World Vision Event

Carruthers Creek Community Church

Ajax, ON

February 13, 2011

Dr. Tony Campolo

World Vision Event

Carruthers Creek Community Church

Ajax, ON

February 13, 2011

  1. Relationships and marriages are in trouble these days. From a sociological point of view, the basis of marriage has changed.
  2. We used to be primarily an agrarian society, now we are primarily urban. In an Agrarian society the man was looking for a woman to help run the farm. The Proverbs 31 woman.
  3. The role of the wife has changed. She is no longer a basic economic partner. Back in the day, the real question was can she cook?
  4. The only reason to get married in today’s society is because “you’re in love.”
  5. Romantic love is not real love. Sociologists have another term for it: limerence.
  6. Romance is intense, wonderful, it gets you married.
  7. Baptist heaven joke.
  8. I had apprehensions about marriage, everyone does. You’re never sure. Every mother says the same thing, “When you meet the right one, you’ll know.”
  9. Who you choose is secondary to the question, “Do you know how to create love when the romance dies down.”
  10. According to a study, romance diminishes 80% in the first two years. Marriage forces you to face reality. If there is anything that romance is not, its reality.
  11. Had to take a marriage therapy course. I was assigned a couple who the professor later admitted could not be help.
  12. We tried everything, nothing worked. Finally I told the guy, “You’re the problem.” I made him come back, not her. He said the marriage fell apart the night of the honeymoon. He heard her go to the washroom. He wasn’t married to a real person, he was married to a perfect image.
  13. Marriage is bad noises, bad smells. It’s hard to maintain romance.
  14. I grew up looking across crowded rooms for romance. It’s an instantaneous thing, you see a person, and it turns you on. But it doesn’t last. You need something much deeper, much more profound.
  15. Martin Buber said, “You shift from an I-it relationship to an I-thou relationship.”
  16. In romanticism, the other person is an it. The Greeks word for it was Eros. Women are scared to death that their romantic image is going to fade and they will be rejected. No wonder for the cosmetic industry.
  17. An old Irish song, “If all thy charms were to fade, thou would still be adored.” Thomas Moore.
  18. I love my wife more today than when I married her. I’m not sure I did marry her then, I was romantically turned on.
  19. Love is a very spiritual thing. Galatians 5, it’s a gift that is given to those who allow themselves to be filled with the spirit. Love is the first spiritual fruit.
  20. When you’re filled with the spirit, you don’t just look at a person, you look into a person, you can connect with them.
  21. I challenge my students to go to restaurants and look at married couples. How little they talk, how little the look at each other.
  22. The eyes are the window into the soul. If you cannot enter into the depths of a person’s being, then that person is in darkness.
  23. Once you’ve connected with the sacredness of another, the other person can never be ugly. But so few people ever learn to love. Most marriages are “Empty shell relationships.”
  24. George Santiano, “Most marriages are where two people are married and they walk alone together.” The death of intimacy.
  25. Story about going to the Pentecostal church, not falling over.
  26. A Catholic friend introduced me to the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. I didn’t know how to pray up till then. Most prayers are telling God stuff God already knows.
  27. Joke about his son praying, asking if anyone wants anything.
  28. Centering prayer. Blaise Pascal went into a dark closet at 7, and he waits and he waits. He writes the next morning 10:30, fire, fire, joy, joy. The God that was alive in Abraham and Moses and Jacob.
  29. Mother Teresa was asked what she says when she prays. “I don’t say anything I listen. God doesn’t say anything he listens. If you don’t understand that I can’t explain it to you.”
  30. Every morning I get up a half hour early, and lie and bed and center in on Jesus. I say his name over and over again. There’s something about the name. I focus on the cross. I feel him holding me, cleansing me. I wait for the spirit to invade me.
  31. They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. When was the last time you waited 10 or 15 minutes?
  32. When he fills you, you have the power to connect, to reach down into a person. Jesus had that capacity.
  33. Romance is looking at another person through a glass darkly. When you have the spirit, you can enter in the depths of the other and know them. Paul, “And then you shall know the other in the way you know yourself.”
  34. We need an infilling of the Holy Spirit that will empower us to connect with each other.
  35. Do you talk to your children in ways that are befitting of someone filled with Christ? I want you to be Christ-like. Only when he is within you can you do this.
  36. Go to what the Celtics called a “thin place” and surrender to the holy spirit.
  37. Call to sponsor a child through World Vision.
  38. Blessed are those who can reach out to those they have not seen and have not met.
  39. Story about the teenage prostitutes in Haiti.
  40. I’m asking you to do what you can. 1 John 3:17. If you have the world goods and do not help others, how can you say you have the love of God.
  41. Story about the orphanage in Capacian.
  42. Story about eating a meal in a restaurant in Haiti, the restavaks with their faces pressed against the glass.

Tags: Relationships, marriage, sociology, agrarian, urban, Proverbs 31, roles, love, romance, Baptist, reality, therapy, Martin Buber, Eros, cosmetics, wife, spiritual, fruit, restaurant, couples, eyes, soul, sacredness, George Santiano, intimacy, Pentecostal, Catholic, St. Ignatius, centering prayer, Blaise Pascal, Mother Teresa, prayer, Jesus, waiting, Paul, connect, Holy Spirit, Celtics, thin places, World Vision, Haiti, Capacian, prostitutes, orphanage, restaveks