Category: ministry

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sex

a while back i posted some emails that i am sending to a couple whose marriage i am officiating. they are getting face to face premarital counseling but i would have felt remiss if i didn’t make sure a few things were covered. so i started sending them these emails. this one on sex is the last one.

the others are:

okay guys here’s the last email and in many ways the most difficult email to write. it’s not difficult because of any Victorian concept of avoiding discussion concerning sex. i don’t really have a problem talking about sex. the problem is that since i believe that at it’s heart sex should be physical manner of communication it seems very ironic to use email, a poor method of communication, to talk about it. still that’s what we have and therefore it’s what we will have to use.

so here goes.

THE ONLY LEGITIMATE REASON FOR SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IS PROCREATION!

🙂 just joking. i just thought i would try and throw you off. it was fun. at least for me.

sex is about communicating love. i don’t personally believe that sex is ultimately about physical pleasure or procreation. obviously sex does involve both physical pleasure and procreation but at it’s best that’s not what I believe it’s all about. i believe that sex is ultimately a physical form of communication between two individuals who are attempting to become one. i know that sounds rather mystical but i mean it in as literal sense as possible. when you have sex two bodies should have become one (you can start your middle school giggles now). i say “should” because it is entirely possible for the two bodies to merely be connected and not really have become one. what i mean is that in sex you can merely have two people who are into their own experience and pleasure OR you can have two people who are completely into each other and each other’s pleasure and at the same time enjoying their own pleasure. sex is one of those rare moments where you are meeting someone’s needs and having your own needs satisfied and by having your own needs satisfied you are also thereby satisfying the other person’s needs also. i know it’s a circular argument but i think the nature of sex is somewhat circular because of that “two becoming one” thing.

so here is what we would basically discuss if we where meeting for face to face premarital counseling.

  • read “celebration of sex“. it’s top notch and will do a ton better job than i can do in one email.
  • sex is nothing like what you’ve seen in the media – movies & television sex scenes are jokes. i personally think that this is one of the reasons that pornography is so dangerous for relationships – people begin to think what they see on the screen is reality. it’s not. your sex won’t be like the scenes you have seen in movies and that’s a good thing. it means it’s real.
  • talk a lot – you’re partner will not naturally know what you enjoy and don’t enjoy. you have to “coach” each other. this means talking things through. hope fully you will get better at this the longer you are married. this is why when done right sex gets better the longer you are married (at least up to the 17th year of marriage – i can’t talk from experience past that). for a natural act sex is an incredibly unnatural thing to figure out well. if you’re going to figure it out you both have to learn to be comfortable talking about it. going back to the unreality that is presented in the media i would like to say that nobody just knows what to do and how to make their partner feel good.
  • laugh a lot – odd things are going to happen. when the odd things happen don’t think something is wrong because it’s not. just laugh about it. enjoy that you’re figuring this all out together. that’s part of the process of becoming one.
  • practice makes perfect – sex should get better as you have been married longer. you have to get more and more comfortable with each other. good sex means being vulnerable with each other. vulnerability takes trust. when things go right the longer you are married the more you know each other, the more you know each other the more you love each other, the more you love each other the more you trust each other, the more you trust each other the more you are able to be vulnerable with each other.

i could say a lot more but those are the things i feel most strongly about. i guess this is it for our emails. i’m truly glad y’all are going to face to face counseling. it’s much better than emails. of course, if you have any questions i can be of assistance with just give me a call and i’ll gladly help. my cell phone number is (XXX)XXX-XXXX.

i have no doubt that you will do wonderful in marriage. i am looking forward to your wedding day and seeing you guys hitched.

