The Sex Issue (May/June 2009)

THESEXISSUE may – june, 2009 Newsstand Price CDN $4.95

What is Discipleship Training

Unleashed Unleashed

In depth training to energize your faith and help you discover the freedom and courage to live dangerously for God. 4 unique modules that together equal 100 hours of discipleship training.

Taken separately, each module is designed to equip you from God’s Word in one of the key areas that define a man: MODULE 1: Biblical Manhood MODULE 2: Sexual Purity MODULE 3: Husbanding MODULE 4: Fathering One on One leadership coaching from experienced and wise men of God. Peer mentoring with other men on the same journey as you are.

A smaller more focused event – limited to approximately 50 participants with small groups of up to only 8 – participants build meaningful relationships with each other and with the Promise Keepers Canada leaders.

Do you have a desire to grow deeper in your faith?

Do you want to learn more about the key areas of a man’s life? en ring M Me nt o Man ve No to Lea Behind n ing Me Equipp n! tor Me to Men

Go to www.promisekeepers.ca or phone toll-free 1-888-901-9700 for information on a module taking place near you

contents

may – june, 2009

may – june, 2009 Newsstand Price CDN $4.95

features

THESEXISSUE

14 Sex and the married male Threats to healthy sex life in marriage, and how to get beyond them

Publisher: Brian Koldyk Managing Editor: Doug Koop Pulse Editor: Robert White

18 The lighter side of sex Good humour and good counsel in good measure

advertising account executives: WILLIAM LEIGHTON: william@christianweek.org DARRELL FRIESEN: darrell@christianweek.org JIM HICKS: jhicks@christianweek.org Unless otherwise indicated, neither ChristianWeek nor Promise Keepers Canada guarantee, warrant, or endorse any product, program, or service advertised.

20 Sex and the single male An open talk about a private subject 22 “Dad, I’m pregnant” A family’s story of pain and joy

editorial advisory board KIRK GILES: Promise Keepers Canada JEFF STEARNS: Promise Keepers Canada PHIL WAGLER: Kingsfield Zurich MC SANDRA REIMER: Reimer Reason Communications DOUG KOOP: ChristianWeek

17 Manly thoughts about mothers Don't treat them like lawn mower 25 Always be genuine Even if you have to fake it

Distributed by

promise keepers canada

26 Profile: Be confident in who you are Introducing Kirk Giles, new president of Promise Keepers Canada

columns

departments

5 PK Podium

8-12 Pulse

Why does Promise Keepers talk about sex?

Curious events. Interesting people. Good ideas.

6 Help Wanted Of lust and love

29 Out of My Depth

1295 North Service Road PO Box 40599 Burlington, ON L7P 4W1 (905) 331-1830 subscriptions@promisekeepers.ca Postmaster: Please send address changes to PO Box 40599, Burlington, ON L7P 4W1 ISSN 1916-8403 Cover: Indigo Ink Studios iStockphoto.com

13 Reviews One good read recommends another.

With my body, I thee worship

30 Power Play

32 How Ministry to Men Affects the Local Church

Tools, toys and technology.

34 What Women Want Body and soul

Get fit and stay fit.

33 Shape Up

Editorial and Advertising Office 204-424 Logan Avenue Winnipeg, MB R3A 0R4 Phone: (204) 982-2060 (800) 263-6695 admin@christianweek.org dkoop@christianweek.org Design: Indigo Ink Studios www.indigoinkstudios.com

SEVEN is a Christian magazine for Canadian men that exists to help men lead more fulfilling lives and leave enduring legacies.

The name reflects the seven promises that form the basis of the Promise Keepers organization, which works with churches to minister to men across Canada. one – A Promise Keeper is committed to honouring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer,

and obedience to God's word in the power of the Holy Spirit. two – A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises. three – A Promise Keeper is committed to practising spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

four – A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection, and biblical values.

six – A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.

five – A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of the church by honouring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.

seven – A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (see Matt 28:19-20).

