This past Sunday, Paul had the honor of preaching in service. His topic was Sexual Immorality.
Now if we had still been in a church environment that was more edgy this topic would not present a problem at all. People would be used to hearing about it and the words (i.e. pornography, lust, masturbation) would not, most likely, turn their faces every color of the rainbow. Yet, that is not where we are anymore. We are in a more contemporary but traditional environment. Good people but very different for us. Thus, this topic presented some dilemmas for Paul.
First, how much does he share about himself, second, how detailed does he get on sexual immorality. Third, make sure to say during announcements that this is a PG-13 message and parents who have not spoken with their children about this topic should use the children's ministry for the day!
I love the way Paul preaches/teaches. If you do not know, Paul holds an undergrad degree in Elementary Education, thus he is well equipped to teach. When Paul gives the sermon, he takes a lot of time to delve into the back ground of the passage so that the congregation fully understands the context of the Scripture, who is writing it and why. I find this to be so refreshing because he really takes time to explain God's Word which can often times be so hard to understand. But I find that people fully enjoy this about his sermons. He challenges our minds to think and our hearts to apply the Word of God to our lives.
This sermon on sexual immorality was so good. He met it head on with such grace and eloquence. He made a beautiful balance of confronting sexual sin such as pornography, lust and sex outside of marriage but he did it a way that spoke the truth in love and didn't make anyone squeamish. In a traditional environment this is a hard thing to do. I was so proud of him while he was up there preaching!!!!
Here is the link if you would like to listen:
http://www.faithrefuge.org/media.php?pageID=73
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
My Friend Pam.
My friend, Pam is truly just an amazing woman. There are so many ways I could describe her, but amazing pretty much does it.
I met Pam in April 2010 when she was training to be a Weight Watchers leader. She showed up at our Thursday, 7 am meeting to do her 4th mentor session. At first, I was hesitant because I really liked my original leader, yet as Pam lead I realized she was really good. At this point in time, I was attending WW with three other friends from Marshfield. We all decided to switch to the Saturday 7:30 am meeting that Pam would be starting. Sadly, all of my friends have since dropped out but I stuck with it.
As I got closer to goal weight, it got harder to lose, but Pam kept encouraging me to stick with it. The day I hit goal, she was out of town at her daughter's wedding. But the next week when she was back she made a big point to celebrate me in the meeting. About that time, I told Pam that I wanted to work for WW. She directed me and has been such an encouragement to me.
Pam has become a kindred soul to me in Marshfield. She has been a light in a difficult transition of life for me. She's a God-send for me. She allows me to be real and honest about what I'm thinking and feeling. She sees me as more than just "Pastor Paul's wife". I feel safe with her, which is truly rare here.
About two weeks ago, it was discovered that Pam has cancer. I have never seen anyone meet this diagnosis the way that she has. She has been unreal! Surgery was this week and it's believed they got it all-Praise God. In addition no chemo or radiation for her!!!!
What has been so cool is that God has used this situation to teach me about suffering. I spent some time fasting for Pam while she was going through tests etc.. over the last 1.5 weeks. As I cried out to God about why and searched the Scriptures, He brought me to some very special understandings.
I looked up "heal, healing, healed" in my concordance. I came to James 5:15 "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned he will be forgiven." Now I in no way subscribe to the belief system that people aren't healed because they don't have enough faith or that people must be sick due to sin in their lives. Those are just plain awful belief systems. Yet I found myself asking God, "what does this really mean?" Then I read the footnote in my Bible which said the word for "heal" here does not mean physically made well, but rather made whole and forgiven. That God will make us spiritually whole. "Prayer for spiritual healing depends on many factors, but spiritual wholeness should be our highest desire. While God may or may not bring physical healing, He will always offer wholeness and forgiveness."
I am stunned by the fact that we, as humans, are always looking for what will make us happiest here on earth. While Christ is always looking at our soul in light of eternity. He is concerned that we spend eternity with Him not that we spend our entire lives with our kids, family etc.. I have learned from Pam's bought with cancer that my focus has to be eternal and not just physical.
Friday, October 7, 2011
She Enters the Blog Word...
Well, I've decided to start blogging for quite a few reasons:
1. I'm so, so tired of Facebook. I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love that I can keep people updated on our lives, but I hate that a lot of people, whom I preferred were not up on my life, can also see our stuff. Now, I could go through and remove them all, but let's face it, we're in full time ministry and that could get very, very ugly.
2. Facebook doesn't let me really share what is happening in our lives with those that I love. I want to have a place to honestly share with you what we're learning, how we're growing etc....
3. I would like a little more privacy.
In fact, I'm making this a closed blog. So people can only view if they have permission from me.
With all that being said, why the interesting name of "Finding Balance in Tension". As I tried to think of a clever name for our blog, I wanted it to be two things: discreet and descriptive of our lives. I believe that I have found both of those. Our names aren't in the blog title and the name fully describes where we are in life.
