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Our question this afternoon is a bit different from the last several ones, but I think it’s appropriate with the looming approach of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and those epic family get-togethers that characterize the holidays: how do you deal with the “black sheep” in your family?

Here’s an answer from Dan Seaborn of Winning at Home, a Christ-centered family ministry:

A wise counselor friend once told me that the best way to deal with family members—especially difficult ones—is to simply be a family member to them. What he meant by this was that we should make efforts to bring the very best of family into the relationship. We should lead with love, reaching out to our relatives even when they hurt, annoy, and offend us.

This sounds much less complicated than it really is, of course, because past hurts can run deep, and because if there’s anybody on earth who can really get under your skin, it’s family.

Think about it, though. How would things change if you made an effort to bring the black sheep a little closer to the fold? What would be different if you practiced extra patience, built a bridge, agreed to disagree?

Now, I’m not going to say that there shouldn’t be any accountability or that we should turn a blind eye to real problems.

Still, there should come a time when you acknowledge that this family you’ve got is the only one you’ve got. It might never be perfect, but it will always be worth making a phone call, having a conversation, having a laugh.

Read the complete answer at the Winning at Home website.

Do you agree? Are you looking at any difficult family gatherings this holiday season, and if so, how do you deal with difficult family members with Christlike grace? And for extra credit, rephrase the question to ask how we should deal with the “black sheep” in the church family—is your answer to that any different than your answer to the original question?

What do you think?

XXXChurch recently shared some statistics from a study about how iPhones and Blackberries are used. It seems that as people flock to mobile devices, they’re starting to use them for pornography and for managing parts of their relationships that probably shouldn’t be managed electronically:

The “study” involved polling 445 iPhone and Blackberry users about their relationships with other people and their kit, and discovered that iPhone users consider themselves to be extrovert intellectuals who know a lot about the media but find a lack of high-tech gadgets to be a turn off.

35 per cent of iPhone owners said they would find a partner with out-of-date electronics a turn off, though a quarter have dumped someone who was spending too much time playing with their phone.

33 per cent of those with an iPhone have used a text message or e-mail to break up with a partner – which is harsh, though nothing beats fax for that sharing-the-pain experience. When it comes to good news electronics are, apparently, out: none of those polled would propose marriage by text or e-mail.

When not dating, 20 per cent of iPhone users admitted to frequently watching adult material on their 3.5-inch screen, and more than 60 per cent consider themselves to be extrovert.

Porn use on these devices doesn’t surprise me; the adult industry always finds a way to exploit new technologies, and unfortunately far too many people succumb to the temptations they offer. (For what it’s worth, XXXChurch has submitted a version of their XXXChurch software to Apple’s app store and are currently awaiting approval, which should hopefully help those who want accountability find it wherever they connect to the internet.)

However, I was surprised by the statistics about ending relationships via text messages or email. It seems to me that you owe it to the person you’re dating to have that conversation in person.

Do you think that the advent of these technologies is making it too easy to pursue shallow relationships? How have you seen smart device usage affect your relationships? Have you seen positive change come about in any of your relationships because of technologies like the iPhone or Blackberry?

Like many children growing up in the past forty years, Sesame Street is lodged in my mind as a mythical place where creativity and friendliness flow freely. While I used to love it for its songs, animations and puppets, it wasn’t until later that I realized how wonderful a picture of community it presented.

Sesame Street is a place where everyone belonged, regardless of skin color, their physical size (Big Bird anyone?), or their age: everyone has something to share with everyone else.

The Gospel Coalition posted a thoroughly excellent reflection on what the Church could learn from Sesame Street’s contextualized message.

Here’s an excerpt from the article, but you really should jump over and read the entire thing:

As the New York Times puts it, this was a “messianic show,” with a “mission” to remake the way children envisioned the world.

Yes, Big Bird and Bert and Ernie and Grover and Oscar the Grouch and their human co-stars would teach you about letters and numbers and safety tips. But, more than that, they would show you, by the characters they featured and the plotlines they put forward, a new way of seeing things on issues ranging from racial equality to obesity prevention to the global fight against AIDS.

I know that some immediately will conclude that I’m saying simply that churches should contextualize in their teaching and mission.

Yes, Sesame Street did contextualize. The writers and producers picked up on familiar themes such as advertising commercials (”This broadcast is brought to you by the letter ‘C.’”). They built their segments around a typical child’s attention span. They featured songs that were easy-to-sing and memorable (pop quiz: can you hum the tune of Ernie’s “Rubber Ducky” song? Of course you can).

And, yes, of course, churches should contextualize the gospel, addressing people in a language that can be heard and understood. But contextualization itself is not enough. Some of the most self-consciously contextualized churches are faddish and hyper-consumerist. They’re more like the mass-marketed latter years of Sesame Street, and less like the early, innovative, culture-shaping times. And we’ve got all the “Tickle Me Elmo” kinds of Christian ministries we can stand.

Sesame Street was effective because the program didn’t just contextualize to the present; it contextualized to the future.

Do you have any favorite Sesame Street memories? What do you think about the notion that the Church should adopt this idea of contextualizing for the future?

