Issues of the Day, Marriage, Training

Redemptive Love – Changing a Life

Redemption. It means to be repurchased, bought back, atoned for, rescued. It is what Jesus, our Redeemer, does. He came to earth to redeem; to change our lives one soul at a time. While salvation is not fully completed on this earth, it does initiate thatvalentine_day_art redemptive process from the inside out. To know God and to know His love is to live within this ongoing process. To not know Him is to live outside this process.

Four couples and four stories of redemption will be vulnerably shared on February 11th, 2017, at Newport Church in Elm, PA. When you and your spouse or as a single participate in this day, you will hear life-changing testimonies of couples who walked through pain-filled experiences with drugs and alcohol addiction, sexual addiction, financial ruin and the premature death of a spouse and child. You will be challenged by their stories and encouraged by their progressions of healing. And, you will have take-a-ways of redemptive ideas to bring into your relationships.

The day is free with a small charge for lunch and an offering will be taken. Please consider coming. I know you will be blessed. Call 717.627.1996 to register today. You can also view the event details at this link:

https://dcfi.org/resorces/seminars/redemptive-love-couples-day/

 

 

 

 

 

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Issues of the Day, Marriage, Premarital, Singles

10 Reasons Why Marrying Young Is Not So Bad

In last week’s blog, I mentioned the grand parenting factor of marrying younger. Our culture has shifted and now tends to look down on younger married persons, but does chronological age (youthfulness) automatically mean immaturity? Maturity does not come with age, but rather life experiences that are successfully worked and walked through. Young married persons can face those life experiences together.

My wife and I were married in our very early 20’s. Here are ten reasons that we have come to celebrate that decision.img_1578

 

  1. We carried less baggage into the marriage from multiple partners, breakups and disastrous relationships.
  2. We grew up faster, taking on the many responsibilities of married life early.
  3. We were young and had tons of fun before children entered the picture.
  4. We didn’t have deeply established routines and independent lives so it was easier to develop our culture in becoming one.
  5. It was easier to make personal change and become what would honor and serve our spouse. In other words, compromise and sacrifice were an early part of becoming adults.
  6. We had few extra resources so we learned to budget early and make do.
  7. We went from a small apartment to missionary service (an even smaller apartment) to our first home. The progression and sacrifice were shared and the accomplishments were milestones along the way.
  8. We love our memories of “young love.” But since then, romance has grown and we know each other, having grown older together with over four shared decades…”old love.”
  9. We weren’t partying and being careless, but we were helping one another reach our life goals. We navigated graduate school together.
  10. We are with the one person who has stuck by our side through the most difficult and the most enjoyable years of life. We raised our children together and now fully enjoy our grandchildren.cimg1506

No disappointment here when the scripture says, “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth…” (Proverbs 5:18)

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Children, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Parents, Singles

Marriage, Millennials and Grandparenting

images-4It’s pretty rare to attend a wedding today where the bride and groom are under age 25. More often, it’s a couple who are approaching their mid 30’s. The reasons? There’s college and then there’s college debt. Then a career to help pay that debt and perhaps even graduate school – more debt. The pervasive attitude becomes waiting until all the stars align, i.e., school, jobs, housing, money, etc.

I read a recent study that indicated in cities where millennial’s flock for employment there has been a rise of single-hood. In Washington DC alone, the situation is “extreme” with “81 percent of young people still single.” One young man quipped, “This is the easiest place I’ve ever been to find somebody for the night, and the hardest place to find somebody for a week or a month or a year.”