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 3

PROMISE KEEPERS CANADA PRESENTS

®

HELPING TO BUILD MEN OF INTEGRITY

7 Magazine: Men. God. Life.

You asked for a Christian men’s magazine that was for Canadian men - a quality magazine that was relevant, exciting and biblical. We listened.

Men of Integrity Devotional Especially written for men. Easy to read, personally challenging and eternally rewarding. 5 minutes per day, that’s all it takes. Now available as a daily email.

World Class Speaker CD Series Make the most of your commuting time by listening to these inspiring messages on the critical issues facing Christian men today. Now available as a MP3 download!

VISIT WiseChoices.ca OR CALL 1-888-901-9700 to have these PK resources sent to your home.

PK Podium

Why does Promise Keepers talk about sex?

Because it’s a good thing that is easily misused

by Kirk Giles In a recent Nightline interview, Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll was asked the following question: “Some of your critics accuse you of talking only about Jesus and sex—how do you respond to that?” Driscoll paused for a moment and then responded, “I like both!”

There have been times that people have accused Promise Keepers Canada of only dealing with issues related to sex. While we obviously discuss much more than that, it is important to note that one cannot truly be serious about ministering to men without addressing this topic. Pornography use, marital infidelity and domestic abuse are a fact of life in all-too-many homes. It would be negligence if we chose to ignore it.

On the other hand, the Christian community is often guilty of focusing on what we are against rather than what we are for. I am reminded of the truth that sex was God’s idea in the first place.

In Genesis, we read the beautiful story of Adam and Eve “being naked” and “knowing no shame,” and understanding the picture of “becoming one flesh.”

God thought the romantic relationship between a husband and wife was so important that an entire book of Scripture is dedicated to the topic—the Song of Solomon.

As a ministry, Promise Keepers is committed to helping men walk in God’s design for their sexuality. We believe God wants men to be free to enjoy all He has created for them in the context

of a loving relationship with their wives.

Men who are struggling with sin or past hurts will need to be set free from those realities before they can discover the joy of Red Hot Monogamy (to borrow the title of a book by Bill and Pam Farrell).

Others who do not struggle with a particular sexual sin may have never really considered or examined the fullness of what God has to say about sex and what that means for them.

Several years ago, we decided to pursue the idea of an event specifically focused on sexual integrity. I remember well the discussions that took place at that time.

We were convinced very few men would attend (just a hint: never underestimate God). Thousands of men have attended these seminars over the years and have been profoundly impacted by God’s grace and the truth that sets men free.

Today we remain committed to helping men in this area of their life. Our conferences provide workshops and times for men to interact with other men. Our online store highlights helpful books and our website features links to online software and other tools to assist men. In addition, our Discipleship Training Unleashed ministry has an entire weekend dedicated to mentoring men in the area of God’s design for sexuality.

I encourage you to read through this issue of SEVEN with the idea of opening doors of communication with your wife and children.

You can bring the light of God’s truth into your home and not only discover a new level of intimacy in your marriage, but also set your children up for success.

Why does Promise Keepers talk about sex? Because we love Jesus and we believe He wants men to be free to love their wives— spiritually, emotionally and, yes, physically.

Kirk Giles is the new president of Promise Keepers Canada. He and Shannon have been married for 15 years. They are the parents of four children, ages 6-13. seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 5

Help wanted

Of lust and love

by Rod Wilson My daughter is in college and she likes to bring her friends over to go swimming.

With the bathing suits today… well… I’m afraid I might end up spending the rest of the summer going for walks so I am not around when they are there. Should I talk to my daughter or have my wife talk to her?

Or get better walking shoes?

Quite apart from bathing suits, suggestive clothing is everywhere and you can not even go to church sometimes without being confronted by it. So walking shoes might not work since there is nowhere to go to avoid provocative attire. The alternative you present is talking to your daughter about the way her generation dresses, or having your wife address the subject. None of us can change global cultural shifts and those of us with college-aged daughters might raise questions about how successful we can be in influencing them. So what to do?