Editor’s note: You can relive some classic Seasame Street moments on Hulu, including one of my favorites.

Does God have a particular person chosen to be your spouse?

This idea has been used for years to comfort despondent Christians who worry that they’ll never find Mr. or Mrs. Right, and given that we believe God to be all-knowing and all-powerful, there’s a certain sense in thinking that He’s got somebody picked out for us all.

But if you think about that idea for a while, some questions and problems present themselves. If God has somebody “picked out” for you, should you actively search for said person, or trust that God will bring them into your life? How do you know if somebody is “the one”? And what about the gift of singleness?

Here’s how Nehemiah Ministries answers the question:

[In 1 Corinthians,] Paul stops short of guaranteeing that God will provide a spouse to anyone who wants one. Neither here nor anywhere else does Paul—or any biblical writer—lock God into a required response to any human need. There is always the possibility that God will choose not to meet a need directly but to give the grace to live contentedly with unfulfilled desires, a point Paul stresses in his second letter to this church (2 Cor 12:7-10).

Still Paul puts the accent on hope in his teaching on marriage, and throughout his writings urges us toward faith in a God who provides all of our needs in Jesus Christ (Phil 4:19). If you want to be married, you certainly have reason to stay hopeful that God will provide someone to meet that need unless he changes your desire or in some clear way shuts the door.

Again, it is important as you maintain this hope to keep your expectations within reasonable bounds. If you’re thinking, “God has one ideal choice for me,” you may be setting your standards for that person impossibly high. When we consider the perspective on God’s role which was in Paul’s mind as he wrote 1 Corinthians 7, it seems to be not “God has one ideal person for you to marry”—but “God will help you find a suitable partner.” This is usually a more edifying thought to dwell on. The person whom he gives you to marry will have imperfections and failings, just as you do. Still that person will complement you in a way that will work for your greater happiness and a more fruitful life together for Christ.

Read the rest of “Is God a Matchmaker?” at Nehemiah Ministries.

What do you think? Is God a matchmaker? Does this idea fit with, or go against, your own experience?

What do you think?

Have you ever witnessed, or experienced firsthand, “church discipline” administered by your church community? If the point of church discipline is to correct, not just to punish, what elements must be present in the act of discipline to ensure that it’s not just punitive?

Here’s how Lifetime Guarantee Ministries approaches this question:

Although they may both feel the same, there’s a huge difference between punishment and discipline. A punisher is angry at the punishee and takes out his hostility on him. The result is either fear-motivated conformity to the punisher’s will or rebellion. A discipliner, on the other hand, is not angry. He metes out the discipline despite the fact that it hurts him to do so. The one who is disciplined is motivated to change because of his love for the one who disciplines. Although both the punishee and the disciplinee may receive “three licks with the paddle,” the result will be vastly different.

Nowhere after the cross does the Greek text support the idea of God’s punishing new creations in Christ. The word is chasten, or discipline.

Read more at the Lifetime Guarantee website.

This is something I’ve thought and talked about quite a bit lately in the context of parenting. Our two-year-old daughter is entering a (temporary…. right?!?) phase in which her behavior is sometimes less than angelic. Some form of discipline becomes necessary at points, but how does one administer discipline in such a way that it encourages correction of behavior, rather than simple punishment for behavior? It gets especially tricky when the act of discipline—say, mandatory “quiet time”—looks the same whether it’s administered in love or anger.

All parents have wrestled with this question at some point. But this is also an important issue in the church, where believers are called to correct brothers and sisters who have strayed. Sometimes this correction takes the form of discipline (removal from a leadership position or even temporary removal from community worship) that might be seen as a punishment.

What acts of church discipline have you witnessed or experienced? What was present in the discipline that communicated love rather than anger?

What do you think?

What does forgiveness look like in everyday life?

Forgiveness is easy enough to talk about in the abstract—for Christians in particular, this is a topic we hear about quite a bit. We talk about Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins and the Christian imperative to forgive others when they wrong us. But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean forgetting about the offense? Pretending it didn’t happen? Refusing to be angry at the offender?

In a recent article for Winning at Home, Shirley Valk explores the idea of forgiveness by citing the dramatic real-life case of a man who endured 11 years of prison for the crime of rape—a crime he hadn’t committed. After his eventual exoneration, he extended the hand of forgiveness to his accuser, and we can learn from his example:

Forgiveness is difficult for many of us to comprehend. How can a man spend 11 years in prison after being wrongly convicted and not be angry but forgiving? Forgiveness is not saying that what was done was okay. It is not letting the person who hurt you off the hook of the responsibility for what they did. It is not making it okay for the other person; it is making your life okay. Forgiveness is freeing your spirit, heart and mind. Forgiveness is taking care of you and restoring your relationship with God to wholeness.

Read the whole thing. And take a look at the many other regularly-posted articles at Winning at Home—they’re a great source of help and ideas for strengthening your family and navigating relationship challenges.

