LifeChange

Favorite Father's Day Song: Lead Me by Sanctus Real

I just started hearing this song about a month ago on Air1.  An amazing song appropriate for Father's Day that talks about the important role we as father's have in our family.  The story behind the song is in the second video.  I encourage you to watch it as I think the struggle that led to this song is one many of us face.

The Awe Factor - God loves me, really?

There are certain times when you see something that just blows your mind.  I remember standing on the side of the Grand Canyon for the first time.  It was amazing.  Almost surreal.  That experience gave me a whole new appreciation for God, His creation and a realization of how small I am in the scheme of things.  

We've been talking about love and relationships this week.  While this may not seem on topic, I've realized that as my relationship with God grows stronger, matures and deepens that my love for Courtney does the same.  Perhaps the greatest thing we can do to work on our marriages is to pursue a deeper relationship with God.  

I want to share a video with you from a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  The first time I saw this video I had one of those Grand Canyon experiences and came away amazed that the God who created everything, cares about me.  This God, who is over all creation and all the universe wants to have a relationship with me, be involved in my life and desires my love.  Wow.

How do you keep love alive?

“Love must be learned and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction but waits only to be provoked.”
 – Katherine Anne Porter

How do you keep love alive?  I've only been married 5 years so I'll admit I'm still fairly new to this marriage thing (that's one reason we rely on God's word and the truths found in it so much... we don't have nearly as many experiences to draw from as some of you!)

So far we've established that love is something we learn, not something we find.  It's hard and takes work.  Today I want to ask the question, how do you keep love alive?  Here are a few things we do, or have discovered, over the last five years to keep our love alive and growing:

• Get Away Overnight - this has become even more important with kids.  Every year on our anniversary we get away for two nights ALONE.  
• Date Nights - we try to do at least 1-2 of these a month.  No kids, no one else (sorry friends!)  Just Courtney and I.
• Book - we try to go through one book a year together on the topic of marriage.  Some we've done in the past are:  Sacred Marriage, 5 Love Languages, His Needs Her Needs.
• Other Couples - we try to be intentional about spending time around other couples that are making it.  We glean wisdom from their relationship and know they are a positive influence on us.
• Pray Together - Tony challenged us all to do this a few weeks ago.  I'll be honest, Courtney and I were really good at this before kids.  We have not been doing this very consistently since, it's something we're working on.
• Worship & Communion Together - Unfortunately my role as pastor, and Courtney as a mom of three kids and volunteering almost every Sunday at Life Church makes this difficult.  However, about 1-2 times a month we do get to worship together on a Sunday and take communion together.  We cherish these times.

So, how do YOU keep love alive in your relationship?  I'm looking forward to your responses as this is a question Courtney and I are asking ourselves. We look forward to learning from you.  

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus

Do you remember the book Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus that came out in the early 90s?  I've never read it but the premise of the book is that men and women are very different, and it gives advice on how to recognize and handle those differences.  I don't think it takes much convincing, men and women are VERY different in many ways.  

One of the beautiful aspects of marriage is we are forced to learn to love a spouse that is different from us.  Jesus calls us to love those different then ourselves, even our enemies (which our spouse may seem like sometimes.)  Here's the catch though... we CANNOT love God and not love our spouse.  1 John 4:20-21 says:

"If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."

The often times difficult job of loving your spouse is a treasure, that when discovered will lead you to a deeper and more passionate love for God (who is also very different then us.)  The better you learn to love your spouse the more you will love God.

Loving your spouse well doesn't just enhance your relationship with God, it will also help you love others better.  If we can't learn to love our spouse (who we've chosen to be with) then how can we love a prostitute, annoying co-worker, homeless person, obnoxious neighbor, orphan, know-it-all classmate, or that person with a lifestyle opposite yours?

Marriage is designed to call us out of ourselves and to love the different.  How have you seen the love for your significant other affect your love for God or others?

Which direction is your relationship going?

“Marriage requires a radical commitment to love our spouses as they are, while longing for them to become what they are not yet. Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another’s glory or toward degrading each other.”
 – Dan Allender & Themper Longman III

Relationships are dynamic not static.  They're always moving, people are either drawing closer together or further apart.  Every shared experience, conversation, correspondence and interaction moves our relationship in one of two directions.  

Some activities that draw us closer together are shared passion & vision, compliments, forgiveness, selflessness, humility, service, common interests, spiritual connections and unexpected surprises (the good kind.)  

Some activities that draw us apart are offenses, bitterness, unforgiveness, selfishness, pride, harsh words, competition, betrayal, criticism, second guessing and inaction (relationships take work and pursuit on our part to make them work.)

What direction is your relationship with your significant other heading in?  Regardless of the direction it's been going up to this point, what is one thing you can do today to enhance your relationship?

BTW... this also applies to our relationship with God.  It's not static... we're always either drawing closer to Him or drifting apart.

How well do you love?

How well do you love?  Yesterday we continued our series ONE at Life Church looking at relationships and marriage.  Tony tackled the misunderstood, often vague, topic of love.  None of us ever get taught how to love growing up and most of us have seen very few examples of it done successfully.  We were challenged to take 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and evaluate how well we love.  One way to do that is to replace the word love with your name.  Here is how mine looks:

"Scott is patient, Scott is kind.  Scott does not envy, Scott does not boast, Scott is not proud.  Scott is not rude, Scott is not self-seeking, Scott is not easily angered, Scott keeps no record of wrongs.  Scott does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  Scott always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 

Which aspect of love in your life is missing or furthest from a reality in your relationship?  