Know yourself. Some of us are sexually enticed by certain stimuli, while others are not. If a pool party with scantily clad women is a major problem for you, it might be wise to avoid as much of it as you can. You do not need to inform your daughter about the details. If it will help you avoid temptation, slipping into the walking shoes might be best.

When it comes to temptation, the Bible emphasizes the heart, implying that what goes on inside is a potential seedbed for sin. A man cannot guarantee that a pool party will not influence him, but a pure heart provides a context where the temptation will be lessened. Apart from what the women are wearing, be aware of your inner life. What you do in your heart prior to the party may have more influence on your temptation to lust than the nature of the bathing suits.

And while the heart is important, the eye is as well. While in the context of the pool party remember the commitment made by Job—“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1).

I had a dream about my wife’s friend.

There is nothing going on and it has really disturbed me, but I am not sure mentioning it to my wife is a good idea. I am worried she will think that I want something to happen.

Dreams can be quite overwhelming. can’t they? You wake up some mornings and wonder, “where did that come from?”

However, it is important to remember dreams are not inherently bad, so simply having them is not something you need to feel guilty about. The Bible is filled with stories of people who God spoke to in their sleep. Remember also the words of the prophet Jeremiah (17:9) when he says, “the heart is deceitful about all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

We live in a world where many people— therapists, psychics, astrologers and others—believe they can interpret and understand dreams. There is a mystery about the heart and its dreams that frequently defy human comprehension, so do not spend excessive time reflecting on them. If you have an open and transparent relationship with your spouse and a high level of accountability is already present, you could share your dreams with her. But it is neither appropriate nor helpful to tell one’s spouse every thought or dream of an inappropriate nature.

During the day when our defenses are operative and we are trying our best to think proper thoughts, inappropriate or evil fantasies can be kept down or at least held at bay. At night, when defenses are also sleeping, the mind can become absorbed with something we have “played with” during the day. When your wife’s friend is in your presence and you look at her sexually and allow your mind to move in the wrong direction, you are setting the stage for uncontrolled passion during sleep.

Often, but not always, day dreams set the table for night dreams.

Is it unbiblical to masturbate?

Most adolescent boys learn that masturbation is a pleasurable way to release sexual tension. Eventually they often find out that it can become compulsive, get paired with pornography and be can continue to be practiced in a marriage as a form of stress release.

An online search of the Bible will not find the word “masturbation.” It is not in the Bible, and although some people have suggested that what Onan did in Genesis 38:9 is masturbation, there is no suggestion in the text that this is what was going on.

So what do you do with the Bible’s silence?

If you read through the Bible on the theme of love and sex, it is clear that sex is a way to express love, not a way to achieve it. And love, at its core, is a focus on the other. In contrast we talk about “making love” as a synonym for sex suggesting that sex can help us achieve love.

Alas, love itself has become so sexualized that many people cannot distinguish love from sex. The result is that love is what makes me feel good and is not really about “the other,” and sex is ultimately for my own pleasure.

In that context, two expressions of “solo sex”—pornography and masturbation— can flourish because neither requires the presence of a spouse who has a name, a face and needs. As a result, self-pleasure becomes paramount. The biblical silence may compel us to read Scripture more carefully and understand the true nature of love and sex.

Could you use some help? Don’t shy away from asking. Send your questions to dkoop@christianweek.org.

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 6

da' a n a C ers p e e K e P ro m i s

Visit

www.PromiseKeepers.ca

for Promise Keepers clothing, men's ministry resources, great books and event recordings!

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pulse

Curiousities. Personalities.

Ideas. Information.

by Robert White PULSE Editor

DECONSTRUCTING DARWIN Creationists fight back while evolutionists celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of the Species this year.

