<em>(Click here to read <a title="Friendship Between the Genders: Sacred Friendship Gathering (Part 1)" href="http://provoketive.com/2012/05/01/friendship-between-the-genders-sacred-friendship-gathering-part-1/" target="_blank">part 1</a> and <a title="Friendship Between the Genders: Sacred Friendship Gathering (Part 2)" href="http://provoketive.com/2012/05/02/friendship-between-the-genders-sacred-friendship-gathering-part-2/" target="_blank">part 2</a>)</em>

Before we broke for lunch, Forrest and Vanessa Horn spoke to us about their journey as a married couple dealing with a cross-gender friendship. Often we hear from the people who are in the friendship, but it is more rare to hear from the spouse of the person friend. This courageous couple shared not only the beauty of a close friendship between a man and woman, but also some of the struggles that can happen between a husband and wife as a result of that friendship. Forrest had to deal with his feelings of being not enough for his wife. In one of the most touching parts of their presentation, he talked about receiving a call from Vanessa's friend and spending an hour on the phone with him.

They are still working through learning how to have a cross-gender friendship in their marriage, but their contribution to the weekend was a powerful reminder that we can learn, even through difficulty, how to make this happen.

After lunch, <a title="Jim Henderson" href="http://sacredfriendshipgathering.com/speakers/jim-henderson/" target="_blank">Jim Henderson</a>, author of <a title="The Resignation of Eve by Jim Henderson" href="http://www.amazon.com/Resignation-Eve-Willing-Churchs-Backbone/dp/1414337302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324679289&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Resignation of Eve</a>, gave his presentation. The title of his piece was "The Only Reason Jesus Gives Us Power is to Give It Away." Jim focused on how the issue of power plays into that of cross-gender friendships. He reminded us that we all have some level of power afforded to us because of various life circumstances, and we must be wise with how we use that power. Aside from the fear myth, one of the biggest reasons that cross-gender friendships are so taboo is because of inequity between the sexes, especially in the church, and as a result