Parents of Preschoolers

Your Spouse is Ever Present

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:55:00 +0000

image courtesy of Blue Forest

This past Sunday we finished the Reynolda POPs class. It is very sad to see it come to a close. Allison and I have enjoyed the past year and half getting to know each of you and learning about parenting with you. Please remember that just because the formal class time has ended, it does not need to be the end of any of us getting together. Also, on the side, if anyone decides to revive the class, you are welcome to this domain URL.

For our last class we discussed how our spouse are always present in our decisions and actions now that we are married. When we were single we had the freedom of making our own decisions, but now even the smallest decision is going to affect at least one other person. Even in following the Lord, as a single person we could follow whatever leading we felt God was giving us. Now every leading must be balanced by what our spouse is also feeling. At times these feelings do not agree.

These disagreements are actually a good thing. They cause us to dive harder into God for clarity because he is not divided and will not move a married couple in different directions. More than likely each of you only has a part of His directions and as you come together you can get His full will.

Being married is being on the same team. Especially as parents of preschoolers this is even more the case. God created marriage for us to be one flesh and move together in oneness. The fact that we are aware of them in every decision is actually a grace from God, because He is teaching us to consider Him in everything as well.

God's View of Sex

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:46:00 +0000

image courtesy of free stitch

Wow! We really came back strong during class yesterday. When we have a discussion on sex, there is a fear that either nobody will talk or it would be too embarrassing. Thankfully neither happened. We had great discussion, and I do not think anyone turned red. Here are the notes for the Sex and Intimacy chapters.

Sex is a wonderful gift of God for married couples. It is a way to draw closer to one another and give to your spouse. Unfortunately the world and Satan have distorted our view of sex so much that we have a hard time seeing the good at times. We should remember, if Satan is trying hard to distort something, then there is probably something really good God intended for it.

Sex is the channel where we become one flesh. All of the blessings and pain of the two individual now reside in both people. There is obvious benefits to the joint blessings, but the combine pain invites the other person to join in with their spouse in finding the healing of Christ. The two are no longer two and to try to live as separate individuals is not God's plan.

Ultimately sex has a spiritual equivalent with God in worship. This is where we give ourselves completely over to Him for His enjoyment. It is here that we experience the highs of intimacy with our Creator. It is also hear that we take on all of God's blessings. And since God does not have any sin, He just takes our away from us. There is forgiveness in worship. There is healing in worship. Seek to give God every part of you.

Restart This Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:30:00 +0000

Thank you all for your patience the last few weeks as we took break to join the Just Walk Across the Room discussions than broke for Thanksgiving. We will be starting back up this Sunday in room 225. This is the sex week looking at chapter 11 from Sacred Marriage. You will have to believe me that I have not been trying to skip this week and avoid the potential embarrassing discussions. To tell you the truth, I think this will be a great discussion for the class.

If you are the one nervous, please remember that Allison and I hold to a "Private Kingdom" stance within marriage, which means that there are some things that only you and your spouse know. The bedroom is one of those things. Sunday's discussion would be more on what God is trying to tell us through sex and how that applies to our relationship with Him.

Allison and I look forward to seeing everyone this Sunday. Please come as we also have some class administration things to talk about for during and after the holidays.

No Class This Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:02:00 +0000

In case you did not get Allison's email, we will not have class this week. We were not planning on meeting the week of Thanksgiving and after a month of not meeting, we felt it would be better to have the remaining classes on consecutive weeks. This means that the next class will be December 6th.

We miss you all and hope you are doing well. See you in a couple more weeks.

Things To Do in Winston Salem for Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:31:00 +0000

Sorry I have been holding out on everyone, but here is a link that Allison gave me a while back that you will find helpful. It has an updated calendar of things going on around town that are good things to do with kids. It is perfect for our stay-at-home moms. It also has great afternoon and weekend events.

