Preaching last Sunday's sermon was a particular challenge for me, not because of the trickiness of the theological insights or points of application, but precisely because of the obvious nature of some of the implications that God was making clear to me personally.  As a man, by far the greatest challenges of my Christian life relate to the nature of my roles as a son, husband, and father -- in other words, the areas of dearest relationship to me.  When considering before God points of conviction regarding areas of sin in my life on a daily or weekly basis, the larger percentage of my sins relate to how I handle each of these relationships, particularly my relationship with my wife.  In preaching from John 19 about Christ's care for his mother, I was once again confronted with my inadequacy AND the blazing example of our Savior in how he cared for his mother.  But she was not just his mother, she was one of his sheep, a disciple, a sister in the family of God, and a fellow heir wit  read more »

We have received encouragement from many of you as a result of the Marriage Seminar a month ago on February 13-14, 2009. Thank you for your participation and support, as well as your eagerness to see God's word have an effect in your lives and marriages. That eagerness to receive God's word has been a significant source of joy for us and we therefore hope to make this a recurring event in the life of the church, at least annually, as a means of provoking you in your faith toward God. He is faithful and good.

As promised, we will take several blog entries in the coming weeks to respond to the various questions submitted at the Retreat, some of which we were able to address there. We will reiterate to you some of those responses and take some more time to develop those themes as we present our understanding of Scripture and our personal practice in the context of marriage. Keep an eye out for those under one of four topics:  read more »