“Darwinists have taken the opportunity to try and promote their theory as heavily as they can,” says Richard Fangrad, CEO of Creation Ministries International’s Canadian office. “We’re taking the opportunity to tell people Darwin was wrong.”

With six offices worldwide, including one in Waterloo, Ontario, CMI has two key tools: Creation magazine and www.creation.com.

The website, recently revamped, has nearly 6,000 articles, episodes of “Creation magazine LIVE,” books and videos.

“Our mission is to equip Christians in this confusing and controversial area of origins,” says Fangrad. They keep tabs on the latest news in evolution by using trained physicists, astronomers, geologists, biologists, geneticists, etc.

CMI recently filmed a documentary that retraces Darwin’s round-the-world trip where he formed his ideas for the Origin of the Species. The idea came from Canadian staffer Emil Silvestru, who asked: if Darwin had today’s science would he have come to the same conclusions? “The answer is ‘no,’” says Fangrad, adding Darwin and his Origin of the Species had and still have a “massive impact.”

“Christians need to get equipped to understand, not just the Bible, but evolution,” he says, suggesting they tap into ministries like CMI, Answers in Genesis and resources like the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky and the Creation Answers book.

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STUDY SHOWS BELIEVERS HAVE LESS STRESS The Psalmist was right when he wrote “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22 RSV).

A University of Toronto study shows believing in God blocks anxiety and reduces stress. Researchers found a clear difference between believers’ and non-believers’ brains, says a U of T media release.

When believers made a mistake, the part of the brain that warns them to pay attention and take control was less active than non-believers. Those who believed in God also made fewer errors and when they did make one, this part of the brain didn’t fire as much.

“You could think of this part of the brain like an alarm that rings when an individual makes a mistake or experiences uncertainty,” says assistant Psychology professor Michael Inzlicht. “We found religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They’re much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error.”

The research shows belief is calming and believers are less likely to feel anxious about errors or facing the unknown. But Inzlicht says anxiety is a “double-edged sword” which is at times necessary and helpful.

“Obviously, anxiety can be negative—if you have too much, you’re paralyzed with fear,” he says.

“It’s also useful, alerting us when we’re making

mistakes. If you don’t experience anxiety when you make an error, what impetus do you have to change or improve your behaviour so you don’t make the same mistakes again and again?”

In a Globe and Mail article David Reed, professor emeritus of pastoral theology and a research professor at Wycliffe College, says he isn’t surprised by the study’s results.

“Religious people, and I’m speaking for Christians but also other faiths as well, have some larger purpose other than themselves,” he said. “They have a more longitudinal view of life, in that they take it beyond death.”

In Seth Goodin’s book, Tribes, I’ve been reminded that like many leaders I can get caught believing that more followers is better than less. Goodin builds a case for the value in having a smaller, but committed, tribe of people. Jesus understood this. He drew large crowds, but weeded them out by telling them hard truths. Ultimately this approach resulted in changing the world and growing billions of disciples.

–Rick Boxx—integrityresource.org

GOING TO CHURCH IS GOOD FOR KIDS. A new study by Institute of Marriage and Family Canada researcher Frank Jones shows a link between how often parents and children worship and how the children will

Jones’ research also found differences between teens who lived with married or common-law parents. Teens who lived, when they were younger, with married parents were less likely to smoke, sell drugs and be sexually active than teens who were parented by common-law couples.

Sexually active teens were more likely to be older when they began taking part in sexual activities if they were raised by married parents. Teens with married parents were also more likely to have a good relationship with their parents, and their parents were more likely to get along.

–Today’s Family News, www.focusonthefamily.ca/tfn

Andrew Murray, a South African pastor who died about 90 years ago, made an observation about the workplace that remains as true today as the day he wrote it.