A little over a year ago, Paul attended a conference. I can't remember which one. But when he came home, he was describing to me that one of the pastors there (maybe Andy Stanley) had talked about learning to exist in the tension of ministry. When Paul shared this with me, I was so so so mad! I don't like the tension of ministry. I don't like feeling like we are being pulled 15,000 difference directions. I don't like that he only has one day off each week. Needless to say, this conversation didn't go well.
Shortly, after that discussion, Paul and I had our first true "crisis point" in our relationship. One in which we just could not get past. We were tolerating each other and hardly speaking. We ended up meeting with our head pastor and then our board (an amazing group of men). Through these meetings, our board decided to send us to Fairhaven Ministries in Tennessee for a week of rest and retreat. While there we would go through intensive counseling to the tune of 2-3 hrs/day. Our board made it very clear that our marriage was the priority, not ministry. They would not sit by and allow our marriage to fall apart so that ministry could flourish. I can not tell you how much this meant to me. They even paid our entire way!
One month later we dropped the kids at my parent's house and headed for Fairhaven. The week was so very hard. So many difficult discussions between Paul and I, but we came out of it very changed. The things we learned taught how to manage full time ministry so much better. And now here we are one year later doing so much better than we were.
However, this has brought me back to that original discussion of "balancing the tension" of ministry. I can't tell you how true this is. Paul is constantly being pulled so many directions. And if he's not letting the "church" down because he can't be there, then he is letting us down because he can't be here. I can't imagine what this must feel like for him. October 3rd, Focus on the Family had a great broadcast on this very issue.
Ministry is not a job. It's a lifestyle. It requires us to constantly learn ho
w to manage this tension. To figure out how we will get time for our marriage and family in the midst of absolute, constant craziness. There is no true balance or routine to be found. It changes every single day. And as a woman who likes formulas and routine, this is so hard for me. Yet, God has been very faithful to us. We struggle but we battle together to learn how to find balance in tension.
Here is the link for the trip we took and I'm posting some pic's from that trip.
www.fairhavenministries.net
1. I'm so, so tired of Facebook. I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love that I can keep people updated on our lives, but I hate that a lot of people, whom I preferred were not up on my life, can also see our stuff. Now, I could go through and remove them all, but let's face it, we're in full time ministry and that could get very, very ugly.
2. Facebook doesn't let me really share what is happening in our lives with those that I love. I want to have a place to honestly share with you what we're learning, how we're growing etc....
3. I would like a little more privacy.
In fact, I'm making this a closed blog. So people can only view if they have permission from me.
With all that being said, why the interesting name of "Finding Balance in Tension". As I tried to think of a clever name for our blog, I wanted it to be two things: discreet and descriptive of our lives. I believe that I have found both of those. Our names aren't in the blog title and the name fully describes where we are in life.
A little over a year ago, Paul attended a conference. I can't remember which one. But when he came home, he was describing to me that one of the pastors there (maybe Andy Stanley) had talked about learning to exist in the tension of ministry. When Paul shared this with me, I was so so so mad! I don't like the tension of ministry. I don't like feeling like we are being pulled 15,000 difference directions. I don't like that he only has one day off each week. Needless to say, this conversation didn't go well.
Shortly, after that discussion, Paul and I had our first true "crisis point" in our relationship. One in which we just could not get past. We were tolerating each other and hardly speaking. We ended up meeting with our head pastor and then our board (an amazing group of men). Through these meetings, our board decided to send us to Fairhaven Ministries in Tennessee for a week of rest and retreat. While there we would go through intensive counseling to the tune of 2-3 hrs/day. Our board made it very clear that our marriage was the priority, not ministry. They would not sit by and allow our marriage to fall apart so that ministry could flourish. I can not tell you how much this meant to me. They even paid our entire way!
One month later we dropped the kids at my parent's house and headed for Fairhaven. The week was so very hard. So many difficult discussions between Paul and I, but we came out of it very changed. The things we learned taught how to manage full time ministry so much better. And now here we are one year later doing so much better than we were.
However, this has brought me back to that original discussion of "balancing the tension" of ministry. I can't tell you how true this is. Paul is constantly being pulled so many directions. And if he's not letting the "church" down because he can't be there, then he is letting us down because he can't be here. I can't imagine what this must feel like for him. October 3rd, Focus on the Family had a great broadcast on this very issue.
Ministry is not a job. It's a lifestyle. It requires us to constantly learn ho
w to manage this tension. To figure out how we will get time for our marriage and family in the midst of absolute, constant craziness. There is no true balance or routine to be found. It changes every single day. And as a woman who likes formulas and routine, this is so hard for me. Yet, God has been very faithful to us. We struggle but we battle together to learn how to find balance in tension.Here is the link for the trip we took and I'm posting some pic's from that trip.
www.fairhavenministries.net
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