KiddingAroundInTown.com

Orphan Sunday - Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:21:00 +0000

Anna - "I want you to know someone's searching for a way to get you here."

These two videos (via ABBA Fund blog) are to help gear you for orphan sunday this week. As you know God has given Allison and I the desire to adopt and both of these songs strongly pulled at my heart.

This first video is from Aaron Ivey. He has been in the process of adopting two children from Haiti for the past two years. The video is a song he wrote telling the story of the parents to the child.

This second video takes the view from a child who has been adopted. This takes the music of Cat's in the Cradle and rewords it to tell his story. The artists involved are Darryl McDaniels aka DMC from Run DMC fames and Sarah McLachlan - both of them had been adopted. And yes, this song also made me tear up. You can call me sweet or weak. Whatever, I love the girls God has given and is giving me.

He Loves Us by Kim Walker

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:45:00 +0000

Here is another resource to the last two posts. We have sung this song at Reynolda, but it has been awhile. Allow it to sink in. Enjoy.

What Does God What From Us?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:16:00 +0000

This newsletter came this morning, and I thought it went along nicely to the last post. God is not looking for sacrifice or service; He is after our hearts because He loves us. Enjoy.

What Does God What From Us?

11/04/2009

The gospel says that we, who are God’s beloved, created a cosmic crisis. It says we, too, were stolen from our True Love and that he launched the greatest campaign in the history of the world to get us back. God created us for intimacy with him. When we turned our back on him he promised to come for us. He sent personal messengers; he used beauty and affliction to recapture our hearts. After all else failed, he conceived the most daring of plans. Under the cover of night he stole into the enemy’s camp incognito, the Ancient of Days disguised as a newborn. The Incarnation, as Phil Yancey reminds us, was a daring raid into enemy territory. The whole world lay under the power of the evil one and we were held in the dungeons of darkness. God risked it all to rescue us. Why? What is it that he sees in us that causes him to act the jealous lover, to lay siege both on the kingdom of darkness and on our own idolatries as if on Troy—not to annihilate, but to win us once again for himself? This fierce intention, this reckless ambition that shoves all conventions aside, willing literally to move heaven and earth—We’ve been offered many explanations.

From one religious camp we’re told that what God wants is obedience, or sacrifice, or adherence to the right doctrines, or morality. Those are the answers offered by conservative churches. The more therapeutic churches suggest that no, God is after our contentment, or happiness, or self-actualization, or something else along those lines. He is concerned about all these things, of course, but they are not his primary concern. What he is after is us—our laughter, our tears, our dreams, our fears, our heart of hearts. Remember his lament in Isaiah, that though his people were performing all their duties, “their hearts are far from me” (29:13 italics added). How few of us truly believe this. We’ve never been wanted for our heart, our truest self, not really, not for long. The thought that God wants our heart seems too good to be true.

(Sacred Romanace , 90-91)

Inching Closer to the Goal

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:44:00 +0000

image courtesy of NFL

Many of us missed the Just Walk Across the Room discussion this week. We can discuss if we want to continue with this detour or whether to come back to Sacred Marriage. Please send me an email if you have a preference.

The discussion for this week focused on how many Christians over time pull away from contact with non-Christians. While this metric can be useful, it is not altogether accurate. The assumption behind that thought is that the more non-Christian friends you have is a sign of more spirituality. Or, you can't do the work of ministry if you do not have non-Christians in your life.

Hybel's does a great job of moving you away from the mentality that you need to share the complete gospel presentation to have an effective ministry to non-Christians. But, at least in our conversations on Sunday, the end goal was definitely to get the conversion. You may be patient with getting someone to that point, but that was the end goal.

Isn't salvation the main goal? Before you cry heresy, realize that God cares much more for you than just to get you into heaven. He wants you to be free! Free to experience every spiritual blessing in Christ. People can come to Christ but still be in bondage. The main goal is not salvation but sanctification - or in other words, for you to be conformed into the image of Christ, who you were created to be. There is much rejoicing when people come to Christ because it is the first step in a long journey. It is a celebration, but it is not the finish line.