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10 minute film school


this video is great. it’s robert rodriguez talking about how he made his film “el mariachi” for $7,000.00. it went on to gross over $2,000,000 which definitely a pretty good return on investment. i’m just placing this up here since i mentioned in an earlier post that i believe within enough time, creativity, and initiative you can do must anything ministry-wise for very little money. the video is a good example of what i was trying to say. i personally love how he faked machine gun fire.

my run for the day
distance – 3.0 miles
time – 30:31
pace – 10:11/mile
weather – 23º/light flurries

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1 corinthians 11:17-34

the second message in the “robert terrell winter preaching tour” happens this coming sunday at fellowship baptist church in waupaca. this is our sponsoring church (i.e. the entity that makes it possible for us to be tax-deductible and get insurance) and therefore it would be nice to do a good job. it’s not like i ever really want to bomb in front of a group. after all this is GOD’s word that is being dealt with and therefore it should be life changing anytime we dig into it. still on a personal side i would like to do a really good job when it comes to the church that is sponsoring tapestry (i would hate to leave with them thinking “what type of reject have we sponsored?). since, i desire to do i good job i’ve turned to my second best resource … you (obviously the first is the HOLY SPIRIT and we’ve talked already and continue to).

if any of you are interested in reading the passage that i will be dealing with and then sending me any thoughts you have i will gladly steal all the credit from your great input. 🙂 actually, as i have said before i have always tried to bounce passages and ideas off a group of people i trust. sometimes theirideas are amazing and sometimes just the act of asking someone questions helps me out a ton. i have pam and she is one of the best exegetes i have ever been around but i’m also hoping to expand the group a little. so if anybody is interested the passage is 1 corinthians 11:17-34.i would love to steal … i mean use your thoughts.

a couple of you did this last time and i was very thankful for your thoughts.

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otherwise my mom will think i'm depressed

luke 14 - jan 24, 2008 #24/366
first, i have to post something (anything) because when i don’t post something every day my mom begins to worry that i am depressed. i’m not sure why she doesn’t think that i might be busy (other than the fact that she doesn’t actually think i do anything – insert smile here because it’s an inside joke with my mom and dad). all i know for sure is that just like she worries about the weather, and calls to give us reports before a storm comes to our area, so she also worries about me falling into depression when i don’t post something on this blog. so there i’ve posted something. of course, none of this really matters since my mother is on a cruise at the moment and won’t see this for another day or two. still it’s the thought that counts.

second, snow blowers are one of the greatest inventions of mankind. 20 minutes ago i used one of my neighbor’s to do our driveway and it was amazing. once snow season is over, and used snow blowers are once again available, i am definitely going to have to get me one of those things. it easily beats using a snow shovel.

third, i’m about to start the “robert terrell winter preaching tour” by preaching at three different spots in the next three weeks. in baton rouge i would pick people’s ears concerning the passage i was dealing with. basically i would ask them to read the passage and then throw out any thoughts they had on the passage. i loved hearing what people everyone would say about the scripture mainly because someone almost always said something that pushed me in a direction i would have never thought of on my own. i know a couple of people in the first group and nobody in any of the other groups and thus i don’t really have anybody within them to bounce ideas off of. i was wondering if some of you would be interested in being my “bouncers?” all you have to do is read the passage along with the scripture immediately around it and send me your thoughts. you can either post them here or email them to me. my email address is my name @gmail.com.

the passage for next week is the parable of the great banquet found in luke 14.

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money

for the last few weeks i’ve been posting emails that i am sending to some young friends of mine for whom i am officiating their wedding ceremony. they are getting premarital counseling from a great guy who is geographically closer than i am but i still felt like i would be remiss if i didn’t make sure a few things were covered. i’m actually 99% sure that the counselor will cover this stuff but i would rather send a useless email than not have some things covered.

anyhow, here’s the fourth email.

hello again guys. i write this to you from a warm coffee shop with 10″ of snow outside the door. wow, life is tough! i hope things are going great for both of you and that the ceremony plans are going well but aren’t completely taking over the your holiday season. just think next year you will celebrate our SAVIOR’s birth as a new family.

anyway thus far i have emailed you concerning what i view as the purpose of marriage, relational defaults, and how to fight. now let’s talk about money.

according to many marriage counselors and studies money is reason numero uno for divorce. it’s a big deal and therefore, as a soon to be married young couple you really need to deal with it. i’m going to just hit on a couple of issues (the first being the most important) and encourage you to read some books on personal finance for more in depth advice. there are some excellent sources out there. just like my belief that the couple that works hard at their marriage will have a successful marriage, i also believe that the individual/couple who works at controlling their finances will be successful at it.

