2016 Cultivating Contentment

Guest Speaker: Jodi ware

Jodi grew up in Portland, Oregon, in a home blessed with Christian parents and four older sisters.  She heard the Gospel from an early age, and professed faith in Christ at the age of eight.  In 1978, she married Bruce Ware, and then worked in various jobs to put him through school.  He is a professor of theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Bruce and Jodi have two daughters.  Bethany is married to Owen Strachan, a professor at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, and they have three children (Ella, Gavin, and Ainsley).  Rachel graduated from Union University (Jackson, Tennessee), and is now attending Southern Seminary. 

Jodi is involved in the music ministry and women’s ministry at their church, Clifton Baptist, in Louisville.  She also works with the Seminary Wives Institute (registrar and teacher), and the Faculty Wives at Southern.  She loves walking, reading, playing the piano, and meeting one-on-one with women, engaging in “conversational ministry.”

How do you cultivate contentment in a world that invites continuous comparison to everyone around you and leaves you with the message that you don't measure up? 

At the 2016 conference we looked at how true contentment is rooted in a knowledge of and belief in God's character. Then we looked into the lies we believe that choke out the growth of contentment and instead leave seeds of sadness, anger, frustration, and emptiness. Finally, we discussed how the Gospel is essential in growing contentment that is strong and lasting.