Therefore when we think of the timeline analogy of people being at any point between negative 10 to zero with zero being salvation point. We not only want to get people to the goal line; we want to take them to Christ over and over again. So no matter who we are with Christians or non-Christians we are to be taking them to Christ and allowing them to have a new touch from Him.

God loves you. He does just want you to work for Him. You are not a pawn or a worker bee. He is looking for people to become His friends. To love Him. To look to Him constantly. To share our hearts with Him. He is wanting a spouse not a slave. Strive to enjoy Him and then desire others to know Him the same way.

Marriage Communication Follow-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:47:00 +0000

This video is a follow-up to the previous about listening to your lady. Eventually, you wife will want you to respond to what she said, and these are things you don't say to her. The video is by Tim Hawkins. Enjoy!

Listen to Your Lady

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:23:00 +0000

I found this video from Central Church in Las Vegas. It has got a catchy tune and as you can see from the title it is about communication in marriage. Enjoy!

Listen To Your Lady from David Tate.

Walk By Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:12:00 +0000

This past week we started the first class on Bill Hybel's Just Walk Across the Room. We looked at Hybel's example of his relationship with his son's soccer coach. The main lessons I took away from the discussion is being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and trusting Him for the results. We need to be willing to step out in faith but not overstep His leading. It is a tough balance, but intentionally so. If it were easy, we would not depend on God's leading and that is what God desires for us.

I was listening to Jeremy Camp's song, Walk By Faith, which was not intended to be about sharing our faith, but the principles he ascribes to are the ones we can apply to the lesson from this week.

Walk By Faith
Jeremy Camp

Will I believe you when you say
Your hand will guide my every way
Will I receive the words You say
Every moment of every day

Well I will walk by faith
Even when I cannot see
because this broken road
Prepares Your will for me

Help me to rid my endless fears
You've been so faithful for all my years
With the one breath You make me new
Your grace covers all I do

yeah, yeah , yeah, yeah, ya

well I will walk by faith
even when I cannot see
because this broken road
prepares your will for me

Just Walk Across the Room

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:03:00 +0000

Tomorrow we will start the discussion on "Just Walk Across the Room" by Bill Hybels. For the next four weeks we will join the rest of the church in looking at this material. I have now had a chance to read the book and am getting excited about this direction.

If I had to summarize the heart of Hybels as expressed in the book, it would be that he loves God and loves people. Although it is book about evangelism, the measure of success is not winning converts but winning relationships. Hybels portrays Jesus' heart for people and meeting them where they are and not just getting them to where you what them to be.

At the same time you get the sense of Hybel's heart for God and wanting everyone to see and experience the fullness of His love for them. This motivates him to look for opportunities to move someone just another step closer to that love.

All disciplines of the Christian faith runthis tension. You do not want to be legalistic by making people DO things. Yet, you know that as they obey God they will experience more fully the love of God for them. Outreach is the same. Philemon verse 6 is great verse that explains this.

Leading our class for the next 4 weeks will be Karan Reavis. She is filled will passion for the Lord which will be contagious as we listen. Below are a three requests I have for these next few weeks.

First of all, please come. We are diverging from our normal topics, but this is a chance to trust the leadership that there is something God has for us in this new direction.
Please use the time to get to know some of the other people in the church. Our church is filled with saints who love the Lord. These next few weeks will give us a chance to know a few better.
Even though we are not talking about parenting, you will be able to make some easy correlations about this topic to raising your children intentionally. Please share any interesting connections with the rest of the class so that we all can learn together.

The class will meet whenever the first service gets out in room 227. I am looking forward to see what God has in store in this.