1. you should determine your lifestyle rather than your money determining it

the majority of people live the way they do because of the amount of income they have. that’s why there is not a great deal of difference between the savings rate of the highest and lowest earners in america. in my opinion it’s pretty easy to determine who your god is if your lifestyle is determined by how much much you make. i.e. you should control your money rather than it controlling you. what this means is that you should determine how much it will cost you to live (i.e. a budget – insurance, school, food, transportation, clothing, housing, entertainment, etc.) and then live off that rather than just spending based however much you have in your checking account. if you control your money you will soon find that you will have saved money that you can then use to do whatever GOD directs you to do. this is actually why i believe the tithe is so important – not because GOD needs our money, because HE doesn’t – rather it is because it helps us to always determine who we put our trust in – the amount of money we have or the LORD WHO longs for us to acknowledge HIS LORDship.

2. know how each other operates monetarily

it is exceptionally important that you both sit down and talk about each of your attitudes toward money, spending, debt, and savings. the chances that you will both naturally agree on everything is basically nil. you have both gone through families that had their own unique views and understandings of money. you are both coming into your marriage with those views (either ones that you saw in your parents and decided you liked or ones that you saw in your parents and you decided you wanted to avoid). having different views is actually a good thing because it will help to balance out your marriage rather than allowing it to swing to one side or the other (hoarding and gluttony are both things that a CHRISTian should avoid). you need to understand where each of you is coming from. the worst thing that can happen is that you don’t talk about these things and then assume that the other person agrees. one of you may have a tendency to penny and dime money away much more than the other. one of you may have an inherent fear of debt while the other has no problem with it. one of you may prefer generic items while the other has a psychological need for brands (and this could just be on certain items). know each other and then correct what you both believe needs to be corrected and understand the rest. communication is key here. talk it all out.

3. begin saving now

i’ll mention retirement in a moment. what i’m talking about right now is just developing the habit of regularly saving money. this doesn’t necessarily mean money that you never touch (consider that retirement money). rather, what i mean is consistently placing money aside for when needs arise (and they will) or opportunities arise (i believe you will be more open to seeing the needs around that GOD wants you to met when you have been consistently saying “no” to random luxuries and wastes within your own life). establish a savings account and start placing money from every check into this account. this will be your first option when an emergency arises.

4. credit is not evil – but it’s close.

credit is a very easy way to get the things that your parents spent years gathering (i.e. matching furniture, etc). it is also an easy way to get into a great deal of trouble. i’m sure as college students you have already experienced how easy it is to get credit. that’s not necessarily a bad thing. credit has it’s place, but please approach the use of it with fear and trembling. the credit card companies are not out to help you. if anything they want to reduce you to the status of indentured servants. use credit as a very last resort and use “i don’t need that” as your first resort if at all possible. don’t believe the “same as cash” and “no interest” statements because these are merely lures and we all know what happens to a fish when it bites at a passing “lure.” if you are entering your marriage with debt (on either side) bring it out into the open and establish a plan now for getting rid of that debt.

5. start retirement as early as you possibly can.

at your age compounding interest is your friend. if at all possible you both should start setting aside a little money for retirement. if you do this at your age you will be amazed at how quickly it will grow. the reason for this is compounding interest. it will make a huge difference if you start early and very little difference if you start late. so start early.

it’s homework time! since we have just spent time talking about controlling money within our lives (actually i’m the only one talking but we can pretend) i’m going to recommend brown bagging it this time. make a meal (almost always much cheaper than buying one). make it a good meal (still usually cheaper) and go some where scenic and talk about how you each approach money.

