(<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/">Click here</a> to read about day one of the event)

Day two of the Sacred Friendship Gathering opened with an interview of <a title="Dan Brennan" href="http://sacredfriendshipgathering.com/speakers/dan-brennan/" target="_blank">Dan Brennan</a>, Jennifer Ould and Susanne Osborne. Dan and Jennifer have been friends for ten years, and Dan and Susanne have been friends for four years. This was an opportunity for us to hear some about the relationships that were the basis for <a title="Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Unions-Passions-Engaging-Friendship/dp/0982580703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335925425&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Dan's book</a>.

Jennifer had grown up in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist congregation. After stumbling upon Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian," she found that resonated with her more deeply that what she had been taught growing up, and she joined an online discussion group for the book where she met Dan. They were later asked to be part of a sub-group that was sharing their stories in a more complete way, and during that time, they began a friendship based in healing prayer. It began as regular phone calls, and later progressed to meeting in person.

To emphasize that the friendship was always something that was disclosed with his wife, Dan told us that the first time Jennifer called, Sheila answered the phone and recognized Jennifer from the conversation that she and Dan had. Honesty was the cornerstone of this friendship, which allowed it to be pursued safely.

Susanne's story was a bit different. She had been friends with Jennifer in school, and saw the burgeoning friendship between her and Dan. She had read Josh Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye and had always treated men in one of two ways. Either they were a potential romantic partner, or they were someone to be avoided for fear of giving away her heart to someone who wasn't her husband. But as she worked in a counseling office, she saw that men and women needed one another as a part of that healing. Men needed women to speak into their lives, and women, particularly those who had been abused, needed a safe male voice to speak into theirs. And as she neared her 30's as an unmarried woman, she realized that she needed a new way to relate to men. Because she was familiar with Jennifer and Dan's story, she saw Dan as a safe person to seek as a friend, so they also began meeting for prayer.

One of the key ideas that was discussed between the three of them was