Forgiveness Makes Marriage Work

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:38:00 +0000

Source Unknown

Failure in marriage always has at its root, unforgiveness. Ok, I cannot be 100% positive about that since I have no research, but it has got to be close. (forgiveness class notes)

Forgiveness is not easy. It involves dying to yourself. But, we must trust that there is a reward in our obedience. We are not dying to ourself for no reason. We have to trust that God has a plan. He is able to work through all things for the good of those who love Him. If we are forgiving someone out of the obedience to Christ, then He has to have something good in store. We just have to release to God what those good things may be because they may not be what we were hoping for.

Thankfully God wants to help us out in the process. We can go to God and let Him know why we are having a hard to forgiving. We can ask Him for help interpreting the situation. We can allow Him to defend us. Let go and let God.

Forgiveness may not be easy, but it does build our faith. Since we know that it is impossible to please God without faith, we also know that as we build our faith we are pleasing God more. God understands our weaknesses and is more than willing to help us to do the things He asks of us.

Schedule Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:52:00 +0000

There was a mistake on last Sunday’s reading for this week. We will read chapter nine for this coming Sunday. For those following closely, this does skip chapter eight. You are welcome to read it, but we will not be discussing it. Now, I made you want to read it to see what you are missing. :)

Also, for those who were not there. We will be participating in the church’s request to go through Bill Hybel’s Just Walk Across the Room. We will join with the Reavis’ group in room 227 (see map) from Oct. 25 through Nov. 11. It may be weird taking a break from our Sacred Marriage in mid-stream, but it will give us opportunities to meet other members of Reynolda. Karan Reavis will lead the discussion after the video, and let’s hope we can get her to start talking about something she is passionate about. It will be fun!

For those who have signed up to bring snacks over those weeks, you can just get with the Connelley’s if you would like to reschedule. We will not have snacks during those weeks.

For this breakout group, we will watch a short video about the topic and then have a discussion. Gwladys will provide the discussion questions to our class next week that we will go through in the class. The church does have the book, which the video series is based, available if you want to purchase. It is $10 and they are located in the Chapel.

I believe this covers everything. Let Allison or I know if there are any questions.

Exposure of Sin is Good

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:12:00 +0000

Image Courtesy of Despair, Inc.

He who conceals his sins does not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them
finds mercy. - Proverbs 28:13

In an effort to keep everything looking good, some people avoid the real issues of their marriage. God has put your together with your spouse not to necessarily point out all of your sin, but to flood the areas of pain that have led to the sin with love. If love covers a multitude of sin, then your spouse will have plenty of opportunity to love you.

I loved the passage that we studied this week. I think it shows the intense desire of our Heavenly Father to remove sin from our lives. It is not to pound us into submission, but He aches knowing that these other things are keeping you from experiencing the love He has for you. And, the hindrance is not with Him. When we keep in our sin, we keep our eyes focused on other things to satisfy the deepest longings that were made to be satisfied in Him.

God created us to love Him. We will be most satisfied when we are satisfied in Him (look out I think I just quoted Piper). This is true because He knew what He was doing when He created you.

Therefore if our spouse really loves us, they will also hate the sin in our lives. Not so that their lives will be easier, but because they will want us to experience the fullness that is offered us in Christ; and sin will keep us from that.

This is a topic that generates the most arguments in marriage. Mainly because it is handled through our pain and not through Christ. Even so, we need to keep the proper perspective. Romans 8:1 & 28!

Great article from FamilyLife related to this topic.

Prayer and Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:53:00 +0000

"If you want a better marriage, you need to pray more."

This is the common belief when it comes to Christians and marriage and prayer. Gary Thomas takes another approach taken from 1 Peter 3:7. He says that if you are having troubles in your prayer life, then work on your marriage.

I personally think they go hand in hand. God's is so in meshed Himself in relationships that if you have not in right relationship with your spouse, your relationship with God can be hindered. We should not see this as a punishment but as a opportunity to know what is important to God. If we remember back to our discussions on Shepherding a Child's Heart, discipline is not primarily to fix the behavior, it is correct issues in the heart.