“Some people think God will keep them in spiritual things but not in temporal things. But when God sends you to work in the world, He does not say, ‘I must leave now, while you go and earn your livelihood.’ Rather, God says, ‘My child, there is no work you are to do, no business in which you are engaged, but that I, your Father, will not be with you in my keeping power.’ The greater part of many people’s lives is spent amid the temptations and distractions of business; but God will care for you there. The keeping of God includes your whole life.”

EGO, WITH HUMILITY

act and behave when they become teens.

Using Statistics Canada data, the study looked at children of married and commonlaw parents and interviewed children at ages six to 11, and again later at 14 to 19.

The initial aim was to see how a parent’s marital status shaped 40 teen behaviours and attitudes. But the study found interesting links between behaviour, the parent’s church affiliation and how often a teen went to church as a child.

Teens who had a parent who went to church were less likely to be sexually active, use marijuana or have friends who used drugs. The teens were more likely to get along with their parents.

Teens who went to church often were also less likely to use drugs or have close friends who did, be sexually active, get drunk, sell drugs, damage things or have run-ins with police. They were more likely to be happy with life, help others and have close relationships with parents.

The Lone Ranger was unusual. On one hand, he must have had a huge ego. Who would dress in solid white, wear a black mask, ride a white horse, have silver bullets on his gun holster and a side-kick to protect him? He fought for law and order with a goal to singlehandedly get the Wild West under control.

On the other hand, he was a humble servant.

He always showed up just in the knick of time. Then he’d leave before anyone could thank him.

He got the job done and rode off in a cloud of dust and a hardy, “Hi-Yo, Silver!”

Ego, with humility is an incredible combination. Few can find that balance— but here was a hero who left an example we all can follow.

–Robert Rohm—Personality Insights

–quoted by Robert Tamasy, vice-president of communications for Leaders Legacy, Inc.– www.leaderslegacy.com

HOW TO HAVE THE “TALK” Few phrases can drive a strapping hulk of a man to his knees in fear than: “Son, we need to have a ‘Talk.’”

My “Talk” took place in the kitchen after our pet dog, while playing with one of my siblings…paws clenching a leg...strange motions...I’ll leave further details to your imagination. When my mother quickly shooed the passionate pooch away, my pre-adolescent mind, and voice, said “why?” This led to a quick talk about the birds and the bees and the pups.

At some point in your child’s life, you’ll hear: “Daddy, where did I come from?”

I remember a story I once heard where, when the child asked that question, the dad launched into an explanation. Seeing his child’s eyes-glazed-over look, as he tried finding the age-appropriate terms, he finally said, “Why do you ask?”

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 9

pulse

“Oh, Jimmy’s mom just brought his baby sister home from the hospital and I wondered if I came from a hospital, too,” said the son, much to the father’s relief.

As our kids get older, the questions get more complex—as do the answers. As they near teenhood we begin to realize they may know more about S-E-X than we thought.

As they move from watching The Suite Life of Zackand Cody, Hannah Montana and Jimmy Neutron to The OC, 90210 and Degrassi, they begin to learn more about sexthan we want them to. From Barbie dolls, Lego and Easy Bake ovens to sexbracelets, skinny jeans and Axe body spray, our sweet little kids grow up into sexual tweens and teens who need to know God’s plan forS-E-X. So, one day mom takes daughter or

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 10

father takes son to have the “Talk.”

Secretly, we hope the youth minister has already brought this topic up at youth group so we’ll be spared the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing. The sweetest words a man can hear is, “yeah, I know all about it.” To which we reply, “Great son.

I’m so glad we’ve had this talk. Let’s go shoot some hoops.”

But, even though they say they know all about sex, we need to make sure they do know and are getting the right information from the right place and people. I remember a supper conversation where my son said something about a sexual act I didn’t even think he knew existed. After slamming my gaping mouth shut, I asked where he he’d heard about it. “SSF,” he said, adding in

explanation, “School, Scouts and friends.”