If you moved to a new country and found yourself faced with unfamiliar customs, religions, and politics, where would you turn for information? Would you turn to local media (TV, movies, newspapers) for help understanding day-to-day life in your new home? Where would you begin?

That’s a challenge faced by millions of Muslims in America, many of whom have moved to the United States without a clear understanding of Christianity and without anyone to help them get connected to local culture. Many have never interacted meaningfully with Christians, just as many Christians have never done so with Muslims.

Mission Network News reports on The Crescent project, which is devoted to building bridges between Muslims and Christians in the West:

Misunderstanding and misinformation. These are the problems affecting relationships between Muslims and Christians. One organization is trying to change that, while equipping Christians to help Muslims better understand Jesus.

President and CEO of Crescent Project Fouad Masri says, “Our goal is to equip and enable Christians to reach out to the millions of Muslims in America with the claims of Jesus and give them a chance to respond.”

Masri says there’s a reason he started the ministry. “I discovered that a lot of Muslims moving to the West do not have any Christian friends. The majority of Muslims today have never been to a Christian’s home. So they come to America, and their view of our values and our religion is what they see on television and in movies. Muslims are not hearing the claims of Christ.”

Read the rest of the article or visit The Crescent Project’s homepage.

A lot of Valentine’s Day material focuses on the early stages of a romantic relationship: initial courtship or dating, with some discussion of engagement or marriage. But for millions of people, the focus of Valentine’s Day isn’t a first date or schoolyard crush, but an everyday marriage relationship that has seen its ups and downs over months, years, or decades of married life.

To help husbands and wives think through their marriage relationship this Valentine’s Day, I can’t think of a better resource that ACTS International’s collection of essays about marriage and family relationships. Here are a few highlights:

• The Art of Staying in Love: is there hope for a marriage relationship after the “honeymoon wears off” and the intensity of romantic love starts to fade? Richard Innes describes what true love looks like in your marriage—love doesn’t begin and end with that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling.
• Living Again After Divorce: it might seem wrong to talk about divorce on Valentine’s Day, but it’s a reality for countless people. If Valentine’s Day brings with it bitter memories about a divorce or broken relationship, this essay can help you gain perspective.
• Building a Healthy Marriage hits on some similar themes, encouraging husbands and wives to work on growing in love rather than just falling in love. See also Seven Secrets for a Successful Marriage, which has lots of practical advice.

As trivial as it might seem compared to “real” holidays like Christmas and Easter, Valentine’s Day can be alternately exciting and terrifying. Although several years of marriage have given me a new perspective on relationships and this particular holiday, I remember well the weirdness of being single on Valentine’s Day: if you’re in a relationship, it prompts all sorts of deep and difficult questions about love and commitment; and if you’re not in a romantic relationship, Valentine’s Day is at best an annoyance to be skipped past and forgotten as quickly as possible.

But whether you’re enjoying your 40th year of marriage or are planning to stay home and watch the NBA Dunk Contest by yourself this Saturday, it’s still worth taking a few minutes to consider the Bible’s teachings about love and relationships. One of the most thoughtful Christian writers I know on this topic is Blaine Smith of Nehemiah Ministries. Here are two essays that will get you thinking this Valentine’s Day:

• Is God a Matchmaker? Written with singles in mind, this essay tackles an oft-repeated but somewhat dubious claim: that God has picked out one perfect person for you to marry. So are you supposed to sit back and wait for God to bring that person into your life—and how would you even recognize the “right” person? Blaine finds the message behind this idea a bit troubling, and has some good suggestions for singles intimidated by the prospect of finding Mr. or Mrs. Right.
• The Compassion Factor: what does real love look like? It doesn’t always bear much resemblance to the love on display in books, movies, and popular culture. If our expectations about love are unrealistic, we risk failing to recognize it when it appears.

Both of these essays are from Blaine’s book Should I Get Married?, which despite the title is not just for couples considering marriage; it’s a good all-around book about Biblical relationships and romantic love. Enjoy—and have a good Valentine’s Day!

Many theological issues and questions within Christianity have sparked debate and argument over the centuries, but few bits of theology have as much of a practical, everyday effect on our relationships as the Bible’s teaching on the respective social roles of men and women. At the Been Thinking About blog, Mart De Haan has posted his reflections on what the Bible tells us about gender roles. Does the Bible dictate that women should submit to male authority? Mart notes that “the Bible has slowly developed a reputation for being on the side of men who want to treat women as sexual property and assistants rather than as equals”:

As in the case of so many political and social issues, there are scholars, and studied opinions on both sides. Some believe that the most important statement the Bible makes about gender is found in the words of the Apostle Paul when he writes that, in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Others argue just as emphatically that the same Apostle Paul encouraged wives to learn quietly in church (1Cor 14:34), and at home, to be submissive to their husbands, as unto the Lord (Eph 5:22). In another letter Paul adds, “I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1Cor 11:2).

The post generated quite a bit of reader discussion, so De Haan followed up with second post reflecting further on the topic. If the famous Bible passage about submission to one’s husband has you wondering about the Bible’s teachings on gender roles, these posts and the discussions offer a lot of good food for thought.