  • talk about what fears and assumptions you have concerning money and how you approach it.
  • talk about what expenses and income you will have.
  • together develop a budget. you won’t really know if you can live on this budget until you’ve tracked expenses for a couple of money but start off with it anyway. then when you’ve been married for a couple of months, and you’ve tracked your expenses, redo your budget and really look into how you are spending the income you have.

my run for the day

    distance – 3.0 miles
    time – 27:43
    pace – 9:15/mile
    weather – 18°/snow
Posted on

fights

last week i posted the second of the series of emails i am sending to some young friends of mine for whom i am officiating their wedding ceremony. they are getting premarital counseling from a great guy who is geographically closer than i am but i still felt like i would be remiss if i didn’t make sure a few things were covered. i’m actually 99% sure that the counselor will cover this stuff but i would rather send a useless email than not have some things covered.

anyhow, here’s the third email.

hey guys. i hope you have both had an absolutely incredible week. in my opinion the engagement period is an incredible time of relational growth. that level of commitment pushes your relationship to new levels. that pushing can be an absolutely amazing time of really defining your love for one another. it also brings with it new stresses and heightens your awareness of stresses that were already there.

and thus tonight i would like for us to talk about fighting (actually we’re not really talking at all because we are 15 hours away from each other – so basically i’m the only one talking right now but hopefully you both will read this and then talk together about this and other issues). if you both can fight well then you will find yourself way ahead of the game. couples fight. it’s a part of every relationship. it’s also usually a chance for correcting something or understanding something that has not been discussed or needs to be reconsidered. couples that don’t know how to fight usually find that they fight a lot and tear each other apart. learning to fight well is key to a wonderful marriage.

i know much of what i am about to say is going to sound unrealistic but if you consciously incorporate these things into your lives you will find they start to happen more naturally.

in my opinion the keys to fighting well are found in the following:

