May Family Services

It’s just one of those things. We all kind of know that the family unit has broken down in America, but none of us really knows what to do about it. Well…we know this much, change always begins with me. If I want America to embrace family values, I need to embrace family values. If I want America to understand biblical values, I should understand biblical values. With that logic in place, I actually have a slight problem. My particular job (being a pastor) takes me beyond self-change and requires me to help others change or “be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29, 12:1-2).” So, how do I help the American family unit function in a healthier way? If I just work on my family’s health, and hope for a trickle-down effect, I neglect my call to teach, instruct and disciple parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren. Do you see my dilemma? I know I must engage the issue, but how? When you get your preacher’s license there is no guidebook that comes with it. We trust the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth and I hear the Spirit saying – engage the issue. That means, Brian – be intentional. Talk to parents and children about God’s view of marriage, parenting, childhood, adolescence and being a healthy teenager.

Over the last year, our Executive Board has been engaging the issue of family through a variety of talks and team meetings. This has resulted in a mission, vision & goal statement that is available on this website. Its purpose is to give direction to the life and ministries of our church as we endeavor to be a Christ Centered – Community Connected. We know that families in our community and in our neighborhoods are struggling. We also know that our own church families also feel pressure. So this is where we will begin our engagement. Using the reasoning established above, the best way to help our American culture embrace the biblical values of family is for our church-body to embrace and practice the biblical values of family. We will engage our church-body first.

Over the past 6 months we have offered two simulcast conferences that spoke broadly towards the issues of family. The first conference was entitled, Focus on Parenting and the second was, Focus on Marriage. The information provided was exceptional and I have heard many positive reports regarding the inspiration and instruction given. We have also put in motion a plan to bolster the number of marriage counselors within the church. We will partner with a ministry known as, “2 = 1” and train married couples within our church in pre-marriage, marriage and family counseling. The material is bible based and not expert based, meaning you don’t need a counseling degree to engage the issues at this level. There will always be marriage needs that go beyond our capacity and we will refer those to the professionals. And we have many quality professional counselors ready for reference.

In addition, we intentionally choose to offer Connect Group material regarding marriage. This semester the DVD entitled, Marriage: Built to Last, has been rich. If you have not watched this series in your group and would like to, these DVDs will be available in the future for your use. Simply contact the church office to find out how you can borrow them. As well, we have been praying for marriages and offering pastoral counseling upon request and many in our congregation have taken advantage of the pastoral care in this church. I should also mention that we took steps to bolster our training of our children’s and youth ministries. One year ago, we brought in Brandon Diehl, from the AG national office to work with Pastor Elaina’s team and Pastor John provided training for his entire leadership team pertaining to “at risk youth”

All this talk about marriage and family may lead to you to ask…what about singles in our church? What is our position to help the unmarried, the divorced, the widows and the widowers? We thank God for the entire body of Christ and affirm every person’s unique situation. Our current vision of engaging and strengthening the family unit is simply a starting place. Our vision will sharpen and develop over time.

We want to invite every person in our church to join in the vision to reach out to the family unit. Remember, each of us was born into a family unit. Families are established by God. He is the one who instituted the covenant of marriage and children are a gift from God. We may not all be parents, but we are all children. In fact, some of us were born into healthy families, while others were born into broken families. No matter your situation, it should be said that on this side of heaven, all families have some element of dysfunction, and have room to improve.

Therefore, I call the entire “family of First Assembly” to grow and stimulate growth within their earthly families and their spiritual family, the church. We all have gifts, talents, stories and experiences that can be leveraged to bring health and strength to families within our church-body.

As a launch point I am calling the family unit to worship together during the Sundays of the Month of May. This will help us experience the Lord’s Presence together and model spiritual growth as a family. Look to the next blog entry for more specifics regarding the services and the details of worshipping together.