I seriously began thinking about homeschooling, pulling him from Scouting and taking away his cell phone and uninstalling MSN. Instead we had a good, long talk about what was and wasn’t appropriate, as well as when and why. I was surprised at how level-headed my son was about sex. As I walked away from the dinner table, I patted myself on the back, thinking I must have done something right.

The “Talk” isn’t just a one-time conversation where we stumble, red-faced over terms, trying to explain, “When a man and woman really love each other…” It’s a lifelong talk where we share God’s view on sex. We may have to take some brief, or not so brief, moments for a deeper discussion, but the brief conversations about whether Jamie-Lynn Spears getting pregnant was right or why the message behind new commercial for Axe hair products is wrong are just as important.

Needing to have the “Talk” can be as scary as bungee jumping. But talking about God’s plan for sex should be as natural as, well,…

– Robert White

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, says Catholic men and women sin differently. For men, lust, gluttony and sloth are sins often committed, followed by anger, pride, envy and avarice.

For women, it’s pride, envy and anger, followed by lust, gluttony and slothfulness.

Media reports say the analysis of church confessions was conducted by Jesuit priest Roberto Busa.

– www.globeandmail.com

PRINCIPAL PRINCIPLES “I have two principles that guide my decisions as a father, a husband and a pastor: Principle One: Do the right thing, for the right reason, even at my own hurt.

Principle Two: Say what you mean and mean what you say.

These two principles were put to the test as I navigated the media frenzy surrounding the new allegations involving our church. I’ve told several close friends this week it’s really hurtful to be criticized so strongly for simply doing the right thing.

I actually believe it’s easier to accept criticism after doing something wrong.

In the end, I know God sees my heart and ultimately He is my judge. I trust my reputation into His hands and believe that He will ultimately defend me. These two principles are big leadership ideas I hope are adopted by everyone in a position of influence or authority.”

Colorado Springs’ New Life Church senior pastor Brady Boyd, blogging after a week when he and his church’s leadership were criticized for concealing certain details involved in the Ted Haggard scandal—newlifeblogs.com

DEAD SEA SCROLLS COME TO TORONTO If you’re going to be in Toronto between June 27 and January 3, 2010 you may want to stop by the Royal Ontario Museum to check out the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.

The first scrolls were found in 1947 when a shepherd boy threw some rocks in a cave and heard pottery break. Archaeologists spent the next nine years digging through 11 caves near Qumran, on the shores of the Dead Sea. The scrolls, stored in clay jars, held some of the oldest-known copies of biblical books, as well as hymns, prayers, and other important writing.

“Among the Scrolls are some of the oldest found texts of the Old Testament— writings that have had a lasting influence on western culture as they continue to resonate today,” says guest curator Risa Levitt Kohn in a media release. “This exhibition tells an important story of

discovery as these Scrolls and their words shed light on the life, faith and culture of ancient Judea at the dawn of modern Judaism and Christianity.”

ROM will display 16 Dead Sea Scrolls— eight different Scrolls for each three-month period—including fragments from Genesis, Deuteronomy and Psalms. A fragment of the Ten Commandments will be featured for a limited time. Four fragments, never before seen in public, will also be exhibited.

The museum also planned a lecture series featuring leading Dead Sea Scrolls experts.

– For more information check www.rom.on.ca/scrolls.

Olympian Michael Phelps had an expensive evening when he was captured on a cell phone camera smoking pot. Cereal company Kellogg’s decided Phelps’s behaviour wasn’t in line with their image and refused to renew his $1 million contract. Poor behaviour comes at a cost. Many believe what they do privately doesn’t matter corporately.

If you want to be safe, always behave as if someone is watching.

–Rick Boxx—integrityresource.org

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pulse

COMPUTER WEAPONS COMBAT SEXUAL TEMPTATION The battle against sexual temptation gets easier when you use a few of the weapons available, like: www.purelifeministries.org Pure Life Ministries’ resources help men deal with an entire range of sin— from a basic struggle with lust and masturbation to a serious sexual addiction.