  • fight with a goal – i know that sounds odd so i will explain. fights usually break out because one or both of you is hurt by something or feels like something is not going the way that person expects it to go (i.e. a need is perceived to not be met – emotionally, physically, sexually; an event or circumstance does proceed in the manner that one or both spouses expects; etc). the fight breaks out when one or both of you finally reaches the point of thinking “if i don’t change this it will continue to happen” or one or both of you responds in anger at being hurt. the first reason is usually why newlyweds don’t fight that much in the beginning but then start to fight more a few years down the road. some attribute the “seven year itch” to this first reason also – the mindset being “i’ve got to change things now or i’m stuck with it forever.” for whatever reason, be it emotional pain, frustration, or both, you will have fights. the goal is that you keep in mind what your ultimate goal is. i believe that when you fight you need to keep yourself focused on why the fight is really happening. it is very easy to shift gears into just wanting to win the fight or wanting to make sure the other person is hurt just as much as you are. when this happens you’ve lost focus on your goal. the goal should be to correct whatever was the source of frustration or hurt. fights can be wonderful things when the goal of relational improvement is at there focus. a fight can be the first step to correcting something that will just become worse later on. for example let’s consider money. i’m going to assume that one of you is a spender and one of you is a saver (this is actually unrealistic because most people are a combination of both, though they don’t necessarily see themselves that way). assume the spender wants to go buy something that the couple has budgeted the money for and has on hand and the saver turns on the guilt just because they would prefer to hoard the money away. this could lead to a fight the first time it happens or after years of it happening. when the fight occurs it can be a chance to work through the situation or just a time to hurt each other. when you fight always try to keep one goal in mind – i want to have the greatest marriage ever. if you fight with that goal then the fight will lead to things being made better. this also helps with making up afterwards because fighting with a goal leads to better fight endings and making up is a whole lot more fun when the fight has ended positively rather than one or both of you being hurt worse.
  • fight with an aim – this is kind of the same thing as above but with a slight twist. it’s real easy during a fight to start bringing in more and more subjects. one person starts arguing because of one subject and the other person brings in an issue that has been bothering him and then the first person brings in another issue that has been bothering her. when you do that the fight isn’t really going to do anything other than release some pent up emotions. most likely nothing will be resolved as a result of a fight that has lots of different issues in it. in the movie “star wars: a new hope” there is a scene where all these pilots are attacking the death star (oh yes, you know you are experiencing fine premarital counseling when the “star wars” scenes are brought out). there are also sorts of dangerous distractions around the pilots but the lead fighter just keeps on saying “stay on target.” that target, and not the distractions, is what really matters. when you argue “stay on target” because if you “stay on target” you are much more likely to actually resolve the issue. the other issues that come up can be dealt with at another time (i usually say give it a day – in fact i would suggest that you literally set a day and time to discuss each issue that’s brought up in a fight). when you “stay on target” and resolve the issue the fight was about you have stepped a little closer to the marriage you want, and of course, it’s easier to make up after a successful fight.
  • fight fair – you both know each other pretty well already and you will get to know each other better and better as the years go by. you will know what brings each other the most joy and you will know where each other are the most tender. that’s what makes it so easy to hurt the person you love – you know where they will hurt the worse. in a fight it becomes real easy to move from trying to correct a situation to just trying to win. you stop listening and just start thinking of what to say next . this is bad enough when friends fight but it is 10 worse when a married couple fights because they each know exactly how to slit each other throats. resist with all you are worth the temptation to “go for the juggler.” talk slowly while you are arguing so that you can make sure and not say the thing that will hurt your spouse the most. this goes against human nature but then again so does selflessness. when you agree to be one you are saying that you will put the other person in front of yourself. this is just as true in an argument as it is in any other part of your marriage. i don’t mean that you should “roll over” during a fight. remember the point of a fight should be to resolve an issue. i do mean however that you should never, ever, ever attack your partner’s weak points just to win the battle. this also means that you never go to the past to bring up those most painful memories that have already been dealt with. you are not enemies in a fight (enemies wish to defeat each other). you are partners who are working out a problem. if you fight fair you both will leave an argument whole, and of course, making up after a fight is much better when neither spouse has been emotionally mortally wounded by the other.
  • fight knowingly – most likely you each have different methods of communication. in an argument one of you probably emotionally shuts down while the other is looking for as much communication as possible (i’m just guessing here). if this is true what usually happens in a fight is that one person clams up while the other one just keeps saying “will you please talk to me.” or possibly one of you is a shouter while the other person just needs to escape for awhile. whatever your normal means of dealing with conflict you both need to know and understands how each other reacts. you then need to respect how each other deals with conflict. for example you might find yourself sounding like the following – “is everything okay because you seem mad?” “i’m fine” “no i can tell something’s wrong because of your tone.” ” i don’t have a tone and i’m fine.” “no something is definitely bothering you because you’re being short with me.” “I’M FINE!” you could translate this conversation as “i need you to tell me what’s wrong” and “i need time to think through things.” if you both learn how each other handles conflict you’ll go far down the path of solving the issues that you are arguing about. the person who clams up needs to recognize the other person’s need for communication and fight against their normal default and communicate just enough to meet the basic needs of the partner who is desperate for communication. the person who needs communication needs to understand the other spouse’s need to think through things before talking and therefore not press for more immediate information after the “clamer” has sacrificially given up some basic communication. if you know how each other fights you’ll be communicating better and by communicating better you will solve more issues, and of course, making up after a fight is much better when you have both communicated in a manner that each other understands.

    email is the worst possible way for covering how to fight and therefore i am thankful that you will be meeting with frank, i’m sure he will cover it. there are some wonderful communication techniques that will help you to turn your fights into things that really help your marriage. all i’ve tried to do above is to cover a few basics.

    now if we were meeting together i would give you some homework to do during the week. we’re not meeting but i figure i’ll still give you a little homework. so here it is, go out to dinner somewhere and do the following:

    • talk about a fight you have had recently and honestly talk about what you think you may have failed at and succeded at in that fight (deal with you own issues rather than your spouses).
    • talk about how you each deal with conflict and the bare minimum response that you need from each other in an argument (i.e. for the “talker” how little information will meet you need until the “clamer” has had a chance to think through things? for the “clamer” how much time do you need to think through things before the “talker” can expect some conversation?)
    • talk about the things that would hurt you the most within a fight.
    • talk about your experience with your parents’ fights. what have you learned from them for the good and the bad?

    if we were meeting together i would actually have you fake a fight and we would talk through it (interestingly enough this once turned into a full blown fight right in front of me – made for an interesting hour) but of course we can’t do that 15 hours apart.

