Dear Church Family,
This may seem like some meaningless rambling but please stay with me. We have a lot going on in our church. I wanted to take a moment to speak to three things of significance happing in the church now and in the immediate future.
First, any leader knows that Momentum is a leader’s best friend.
TRACTOR – Growing up our neighbor had an old tractor without power steering. I remember my cousins and I would climb up on that tractor and pretend to be driving it. But no matter how hard we tried, we could not steer that tractor as long as it was sitting still. But once it got moving, my granddad could steer it with two fingers. What’s the difference? Momentum.
TRAIN – A train traveling 65 mph on a railroad track can crash through a 5-foot thick steel-reinforced concrete wall without stopping. That same train, starting from a stationary position, won’t be able to go through an inch-thick block in front of the driving wheel.
It is never the size of your problem that is the problem. It’s a lack of momentum. Without momentum, even a tiny obstacle can prevent you from moving forward. With momentum, you’ll navigate through problems and barely even notice them.
The early church had incredible momentum. Despite the fact that the Jews wanted them dead, the government wanted them quite, the devil wanted them destroyed – the church went from a tiny bible study in Jerusalem to literally overtaking the Roman Empire in just a few Decade. We can too!
How were they able to do it? Well obviously the Holy Spirit – but I want to suggest that the Holy Spirit uses means. The Holy Spirit caused them to develop such clarity and focus that they were able to overcome internal divisions and external threats to accomplish the greatest missions’ movement of all times. May God grant us this clarity and focus of His purpose and mission for us as a church!
Second, we are in summer break and the demand son parents have increased and something I noticed in Wal-Mart this past week has haunted my spirit. This dad was seemingly intentionally trying to embarrass his son. I could not understand his reason for trying to make his son look less a young man by saying this words and by his actions. The young man was probably 6 or 7 years old.
Kids have such soft hearts and squishy spirits. Why would you ever want to intentionally embarrass them? That doesn’t stop some parents from humiliating their little ones and not accidentally. Let’s face it—we all embarrass our kids eventually but that’s usually because we dress too trendy or too dated or say something that makes us sound “lame.” I’m not a psychologist, nor do I claim to be one, and I didn’t stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night, but I am an experienced pastor and trained therapist and a former child. I know a little something about the crushing of a child’s heart, as a child and an adult.
I have seen some great parents in the churches I have been able to pastor but over the years I have met some that made some mistakes too. I’m not judging anyone, I’m not perfect, I have and still do make many mistakes, but I am concerned when parents drag their kids to church then embark on an embarrassing tirade (in front of everyone) about all the child’s failings from the past week. I’ve heard things like, “You need to pray a little harder for Jonah. He’s never going to get off restriction…” or “Can you believe what she decided to wear? That’s what happens when she dresses herself.” Ouch and ouch. These are actually mild examples I’m sharing. I don’t want to pass on the embarrassing moments.
It’s natural to feel frustrated with your children from time to time but embarrassing them into submission is nothing more than humiliation. Here’s what you won’t do:
- You won’t make them humble.
- You won’t fix their issues.
- You won’t make them want to change.
As a matter of fact, this practice evokes a slew of negative emotions including rebellion, anger and even self-destruction. Some of these negative feelings become entrenched in the child’s personality and it can take a life time to root them out. (I have some personal experience with this.)
When I hear parents embarrass their kids regularly, I feel sad for the children but equally sad for the parent. You might be reading off a mental laundry list of all your child’s issues but you are also telling a lot about yourself. Here’s what I hear:
- I see myself in my child and it frustrates me.
- I have issues with perfectionism.
- I don’t have the parenting skills I need.
- My spouse isn’t helping me raise the children.
- My parents did this to me.
- I’m struggling with something else that I don’t want to talk about.
I’m sure there are so many other things I could mention but you get the idea. So what can you and I do?
1. Stop the embarrassment by refusing to enable parents who do this. Standing there listening isn’t going to help, other than giving the parent a place to vent. Raise your hand, wave your hand. Stop the conversation and invite the grown up to talk with you privately. If it is right before church (isn’t it always?) make an appointment with him or her. Be willing to listen, then guide them along in different ways of coping with discipline.