Do millennial’s want to get married? They do, but there is so much pressure on them to be financially stable they don’t always see it as practical or reasonable. A huge concern then becomes couples that choose to live together rather than marry. Couples who live together are not always thinking about the long-term aspect of building a home together, raising a family and/or integrating into local church life. Putting marriage on a back burner in order to have a career, a new car, a house, a whatever will only delay parenting and delaying parenting can directly influence the number of children families actually give birth to. It will also affect grand-parenting. images-8Grandparents can pass on or become too old to relate in healthy and fun ways with their grandchildren. And when that happens, something very, very important and essential is lost in our culture.images-6

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Encouragement

Transformation, A Miraculous Change

 img_2119My assignment was clear: completely renovate our outdated bathroom during my Christmas vacation. Its décor was left over from the 1990’s. The flooring had yellowed. The walls needed fresh paint. Nails had popped through the drywall and in general it was looking old and tired. It was time to, “Forget the former….” (Isaiah 43:18) The materials were purchased and the work began. The floor would be covered with a new material, the walls would receive a wainscoting and the paint would be an updated color. “See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:19) The change was incredible and when finished my wife exclaimed, “It’s a complete transformation!”

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And then I thought about another verse in Isaiah 43 that says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgression, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” The old was gone and the new had come. Transformation is the process that you and I participate with Holy Spirit in everyday of our lives. Transformation is a visible picture of redemptions work in our hearts, working its way outward to effect our speech and even our outward appearance. I pray that transformation is an ongoing, continual process for you in 2017 as the former is forgotten.

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Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Parents, Prayer

Weariness: Going From 2016 to 2017

 images-3Weariness. This morning Mary and I prayed together about “a spirit of weariness.” We felt it at different times throughout the year of 2016. There were multiple illnesses we were battling. There were major concerns in our family with aging parents. There were emotional and spiritual attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. Of course the elections were within themselves a whole new level of campaign weariness and continually planting seeds that did not appear to take root. It’s a bit hard to describe or put our finger on any one thing, but all together they spelled:  W E A R I N E S S.

I love that Jesus addressed weariness because He himself became weary of the Pharisees, the crowds, the unbelief and the world around Him. He even became weary of His own disciples telling one of them to get behind Him and others, seemingly, scolding them for their lack of faith. The Apostle Paul describe himself as weary in II Corinthians 11:27. It just happens when the weights, the issues, the pressures of this world begin to take a toll on our hearts, our minds and our faith.images-2

Answers for 2017: Isaiah said that we would run and not grow weary (Is. 40:31). Jesus said to come to Him all of you who are weary (Mt. 11:28). He promised rest. Paul encourages us in Galatians 6:9 to not grow weary in doing good or in doing the right thing. I love the honesty of the Psalmist who said in Psalms 119, “My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.” But mostly, I take courage from this verse in the book of Revelation, “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” In other words, you have not given up.

imagesPress on. 2017 is a whole new opportunity. No matter what is at the root of your weariness, do not give up!

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In the news, Issues of the Day

A Secularized Golden Rule

imagesListening to a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast about the Golden Rule was intriguing to me. The “expert” went on and on about this “rule” as it crossed cultures and religions and apparently she even gives speeches on the subject. But, the truly interesting part was that during the time I was listening to the segment, I never heard the Author mentioned, credited or cited: Jesus. Matthew 7:12 records it, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

In the book, Living the Secular Life, Phil Zuckerman (according to a NY Times article),”Extols a secular morality grounded in the empathetic reciprocity embedded in the Golden Rule.” He states that the Golden Rule “…is a touchstone for atheists if they feel obliged to prove that they follow a moral code.” Hmm, the Golden Rule without heart change? Perhaps mankind somehow sees themselves with the ability to ascend to a mental state of intellectual “empathetic reciprocity,” but I repeatedly find my own selfishness getting in the way.images-2

Without the Spirit of Christ and the One who gave His life a ransom for you and me the Golden Rule can be just that, a rule. However, when Christ takes up residence in our heart the motivation to do to others becomes less and less about me. Jesus spoke, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand.” (Matthew 13:13)

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Encouragement, Prayer

The Perfect Christmas Gift

images-3I had spent the last two summers living at the beach in Delaware and found a girlfriend from New Jersey. Somewhere in our second summer together I discovered that she was not just another girl, but in my mind, THE girl. There was this one big, glaring issue however: she kept trying to “witness” to me and according to her I needed to “be saved.” I had no idea how to answer her questions about the second coming of Christ or exactly what salvation even meant. “Being saved” was something most of us teenage guys just weren’t looking for. My tactic became asking her her thoughts of those impossible questions and then simply agreeing. It worked in part.