Lasting freedom, says PLM’s home page, comes from real heart change, found through: • PLM’s six-month live-in program at its Kentucky base.

• The Overcomers-at-Home 12-week phone counselling program.

• A one-time telephone call to a PLM counsellor—who can talk from their own struggles with sexual purity.

• The 20-year-old ministry has a bunch of free resources for both husbands and wives on its website including podcasts, articles, blogs by founders Steve and Kathy Gallagher and an online version of Unchained! Magazine (although the Fall 2008 issue is the last one posted). www.settingcaptivesfree.com Setting Captives Free gives advice about freedom from a number of areas including sexual sin. Founder Mike Cleveland started the ministry with a Bible study which he posted on the Internet, which got 800 hits on the first day.

Online courses include: • The Way of Purity—a 60-day course on freedom from pornography and sexual impurity for men.

• Purity Challenge—a 30-day course for teens on sexual purity.

• A United Front—a 60-day course for spouses of those battling sexual sin. www.covenanteyes.com Covenant Eyes, endorsed by Focus on the Family, claims to be the strongest and most frequently updated accountability program available. The program monitors websites a person hits and reports those hits to accountability partners. Each report rates sites visited so partners can quickly see whether questionable sites, searches or links have been hit. The program is also difficult to bypass, with partners getting an email if it’s uninstalled.

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 12

www.xxxchurch.com Probably the most extensive site around, xxxchurch.com is heavily graphic-driven with resources for everyone.

Teens, men, spouses, churches, parents, women and pastors can find resources specific to that group including blogs and discussions.

XXXChurch also offers X3pure, an online streaming-video workshop and X3watch, a free accountability program.

www.internetsafety.com Safe Eyes goes a step farther than Covenant Eyes by stopping websites from even getting to the computer. Safe Eyes, recommended by the producers of Fireproof, filters out unwanted Internet sites at home, school or business. It can be customized by choosing from 35 categories of websites.

For added protection in places—like your workplace—with a network of computers, EtherShield hardware lets you filter different computers at different levels of protection.

For those with an iPhone or iPod touch, Safe Eyes Mobile gives the same protection on the go that you’d get at home.

reviews

Sex and fury

TURN UP THE HEAT: A COUPLES’ GUIDE TO SEXUAL INTIMACY

By Dr. Kevin Leman Turn Up the Heat is written for men and women who want to experience better sex and greater intimacy in marriage. The author believes that God created man and woman as perfect partners and that most of us want to get “back to those days in the garden, where God’s perfect invention of sex surrounded both the man and the woman in a mutually satisfying, forever relationship. What does every godly man want?” he asks? “A godly woman who loves sex. What does every godly woman want?

A godly man who provides the intimacy her soul longs for.” Most of the book draws from the author’s extensive counseling experience and is presented in question and answer format. His sense of humour helps to lighten the tone of a topic that can easily turn either serious or foul. Some readers will be chagrined at the level of detail he includes; others, no doubt, will be looking for more.

THE GAME PLAN: THE MEN’S 30-DAY STRATEGY FOR ATTAINING SEXUAL INTEGRITY

By Joe Dallas “Sexual desire and spiritual hunger have been two of the most powerful forces shaping my life. They’ve often been at war,” writes Joe Dallas. No kidding. He’s not alone, and he knows it. Dallas has written a book about sexual integrity for Christian men who are failing morally or who want to avoid such a lapse. “If sexual sin wasn’t deeply meaningful in some way, men wouldn’t indulge it,” he observes. In other words, sex matters. How we channel our sexuality has a big impact on the way we think, what

we feel and how we relate to others.

The Game Plan asks “players” to spend about 30 minutes a day for 30 days to address this important area of life in more wholesome ways. It’s about resisting sexual temptation, restoring broken relationships and developing better intimacy with God and others. And what’s the end goal? It’s to “be equipped not just for purity but for service, intimacy and a deeper bond with Christ.”