2. Always send the child away. Point him to an activity so at least when he’s with you, he won’t have to be embarrassed.
3. Help to find parenting classes. Sometimes people just don’t know any better. Show them another way to deal with the stresses and challenges of parenting.
You can do it!
Third, in just a few days we will be having another couple of single people in our church who will not be single anymore. Hey, hey hey! They is going to be a wedding. I am not directing this at them, we all can learn from this. We all need better understanding and practice within our homes of the Christian Ideal of Marriage. In case you haven’t noticed the family and marriage is under attack.
Some years ago, I attended an interesting wedding. I was especially struck by the creativity of the ceremony. The bride and the groom had brainstormed with the pastor in order to insert new and exciting elements into the service, and I enjoyed those elements. However, in the middle of the ceremony, they included portions of the traditional, classic wedding ceremony. When I began to hear the words from the traditional ceremony, my attention perked up and I was moved. I remember thinking, “There is no way to improve on this because the words are so beautiful and meaningful.” A great deal of thought and care had been put into those old, familiar words.
Today, of course, many young people not only are saying no to the traditional wedding ceremony, they are rejecting the concept of marriage itself. More and more young people are coming from broken homes, and as a result, they have a fear and suspicion about the value of marriage. So we see couples living together rather than marrying for fear that the cost of that commitment may be too much. They fear it may make them too vulnerable. This means that one of the most stable and, as we once thought, permanent traditions of our culture is being challenged.
One of the things I like most about the traditional wedding ceremony is that it includes an explanation as to why there is such a thing as marriage. We are told in that ceremony that marriage is ordained and instituted by God—that is to say, marriage did not just spring up arbitrarily out of social conventions or human taboos. Marriage was not invented by men but by God.
We see this in the earliest chapters of the Old Testament, where we find the creation account. We find that God creates in stages, beginning with the light (Gen. 1:3) and capping the process with the creation of man (v. 27). At every stage, He utters a benediction, a “good word.” God repeatedly looks at what He has made and says, “That’s good” (vv. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).
But then God notices something that provokes not a benediction but what we call a malediction, that is, a “bad word.” What was this thing that God saw in His creation that He judged to be “not good”? We find it in Genesis 2:18, where God declares, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” That prompts Him to create Eve and bring her to Adam. God instituted marriage, and He did it, in the first instance, as an answer to human loneliness. For this reason, God inspired Moses to write, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24).
But while I like and appreciate the words of the traditional wedding ceremony, I believe the form of the ceremony is even more important. This is because the traditional ceremony involves the making of a covenant. The whole idea of covenant is deeply rooted in biblical Christianity. The Bible teaches that our very redemption is based on a covenant. Much could be said here about the character of the biblical covenants, but one vital facet is that none of them is a private matter. Every covenant is undertaken in the presence of witnesses. This is why we invite guests to our weddings. It is so they will witness our vows—and hold us accountable to keep them. It is one thing for a man to whisper expressions of love to a woman when no one will hear, but it is quite another thing for him to stand up in a church, in front of parents, friends, ecclesiastical or civil authorities, and God Himself, and there make promises to love and cherish her. Wedding vows are sacred promises made in the presence of witnesses who will remember them.
I believe marriage is the most precious of all human institutions. It’s also the most dangerous. Into our marriages we pour our greatest and deepest expectations. We put our emotions on the line. There we can achieve the greatest happiness, but we also can experience the greatest disappointment, the most frustration, and the most pain. With that much at stake, we need something more solemn than a casual promise.
Even with formal wedding ceremonies, even with the involvement of authority structures, roughly fifty percent of marriages fail. Sadly, among the men and women who stay together as husband and wife, many would not marry the same spouse again, but they stay together for various reasons. Something has been lost regarding the sacred and holy character of the marriage covenant. In order to strengthen the institution of marriage, we might want to consider strengthening the wedding ceremony, with a clear, biblical reminder that marriage is instituted by God and forged in His sight.
In Christian Love and With Many Prayers,
The Pastor's Pen 
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