Late in the fall of my high school senior year the girl from New Jersey sent me her “last and final letter.” Included in those “Dear John” pages was a gospel tract outlining salvation through Christ. I hated her and I hated God for breaking us up. I didn’t date anyone for a year after that. But…those nagging words on that bi-fold piece of paper kept following me everywhere I went. Repeatedly throwing it around my room, it just kept showing up. Frequently re-reading, ”For God so loved the world…” I held out, stayed angry and stubbornly refused to give in.

The answer to my dilemma became hanging out with my friends on weekends and engaging in self-destructive behavior. All the while He was drawing me. His “still small voice” kept speaking. He just wouldn’t leave me. So, in desperation I said out loud, “Would You just leave me alone; life is no longer any fun!” I swear I actually felt His Presence move away. I shouted, “No, no don’t go!” Ugh, it was so confusing, so hard and the biggest decision of my life weighed on my shoulders.

images-4Jesus was the Perfect Christmas gift that December of 1971. I did bow my knee. I prayed that prayer at the end of the little tract and Christmas with Christ took on a whole new meaning. Has Christmas come into your heart?

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Children, Encouragement, Parents

The Child-Like Excitement of a Four-Year Old Flying

images-4Those of us who fly tens of thousands of miles a year barely endure the whole experience. We’ve lost our youthful vigor when it comes to flying. It has become something we tolerate rather than embrace with excitement.

Enter Raygen, the rambunctious four-year old seated in the row directly in front of me on our short Washington DC flight. I first noticed him in the airport waiting to board. With his mom in tow, running around seeing the planes outside the huge windows was simply a wonder to him. When this little blond-haired youngster finally boarded the plane, every other passenger knew it too. It was his very first experience with flying and no one was going to deny him his elation. Raygen’s energy level was high and his voice was screeching with delight. Everything was new to him and he just couldn’t contain himself while blurting out his excessively loud observations.images-3

The seasoned passengers around him began to smile and some even laughed as Raygen’s parents tried in vain to quiet him. The stewardess took him to meet the pilots as he returned with a huge grin and a set of those coveted plastic wings. He looked out the window and ran an ongoing verbal commentary. He told his parents how much he loved them. (He was obviously crediting them for this experience.) As we began to taxi his excitement escalated. At this point, he needed the seat belt just to stay seated. Finally the engines roared to capacity and off we went. Raygen was yelling, “Wow…cool…this is awesome…Mom, look…I imagescan see everything…it’s getting smaller down there…I love flying!”

I found myself pondering about the last time in my life I became that excited, totally thrilled with a life experience of any sort. I wondered when was the last time I could barely stay in my seat with exhilaration and anticipation. And sadly, I couldn’t recall any such recent experience.

Jesus once said that we need to become as little children. Raygen modeled something to me that day and it was sacredly child-like as he reintroduced me to youthful exhilaration. I want to be that excited about Jesus in my life. I don’t want to mature when it comes to anticipating Him and what miracle is about to happen, all the while, refusing to allow my faith to become boring and predictable. Do you need some Raygen excitement? Talk with your Heavenly Dad and ask Him for that spirit of anticipation, uncompromising exhilaration and child-like faith.

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Encouragement, Prayer

Keep Praying; Don’t Quit

images-3Breakthrough . . . after twenty-five years of praying.

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Hebrews 10:36).

