CEM gets Psyched!

Two psychology professors from Abilene Christian University are wandering through France. They started in Lyon, spent the week with us at the retreat in Ardeche and came back with us to Marseille. They directed a few sessions during the retreat and preached at our church on Sunday.

On Monday, they taught our 3 hours of CEM class and gave us some practical insight on personality, identity and communication. Haven taken psychology in High School and remembering some of it, I was surprised by how useful and Biblically applicable the material that they presented was.

Some topics we covered:
Confirmation bias - when you make a first impression judgment of someone, your observations of their behavior tend to confirm your judgement (he's smiling because he's mocking me! vs. he's smiling because he's a nice guy)
"We're not as reasonable as we think we are."
"The easiest solution, when you have an issue with judging people, is to practice humility."

Johari window - a 2x2 grid of things you know/don't know about yourself and others know/don't know about you. There are even things that you don't know about yourself and others don't know about you that have underlying effects on your behavior. The goal of the christian should be to minimize his blindspots and unknown self, and to share his private self to try to become a transparent, open public person. More information: Johari window
"In the Old Testament, there is an example of David confronting problems with his unknown self: he knows that something is wrong in his life and he prays that God will help him to make it right."
"Someone who is Biblically/spiritually/age mature but who doesn't open himself up to others can have a HUGE blind spot which can lead to conflicts."
"Keep expanding your public self."

Conflict resolution -with the help of some role-playing, we illustrated passive, aggressive and assertive styles of addressing conflict.
"If a person isn't ready to hear assertive criticism, say it anyway. You need to have an honest, transparent relationship."
"Many times when people come to our office, they share things that they could have shared at church. They didn't share them there because they would be too afraid of shame. It's a shame if our churches aren't a safe place to share our struggles; ideally they would be."