Prayer in and of itself is the basic means of having a relationship with God. Therefore if our marriage is to represent God's love to the church, then open communication with our spouse has got to be important to God.

After having said this, I know that not all marriages are there. Some people have spouses that do not want an open communication. God will not hold this against you if it is your spouse's issue. God is not looking to punish His children. On the contrary, He is looking for more and more ways to bless us. If our prayers seem to be hindered, asking God if there is something wrong in your relationship with your spouse is an appropriate response. Assuming that it is a punishment for a bad relationship is not. Only God has the right to interpret the events of our lives.

God loves you very much. He sent His Son to die for you. Everything that happens to you must be judged based on this reality.

Unconditional Love and Respect in Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:11:00 +0000

Image Courtesy of Blue Nile Jewelry

Ephesians 5: 33 lets us know that we are to unconditionally love and respect our spouses, and in doing so we represent God's love and respect for us. In class we discussed how God shows us love and respect. There are some universal ways in which He show this to us.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
God is patient with us, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance - insinuating that God will respect our decisions and not force us to trust Him even though He desires it.

There are much more universal ways, but there are also many personal ways God shows individually shows us love and respect. God can give us a personal Scripture that speaks to our need. He can lead us to a personal calling of something He wants us to do. For each of us in this class, parenting is one of those callings. But, in order to hear this specific heart of love and respect for us personally from God, it is best to set aside time to spend with Him. Prayer and listening to God is a great way to know how God feels about you. Reading the Bible and talking about God with other Christians can also awaken our hearts to these feelings.

God loves and respects each of us more than our actions deserve. But, when we united our lives with Christ, all that God sees and feels for Jesus are also placed on us. It is what we were created for. We are the apple of His eye and the pride of His heart.

God Puts Us With Out Opposite in Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:13:00 +0000

Allison and I receive John Eldredge's newsletters by mail. The following is what he sent for Ransomed Heart's September newsletter. John and Staci are releasing a marriage book in January called, Love and War, which this newsletter is an excerpt from. It goes right along with what we discussed in class and what we will continue to talk about. Enjoy

Dear Friends,

Just this morning Stasi and I were talking about marriages we both know, and we came to a pretty sobering realization - we can't name one marriage that hasn't been through deep waters in the last three years. Not one. And we know a lot of people, and a lot of marriages. You'd think we'd be able to point to some couple who is trouble free. We can't find one. Not One. Every single marriage we know is either currently struggling, or they've just passed through some major struggle, or they've thrown in the towel. What's with that?

Is it just a bad time to be married, like the 90's were a bad time to live in Rwanda? Is it a bad time for marriage generally, like last fall was a bad time to be in the stock market? Or maybe it's something else. Maybe there's something about marriage, something inherent to it, that we'd all do well to go ahead and admit, face head-on, come to terms with. Marriage is fabulously hard.

Everybody who's been married knows this. Though years into marriage it still catches us off guard, all of us. And newly married couples, when they discover how hard it is, they seem genuinely surprised. Shocked, and disheartened by the fact. Are we doing something wrong? Did I marry the right person? The sirens that lure us into marriage - romance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionship - they seem so far fro the actual reality of married life we fear we've made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong bus, missed our flight. And so the hardness also comes as something of an embarrassment (don't you feel embarrassed to admit how hard your marriage is?) Maybe it's just us.

Nope. This is everyone. We might as well come out and say it.

The sooner we get the shame and confusion off our backs, the sooner we'll find our way through. Of course marriage is hard. For heaven's sake, bring together a man and a woman - two creatures who think, act and feel so differently you'd think they'd come from separate solar systems - and ask them to get along for the rest of their lives under the same roof. That's like taking Cinderella and Huck Finn, tossing them in a submarine and closing the hatch. What did you think would happen?