Jason, Greg, Scott and Mike were my closest friends throughout high school. We were inseparable. We knew the intimate details of one another’s life. Then I had to go and ruin it all by “getting religious.” In December of 1971 I bowed my knee to Jesus and the partying (literally) was over for me. New friends, those who would disciple me as a baby Christian, began to emerge.

While I never condemned my close high school friends, and, I kept my friendship with them, I no longer participated in or condoned their behavior. It was a radical change for me, but I didn’t really consider how radical of a change it was for them. The first half of my senior year of high school I was living a very ungodly life-style; while the second half was filled with “Jesus freak” meetings. My friends were confused by the change in my life. They didn’t look down upon me, they simply could not comprehend why I would no longer participate in the things we once enjoyed together. I asked God for the opportunity to share my personal testimony with each one of them – individually. Jesus honored this prayer, and before we went our separate ways after graduation, I shared about the encounter I had with my new Master.images-4

That same year, I left my home area to serve in the military. I methodically placed Jason, Greg, Scott and Mike on my weekly prayer list. I just knew it would be a very short time until they each bowed their knees to Jesus.

Twenty five years passed, and I was still waiting, still praying. The only problem now was that I was beginning to entertain thoughts like, “Just take them off your prayer list,” and “Why transfer their names to new prayer cards, move on to more important matters.” But, thank God for my wife. One day I asked her if I should keep them on my prayer cards or just remove them. Her immediate, faith-filled response was, “Don’t you dare remove them, let’s keep praying.” Okay, so maybe I/we could persevere a few more years.

Within months of that very conversation, Scott called me from Boston. He asked me if it was okay for him to be water baptized. My very first response was, “Let me find a seat.” And then, “But Scott, have you accepted Jesus as your Savior?” He told me he had through the ongoing witness of a Baptist co-worker at IBM. I revealed to him then that I had been praying for him for over 25 years. His reply? “I know.”images-4

Jason’s mother called me several months later. Jason was depressed and without a friend, suffering from a broken marriage relationship and addictions. Jason’s mom said to me, “Steve, I believe he’ll take your call if you will call him within the next ten minutes.” I called; we met; he prayed. I then experienced the honor of water baptizing him and have an ongoing discipleship relationship with him to this day.

A few months after the encounter with Jason, Scott called to ask if I had heard from Greg. He went on to tell me that Greg had recently started participating in the worship band of his United Methodist church and that he was signed up for a summer mission team.

Have you ever felt like giving up in prayer? I have, but let me encourage your faith to continue to persevere. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Hebrews 10:36). Because… “we are not of those who shrink back…but of those who believe…” (Hebrews 10:39).

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In the news, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Postmarital, Premarital, Singles

The Divorce Rate IS Declining

imagesWe started writing about, training counselors and actually mentoring couples in pre- and postmarital counseling in 1989. Our primary goal as stated in our book, Called Together, Asks the Difficult Questions that all Couples Must Answer Before and After They say “I Do,” was to better prepare couples before marriage and follow-up with them after marriage using this book as a resource in the hands of trained counselors. The ultimate goal of accomplishing this was to have an effect upon the divorce rate of our day. We longed for, worked toward and prayed to see it lowered.

Imagine our surprise when reading the following in USA Today dated, November 23, 2016 on a return flight back into the United States, “Divorce rates have dropped three years in a row and are at their lowest level in 35 years. From 23 divorces per 1,000…in 1980…to 17 divorces per 1,000 in 2015, according to the National Center for Family & Marriage Research.” And the article went on to say that the rate of marriage is increasing slowly. Hopefully, that statistic speaks to fewer couples electing to live together unmarried.images

Perhaps these stats do not excite you, but for Mary and me it means so much. It means more intact families with fewer children living through the divorce of their parents. It means more stable households contributing to their communities, schools and local churches. It’s positive news for the economy with combined incomes purchasing homes, going on vacations together and providing for their children. But most of all, it means honoring the One who created this thing we call marriage, our heavenly Father.

To view our website or to order our book please visit: www.calledtogether.org

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