A Couples' Spiritual Focus

When an organization of believers has as its key verse:

"He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,

and the hearts of the children to their fathers."

Malachi 4:6, " you know there will be challenges. Our specific challenges involve the focus of the members - where do we as a church body encourage each member to focus their resources. Is it more important that outreach have the church body's focus? Or spiritual growth? Or evangelistic meetings?

It's something that at the HomePage the message that everyone wanted to highlight was that of grace. So began the journey into the "conspiracy of kindness" (by Steve Sjogren) and Kindness Ministries developed. Little did we know that as the journey of sharing grace with our community began, so would another journey. 

What do you do when their isn't enough support? What do you do when families within the church are stretched to their limit, by the simplest of things? Life. Life happens to all of us...illness, work (especially overtime is exhausting), family......children. What do you do when your families are unable to support ministries within the church because they are married and developing a marriage of faith? or when those same couples become parents, and all of their waking moments are spent pouring their love, life and hope into little ones? 

When my hubby and I were dating, all twelve short weeks of it, we went to a large Adventist conference together. There was a speaker there that exhorted the young adults gathered, to remain single and childless. He then made a derogatory comment about his wife of many years. My hubby (future) and I were stunned. My hubby was also infuriated - that someone would exhort him to remain single (yes, I was putting the pieces together :-) ). I was stunned that a spiritual leader would say something mean spirited about his wife in front of several hundred young adults. The thing about single adults though, is that they have more time, energy and finances to put into a church ministry. For a spiritual leader to exhort young adults to remain single, is the very thing that allows a church ministry to grow and flourish. If you want to complicate the growth of a ministry, then have the young adults pair up, marry and start a family. The progress then is very slow....unless you have a workaholic partner who is devoted to ministry. In that case, the spouse and the children suffer. 

At the HomePage, we are a very small group of believers, primarily made up of  families of young children and/or their support systems. When ministry ideas progress slowly due to marriages, babies and growing families, the response at our church....is to let them be. If someone doesn't come to church for a week or two - then we make sure to stay in contact with each other. Besides that we recognize that when families/members aren't able to attend, they are putting what ever energy they have left over from the week, back into their marriages, back into their children. Shame and guilt over missing out on attending church or not participating in ministries within the church. drives a wedge between a couple and drains emotional resources that spouses and children need. 

Meeting the needs of families with young children involves giving them the space, support and appreciation they need. Appreciation that these families are raising the next generation of believers, and that their task is very precious indeed.