When it comes to high-level expeditions, one piece of advice that veterans unanimously urge is this: "Choose your tent mate carefully." For you are going to spend weeks to months on end shut-in by foul weather in the forced intimacy of a tiny fabric cocoon with this person. By the time it's over everything about them will drive you mad - the way they eat, the way they breathe, the way they hum show tunes or pick their nails. To keep yourself from a Donnor party ending, you must start with people you are utterly compatible with.

God does the opposite - he puts us with our opposite. Our mutual brokenness plays off of each other so perfectly it's frightening. It's like throwing a dog and a cat in the dryer. Is he absolutely mad? Why would God do such a thing?

Because marriage is a divine conspiracy. It is a conspiracy divinely arranged and with divine intent. God lures us into marriage through love and sex and loneliness, or simply the fact that someone finally paid attention - all those reasons that you got married in the first place. It doesn't really matter, he'll do whatever it takes. he lures us into marriage and then he uses it to transform us.

Come back to the fairy tales - in every one of those stories, the boy and the girl each carry a fatal flaw. if they refuse their transformation - which is essential to the plot of the story - they'll never make it. Evil will win, they will lose heart and split up, and there will be no happily ever after. Beauty and the Beast. The Horse and His Boy, The Golden Key- in every one of those stories, happily ever after waits upon a peculiar turn of events, at the center of which is their transformation.

We all have a style of relating, we have a way that we do life. Our carefully crafted approach colors the way we work, the way we love, the way we handle stress and the way we look for life. Our style is borne out of brokenness and sin, and it is the number one thing that gets in the way of real love and companionship, the shared adventure and all the beauty of marriage. It's really this simple - the number one thing that gets in the way is your way. And we have absolutely no intention of giving it up. Not even to love. So God creates an environment where we have to. It's called marriage.

Now listen carefully - God wants us to be happy. He really does. He simply knows that until we deal with our brokenness, our sin, an dour style of relating, we aren't going to be happy. Nobody around us is going to be very happy, either. Most of what you've been experiencing in the last twelve months is God's attempt to get you to face your style of relating, and repent of it.

This is the old Christian understanding of the world, the understanding that happiness is the fruit of other things, chief among them our own holiness, and so we must undergo a transformation. Just like the fairy tales, we must share in God's holiness before the story is finished. This flies in the face of the more popular view of the world that's crept in recently - the happiness view. This is the idea that frames most people's expectations of marriage (and everything else) - the view that we're here for our happiness and so you'd better make me happy. It comes as quite a disruption when we begin to realize that God might have other things in mind!

But once we accept the plot of the conspiracy - our transformation - then we can get on with the cooperating with God, and that opens the door to all sorts of good things.

This is an excerpt from the book Stasi and I just finished reading on marriage, entitled Love and War. It comes out at the end of the year. But we thought we might begin sharing some of it with you now. We think everyone - married and single - will find the themes true and helpful.

We Are Intended for Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:18:00 +0000

This John Eldredge daily reading came out today. We hit on this topic in class when we discussed that God's ultimate desire for us is to be holy not happy. Eldredge describes this well by emphasizing that pleasure is still a large concern of the Father for us. I would love to hear your comments on what he has written.

Intended for Pleasure

09/22/2009

But doesn’t Christianity condemn desire – the Puritans and all that? Not at all. Quite the contrary. Christianity takes desire seriously – far more seriously than the stoic or the mere hedonist. Christianity refuses to budge from the fact that man was made for pleasure, that his beginning and his end is a paradise, and that the goal of living is to find Life. Jesus knows the dilemma of desire and he speaks to it in nearly everything he says. When it comes to the moral question, it is neither simply yes or no to desire, but always what we do with our desire. Christianity recognizes that we have desire gone mad within us. But it does not seek to rectify the problem by killing desire; rather, it seeks the healing of desire, just as it seeks the healing of every other part of our human being.