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how i would greet the new youth minister

before i left parkview i had hoped to send out a letter to all the parents making suggestions on how to help the new youth minister get going quickly. as can happen life got busy with other things and so this was dropped by the way. i thought since a few of my friends from baton rouge read this blog i might do it now. i don’t know now when y’all will know who the new guy/girl is or when he/she will be at parkview to start ministering with you but here are a few things i would find useful if i were in his/her situation.

  • invite them over to dinner often – the new youth minister is going to want to get to know everyone involved within the student ministry as fast as possible and in my opinion meeting the whole family is a great way to do this. invite him/her over to dinner, spend time with him/her, and then do it all again. that way the youth minister will get
  • give the youth minister a gift card every now and then – i don’t mean like a gift (a.k.a. a place he/she can take the spouse on a date – though that might be nice too). rather i mean to places that he/she can use to take youth for meeting them. i can’t imagine how much money i spent at cc’s and cane’s and it never really seemed right to let the youth pay. it will be a good bit easier for the new youth minister to start doing this if he/she has a few gift cards specifically for taking youth out for a cup of coffee.
  • if you have an expectation of the youth ministry let him/her know it – but don’t just assume that he/she will agree with it – unsaid expectations make a situation difficult. if you think something is exceptionally important within the youth ministry then discuss this with the new youth ministry. yet always remember that he/she doesn’t have to agree with you and actually might see things differently from you. if you talk about things you both will at the very least know where each other is at.
  • give him/her a break – until a youth minister has been at a church for around a year he/she really has no idea what’s going on. every week is a “first” for the new minister. it’s going to take awhile for him/her to get his/her legs on the ground. so give the new minister that chance before you expect for him/her to run with things.
  • enjoy the fact that the new minister is not me – i don’t mean this as a cut on myself. instead what i’m trying to say is that after seven years of ministry “robert-style” someone doing things in a different manner is a good thing. even at my best ministry-wise i didn’t see certain things and at my worst i ignored certain things. case in point … ski trips. i know of several wonderful youth ministers that are able to make ski trips great parts of a solid ministry. i, on the other hand, am bothered by ski trips. for me a ski trip would be a waste of ministry time because i would have gone into them thinking they were a waste of time and resources. the new youth minister will have things that he/she does great and loves, and other things that he turns a blind eye to. it will be a nice change that will reach new people.

that’s all i can think of right now. since i know and love so many wonderful people at parkview i am sure that you all will make the most of this time of great opportunity.

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relational defaults

last week i posted the first of the series of emails i am sending to some young friends of mine for whom i am officiating their wedding ceremony. they are getting premarital counseling from a great guy who is geographically closer than i am but i still felt like i would be remiss if i didn’t make sure a few things were covered. i’m actually 99% sure that the counselor will cover this stuff but i would rather send a useless email than not have some things covered.

anyhow, here’s the second email.

Last week I wrote you concerning what I believe to be the ultimate purpose of marriage (and life for that matter). Now I will begin to write to you concerning some of the things that I believe are important for living out your marriage. Basically I’ll just write on the subjects that I would normally cover if we were meeting together for premarital counseling. The subjects we would cover together are

• Relational defaults
• Fighting
• Money
• Sex

So let’s talk a little about “relational defaults.”

What I mean by this has a lot to do with your experience of your parents’ marriages. I know a good bit about your family life (name removed to protect the innocent) and a little about your family life (name removed because of the witness protection act & his testimony against the mob) and from what I know I would assume that you both feel as though there are parts that you would like to emulate and there are parts that you would like to completely avoid. That’s why I would like to talk about “defaults.” You will not automatically become your parents (for good or bad) but the experiences you have had in watching their marriages will help to form you for good and bad. In my opinion those experiences can form “defaults” that you naturally go towards.

