute, but why hasn't Jesus come back yet?

Now, just 2 days ago, we celebrated the, actually, what did we celebrate yesterday?

Actually, we don't really celebrate, you really celebrate the great disappointment?

In fact, 2 years ago I was at the William Miller Farm for the 175th anniversary of 1844, and of course, October 22, 1844, and they were saying, yeah, we don't really call it a celebration, but it's a reminder, right, a reminder of the movement that God has called all of us into and the fact that we are a hundred and seventy-seven years closer now to the coming of Jesus, amen?

I mean, anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'll get there in a second.

But I want to ask you guys, have that in your mind a little bit.

Now, some of you might have some answers.

But first, I just wanna call your attention to a few of the things, and this is not going to be anything here in the start that is new, because we've all been living this reality the last 18, 19 months, what have we seen in our world change just in the last less than 2 years?

And all of us have been touched by this pandemic.

I was just thinking the other day that I can count on my, well, almost complete 2 hands of people that I know personally that have passed away from COVID.

I'm sure some of you could also say the same thing.

This pandemic has touched all of us and it has not only touched us here in America, it's been around the world.

And we know that things like COVID, Jesus told us that these would be signs of his soon return, right?

That's 1 of the things that he told us would happen in the last days.

Now, we could talk a lot about how it's affected our lives, but I also want you to think about how it has pushed us to new realms of mission that we never could have expected.

The church was put in a position where no longer could we meet in our churches, no longer could we do the things that we used to be able to do, now we had to move online.

And I'm gonna tell you a few stories in a moment about how AWR and our church organizations tried to grapple with this, and how the Lord blessed in spite of the pandemic in ways that we never could have imagined.

I'm sure you guys could tell me yourself testimonies of how God worked things for good, right, in the last 18 months.

I'm sure you could tell a testimony, amen.

Opportunities that God brought out of this bad situation to help others to know him and to help.

Now, we know that COVID is a sign of the times.

What else are signs of the times that we see around us?

Okay, really, decreasing of religious freedom, that's another good 1.

Okay, increased knowledge, all right, that's good.

In the natural world, what are we seeing?

In fact, thank you, and I knew the Cal, no, he's not from California, I just keep, David, but Michigan, sorry David, California fire.

This is a picture from Paradise, California, just a couple of years ago.

You remember that terrible tragedy that happened there?

This is a picture from not far from Loma Linda, where I used to pastor, fires that were taking place there in Southern California.

I want to, to point out that almost every house in that town was completely devastated by fire.

We lost our church, almost all of our church.

We lost part of the hospital, the Adventist Hospital.

Incredible stories that happened out of that fire a few years ago.

But I want to use this as an illustration to say that the things that we have in this life, the stuff that we own, the houses, the cars, our material goods, none of that is going to survive in the end, right?

The Bible tells us that all of that 1 day is going to perish.

2nd Peter chapter 3 and verse 9, Peter says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Does this verse give us a clue as to why Jesus hasn't come back yet?

As we see the signs of the times, as we look at the things that are happening around the world, COVID, fires, wars, pestilences, natural disasters, decrease of freedoms, all these things are signs.

He wants everybody as many as possible to have an opportunity to accept Him, to know the truth, amen, to hear the 3 angels messages.

And so we see here in this text 1 of the reasons why Jesus hasn't come back yet.

Now we'll get more to that in a moment, but I want to show you this next text here also from 2nd Peter chapter 3 verses 11 and 12.

Therefore, since all of these things will be what?

What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, and this is the key, looking for and?

When I was younger, my dad used to have a nickname for me.

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Breakout Seminars

Finding the Right Person and Healthy Relationships

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Parts

Finding the Right Person and Healthy Relationships

1h 41m

End Time Evangelism

1h 50m

Sound Doctrine