“Two things contribute to our sanctification,” wrote Pascal. “Pains and pleasures.” And while we know that our journey is strewn with danger and difficulty, “the difficulties they meet with are not without pleasure, and cannot be overcome without pleasure.” Where do you find Jesus saying, “The problem with you people is, you want too much. If you’d just learn to be happy with less, we’d all get along just fine.” “My commands are for your good,” he says, “always.” Something has gone wrong in us, very wrong indeed. So wrong that we have to be told that joy is not found in having another man’s wife, but in having our own. But the point is not the law, the point is the joy. Need I say more than this: Modern Christianity has brought an entire group of people to the point where they have to be told that sex is, in the words of one book, “intended for pleasure.”

God is realistic. He knows that ecstasy is not an option; we are made for bliss and we must have it, one way or another. He also knows that happiness is fragile and rests upon a foundation greater than happiness. All the Christian disciplines were formulated at one time or another in an attempt to heal desire’s waywardness, and so by means of obedience, bring us home to bliss. Walter Brueggemann suggests that faith on its way to maturity moves from “duty to delight.” If it is not moving, then it has become stagnant. If it has changed the goal from delight to duty, it has gone backwards; it is regressing. This is the great lost truth of the Christian faith, that correction of Judaism made by Jesus and passed on to us: The goal of morality is not morality – it is ecstasy. You are intended for pleasure!

(Desire, 46-47)

Our Kids Need Us

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:16:00 +0000

This video does not relate to our study, but I thought you would like it. Enjoy!

Finding God in Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:45:00 +0000

Image Source Unknown

Marriage is the coming together of two very different people and making the differences work. Immediately we can see the analogy to our relationship with God as He is so much different from us yet committed to making a relationship with us work. Finding God in marriage is not really that hard once you start looking. The problem we face is that it is hard to look past our differences with our spouse to see anything good.

There is an old joke I hard about a bride on her wedding day. As she enters the sanctuary, she sees three things. First she sees the aisle she has to walk down. Then she sees the altar where she is going to walk to. And, finally she see him - the guy shes to marry. In that order, she thinks: aisle, altar, him. Or, I'll alter him.

But if marriage is to work, we must be willing to becoming like our spouse. I hear what you are saying, God is not like that He does want to alter us. We are to become like God. Yes, since He knows what is best for us, He does want us to become more like Him. But do not forget that God was so committed to making it work with us that he took on flesh. He became like us. So yes, God does want us to become like Him, but He became like us first.

There are so many other ways we can find God in marriage, and we had a great discussion yesterday regarding these. It was a great class, and I am looking forward going through Sacred Romance this fall.

To Become Like Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:17:00 +0000

If you want to do the work of Jesus, stay single.
If you want to become like Jesus, get married.

This is a paraphrase from the book. While it is not entirely true, it does get at the heart of the book. When you live 24/7 with another person, who knows your thoughts and actions... who know who you are when no one else is looking, then your impurities start to show. Your spouse does not make you a bad person or more sinful. Your spouse reveals where you do not live out who you really are.

This is exactly what Jesus wants. Not to make you feel bad about yourself but to gently persuede you to become who you were created to be. Remember conviction is good. It is of the Spirit. It leads to life. When we don't take these issues to Jesus, then it becomes shame and leads to death. It is all a matter of perspective.

Your spouse is God's perfect gift to you. Never try to think of them as anything else.

Helpful Advice for Husbands

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Gentelmen, do you want to build a marriage that is sturdy, like an oak? Here is some helpful advice from the guys at IgniterMedia.com. Enjoy!

Class Schedule Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Shorter) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:30:00 +0000

It was great to see everyone again and be back in room 225 with the couches and the outdoor view. We also need to thank Gwladys and Reynolda for providing the Krispy Kreme.

Two major administration decisions came from yesterday:

We will keep meeting every week.
Class will now meet from 11:00 - 12:15.

Other than that, we shared stories of our summer and introduced the Sacred Marriage book. We will be studying chapters 1 and 2 next week focusing on the topic: Finding God in Marriage.