The last sentence is where I find myself most lacking.  It may seem unrealistic for love to always protect, trust, hope and persevere. However, people who have been in love a long time seem to always think the best of their spouse, and I believe this is what God does with us.  I find myself often times quickly becoming critical, second guessing, doubting or not thinking the best of Courtney.  This is something I want to change.

Father, thank you for giving us such practical and clear advice on how to love well.  Teach me through your Holy Spirit about loving Courtney in a way that I always think the best of her.  Empower me through your Holy Spirit to make this a reality in my life and our marriage.  Amen.

Adoption & Foster Care in Indiana - Info Session

Every child deserves a family, 

and everyone can make a difference!

Information meeting on Adoption and Foster Care in Indiana

November 11^th 6:30pm -8:00pm

 at the Life Church Offices
700 N. High School Rd.
Indianapolis, IN  46214

November is 'National Adoption Awareness Month', especially set aside to raise awareness about the adoption of our children and youth from the foster care system. On November 11^th, LaDonna Wattley, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Adoption Consultant, will be conducting an informal presentation on Foster Care and Adoption in Indiana from 6:30pm-8:00pm at the Life Church Offices. If you’ve ever considered adoption, know someone who might be, or are just interested in learning more about the foster care and adoption processes in Indiana, we would like to welcome you to attend this event.  Please RSVP to Tara Prater at tlhobson@iupui.edu or Angie Moncrief at ammoncrief@sbcglobal.net so we are sure to have enough literature for everyone.  Feel free to email with any questions.  Hope to see you there at the Life Church offices next Wednesday.

Lands End Big Warm Up Video - creative idea

I share this not so much to promote the event but to demonstrate the creative way Lands End is getting the word out.  You can create a custom video here with someone's name on it and send it via email, Twitter, Facebook or on a blog.  Great job Lands End and a good cause for the Christmas season!

Safe Families for Children

Here are some questions I've been thinking about over the last week:

• What would it look like to have the family unleash it's ministry potential? 
• How do we care for the most helpless of our society when we live in suburbs far away from the greatest need?
• How can the church regain it's role in our culture as a safe haven for parent's in crisis and their children? 
• For those that have a heart to adopt or for foster care but aren't ready to take that step yet, what other options are there?  

These are just a few of the questions I've been asking myself since I learned about Safe Families for Children last week.

I had the privilege of meeting with Krista Davis and Aaron Elliot form Grace Community Church.  Krista is the Assistant Director for Safe Families in Indianapolis.  Safe Families for Children is a program which allows God's people to give meaningful, life-changing support to families in crisis.  It started in Chicago where it's been hugely successful and has been the recipient of grant money even from Oprah!  It's now expanded to several other cities across the country, Indianapolis being one of those.

Safe Families is a way for the church to mobilize, intervene and care for children and parents who are about to go through a crisis.  Unlike government programs where kids go once abused, neglect or trauma has happened, host families in the Safe Families program are connected with children before any of this happens.  Referrals come from government agencies, hospitals, women shelters and a variety of other methods.  Being a host family where these children are placed for any period from a day to several months is a great opportunity to serve and minister to both the children and their parent(s).

God's view on caring for children and orphans is very clear (see James 1:27, Psalm 82:3, Psalm 68:5-6, Isaiah 1:17).  The early church was even recognized for going above and beyond in this area.  The Christian writer Tertullian (AD 200) wrote, "It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents."  The early Christians were known for their acts of kindness and service, caring for babies who were deformed or discarded because of their sex.  It's time the church retake it's rightful place in caring for the 'least of these' in our society, a role that we long ago abdicated to the government!

Visit the Safe Families website.  If you're in Indianapolis and would like more information feel free to contact me or Krista Davis directly here.

Roller Coasters & Losing Control

 Last week we took a day trip up to Cedar Point with the other staff from Life Church.  Cedar Point is a favorite destination of ours as it's the roller coaster capital of the world. 

As with any amusement park, you pay a lot of money and stand in line for a long time to go on rides that last only a few minutes.  What is it about these parks that make them so attractive and keep people coming back?  I think there is something about the feeling and idea of losing complete control, even if just for a few minutes, that is appealing.  The thrill of not being in charge, or trusting these rides and the people that run them, and the adrenaline rush of being taken places and in directions that seem to defy logic and bring you near death.

What amazes me is that people will do this for an amusement park ride, but when it comes to our life we want to have complete and total control.  We are unwilling to release the tight grip we feel we have over our life, our situations and our future.  However, I've learned that the greatest thrill ride in the world is not found at an amusement park, it is found in fully surrendering and following Jesus Christ.

Jesus said it this way,
" ²³Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. ²⁵What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" (Luke 9:23-25)

Just like we give our life over to the roller coaster operator for a few minutes while we're on that ride, the only way we can fully live life is by giving our life to Christ.  There is no greater adventure, adrenaline rush or fulfillment in life then discovering the purposes God created you for.

Are you still holding on tightly to your life, or have you given it to Christ so you can live the great adventure you were created for?