What this means is that how your parents fought, treated each other, communicated, parented, etc. are all a part of who you are and you will have a natural tendency to coast toward those behaviors. If your mother had a tendency to horde money, or your father had a tendency to love his yard more than his children, or your parents had a tendency to fight with the goal of slashing each other’s throats, or one spouse had a tendency to humiliate the other spouse in public, etc. then you need to watch out for those behaviors within yourself. You are not doomed to become your parents (or for that matter blessed to naturally become your parents) but if you do not watch out for some of the behaviors that you don’t like in their relationships then you will find them slowly creeping into your lives. After all your parent’s relationship with their spouse is the closest you will ever be to studying someone else’s relationship. You have learned a great deal for good and bad from watching those relationships so carefully. If you don’t watch out for it you will probably find yourself doing the very things that you had always hated when your parents did them to each other.

I don’t mean for this to be a cut on your parents because we all have our faults and the goal is for our kids to get better at things than we are. I know that one day Adam and Noah will look over at me and think “Dad should be treating Mom this way” and hopefully their marriage will be even more successful that ours because of it. Should you have children the same will be true with them.

Overcoming our negative defaults takes work. We have to constantly be on the look out for them and also be willing to do what is necessary to overcome them. Obviously we head towards these defaults because they are easy for us. That means overcoming them will probably not be easy. I am a firm believer that successful marriages are such because of work (and I don’t merely define successful as staying together). The couple that purposely works at loving each other is usually the one that stays loving each other. Working at overcoming our relational defaults is one item that a couple needs to work on so that they will continue loving each other as well as they possibly can.

If we were meeting together I would assign you both some “homework” for us to talk about together the next week. We’re not meeting together so we can’t really talk about this together but I think I’ll still assign the homework. The first week’s normal homework would be to go out to eat somewhere and write out answers to the following questions and discuss it:

1. What is it about your parents’ relationships with their spouse that you dislike the most and wish to avoid in your marriage?
2. What is it about your in-laws’ relationships with their spouses that you most dislike and wish to avoid in your marriage?
3. How can you help each other avoid these behaviors?

I try to encourage each couple I talk with to give each other permission to lovingly (and that is most important) call each other on behavior when they begin to act out on the behaviors they have discussed. How to do that comes under “fighting fair” and typically we would talk about that the next week. In our present case I will simply email you next week.

Until next week.

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intro & glory

i am a firm believer in premarital counseling. this april i am officiating the first wedding that i have not been involved within the premarital counseling of the couple. some of you know haley and john, for the rest of you i’ll just tell you that they are great kids. i can’t do their premarital counseling because i’m in wisconsin and they are in missouri. the phone thing doesn’t work well for premarital counseling (at least for me) because i don’t believe premarital counseling is so much about me imparting knowledge, as though i was an expert, but rather about helping the couple to make sure that they have discussed and thought through some important aspects of marriage and that doesn’t work so well through a phone call. so another pastor is doing the counseling. i know him and trust him but i still decided that i wanted to make sure that a few subjects were covered so i decided to type up a few emails over the next few weeks and send them to john and haley.

since, i’m too tired to post anything else tonight i figured i would post what i sent them (if for no other reason than i’ll always know where it is if i ever need it again). so here’s the first one.

Haley & John,

I know Frank is doing your premarital counseling and I have no doubt that he will do a great job but since I’m obviously not there I don’t know exactly what he is covering and thus I thought I would send you a series of emails hitting a few of the things that I believe are most important for a great marriage. I am not sending you this because I think Frank won’t cover them (I actually am pretty confident that he will) but these things are better mentioned twice than missed. Therefore, I thought I would just send you emails hitting things you’ve probably already discussed.

I’ll start by recommending some books.

  • Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts – Les Parrott – Seven good questions and a good start for a lifetime of learning – you will have to continually learn because there are no earthly experts on marriage, only those with a little more or better experience. The finish line doesn’t happen until one of the dies or the Lord returns. We are all learning and will continue to learn through out our lives and marriages.
  • Celebration of Sex – Douglas E. Rosenau – It’s a good enough book that Pam and I give it as our standard wedding present. If you get it let me know if you get it (though I wouldn’t read it until right before the wedding and when you are separate – temptation is a big thing) because if not you’ll get it from Pam and I – Surprise.
  • Complete Financial Guide for Young Couple – Larry Burkett – This book is older but the concepts are still very true. You will have to adapt it to 2008 life but its the book I am most familiar with that covers newlywed finances.

So those are the books that I would initially recommend. Over the next several weeks I will send you each a quick email discussing what I would normally cover in a premarital counseling session. Of course, these letters will ultimately be incomplete because 1) there are no experts only those with a little more or better experience, 2) the premarital thing works best when it is a discussion (because I don’t have all the answers) and email is a primarily one sided form of communication.

So here goes.

1. Your marriage’s ultimate goal is to glorify and bear witness of our loving GOD.
I don’t mean by this that your marriage should look like a stupid CHRISTian drama. I once heard a young couple say that the thing they were most looking forward to on their honeymoon was sitting by a fire place and doing Bible study and praying for an hour or two before they did anything else. I told them that while that was a wonderful sentimental image I thought GOD would be most glorified if they honestly prayed “for that which we are about to receive make us truly thankful” and then got busy.

GOD gave us marriage and therefore it portrays part of the character of it’s CREATOR. There’s a reason that the GOD WHO is TRINITY was so concerned about Adam being alone and made a helpmate from his side. That reason is that our GOD is and loves relationship. Look in the New Testament and you’ll see over and over again that one of the main references for the relationship between CHRIST and the church is that of marriage. GOD does not choose HIS words lightly. Your marriage has the opportunity to be a living example of the relationship between JESUS and the church. Your relationship also has the opportunity to display the very image of GOD. In Genesis 1:27 says:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

When you get married you will be “John” and you will be “Haley” and you will be “John & Haley.” In a very limited way you will be a living example of our Triune GOD.

I believe that is one of the reasons that our GOD is so serious about marriage – HE doesn’t take kindly to HIS image being tarnished.

You may have heard it said “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words
if necessary” (this quote is falsely attributed to Francis of Assissi). I think it is dang cool that when you love each other as GOD loves you will literally preach the good news of the kingdom of GOD with your marriage.

I hope this makes sense. If you have any thoughts, disagreements, or questions just email me back. A discussion would be so much better.

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some things i miss about youth ministry

i am a reluctant church planter. i didn’t want to leave youth ministry – i think it’s the greatest thing going. in fact, GOD would have had a much harder time convincing me to be involved in a church plant if it had not been for finding a few models of church government that would allow me to be more directly involved within the youth ministry of the church than the traditional “senior pastor” model. my goal is once the church is started to be able to be as involved within the youth ministry as i was at the previous churches that i was a part of when i was their youth minister. i just think that youth ministry is the real deal and therefore the thought of giving it up is very difficult for me.

with the above said i do realize that i will not actively be involved within a youth ministry again for several years. the reason for this is pretty simple – we most likely won’t have any adolescents other than my own for several years. i’ll do youth ministry things with adam and noah, and love it, but that’s more about parenting than anything else.

so here are a few things that i will miss about youth ministry for the next several years:

  • road trips – it doesn’t matter what the trip was for (a mission trip or a fun trip) getting to the destination and back was almost always one of the best parts of any event. incredibly significant things usually happen within a van (and vans are better than charter buses for this).
  • middle school junk food – the middle school guys always had the best snacks and they were usually willing to share. everyone else may run from the middle school guys room but i love it because i know someone is always going to bring something i really like.
  • random questions – there is no other situation within the world where the questions can range from the death of a loved one or friend to a scene in last week’s “simpson’s” episode (actually i’m showing my preference there because it would probably be a scene from last week’s “family guy” episode)
  • random connections – i love the fact that it’s okay within youth ministry to combine the somberness of a prayer labyrinth with a water balloon launcher. nobody sees these as incompatible.

of course, there is much more that i will miss but that’s all i feel like writing about right now.