B4UD8: 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOUR NEXT DATE

By Hayley and Michael DiMarco This is a cute book of practical advice for people who are dating or would like to date. It has wide margins with callout comments, colour images and plenty of graphics. It stresses the value of building solid relationships between men and women without trampling each other in the process. The authors advise readers to date with a purpose (or not to bother dating at all).

They talk about how to take good care of your body, soul and spirit.

They point out important differences between marriage and dating.

They flag all kinds of potential problems and suggest helpful ways of addressing them when they arise. They point out signs that indicate rejection is near, and recommend things you can do when someone is rejecting you. They show how to break up (and what not to do). Bottom line: “Use your head in matters of the heart.”

READING YOUR MALE: AN INVITATION TO UNDERSTAND AND INFLUENCE YOUR MAN’S SEXUALITY

By Mary Farrar Men are at war with their sexuality. They think about it multiple times per day. Short skirts tempt them. Pornographers entice them. Masturbation is commonplace and habitual. What happens when a caring

woman is privy to the male struggle? Ask Mary Farrar. In a deep and intimate conversation with a group of young men, she learned how difficult sex can be for them and how they yearn for women to understand them better.

“Tell them [women] that it’s a lot tougher for us than they think,” said the young men.

“Tell them that they need to understand our struggle. Also, they need to think about what they are wearing and how they are acting around us.” Farrar has now written a book about male sexuality to help women understand and help the men in their lives.

“It is about the difference a woman can make when she understands male sexuality,” writes Farrar. “And that difference can be pivotal.”

THE FURIOUS LONGING OF GOD

By Brennan Manning Brennan Manning is a recovering alcoholic and former Franciscan priest whose earlier book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, did a wonderful job of communicating that God loves people and embraces us in spite of our failures and shortcomings.

It’s called grace. The Furious Longing of God is Manning’s most recent attempt to get across the radical message that God will go to the ends of the earth and beyond to draw us closer to Him. His desire to be in relationship with us is driven with fury force. It’s not tame.

Manning has good news to share. God wants us. “The outstretched arms of Jesus exclude no one, neither the drunk in the doorway, the panhandler on the street, gays and lesbians in their isolation, the most selfish and ungrateful in their cocoons, the most unjust of employers and the most overweening of snobs. The love of Christ embraces without exception.” seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 13

Seven threats to a healthy sex life in marriage

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by Douglas Weiss Every man wants to have a healthy sex life.

He wants to express his love and affection to his wife and receive her captivating gift of sexuality. There are few things more invigorating to a man than a great sex life that is harmonious. Yet honestly many men are not aware of some of the threats that could rob him and his wife of this healthy sex life.

In this article I am going to walk you through identifying seven major threats to your sex life along with ideas to avoid or eliminate them from your marriage.

1) Fatigue: It might sound odd to start with fatigue as threat because you might be thinking; “Me, I’m never too tired for sex.” Some guys are even willing to be woken up out of a deep sleep by their wives to have sex. So what’s fatigue got to do with it? Obviously I’m not talking about men here, but I am talking about many of your wives. She has probably worked all day, dealt with the kids, cooked, cleaned up, worked on homework and put the kids to bed. The last thing on her exhausted spirit, soul and body is a wild night of sex! She is more than likely thinking about serenity and sleep.

You can see how the evenings of these two people could very likely collide. Here’s a practical idea. You put the children to bed most nights. If your wife does this along with everything else it will probably exhaust her.

If you put them to bed you could still muster up the energy for sex. If you do this regularly, she can gain her serenity and rest so she will be able to be more available to be a lover.

2) Feelings: If you are not actively sharing your feelings with your wife, you choke off emotional intimacy. If she is not feeling emotionally close to you, she won’t get turned on by you. Your heart turns on her

hot button. If you don’t express your feelings or listen to her feelings daily, you are stifling your sex life. This is a huge threat that if you really worked at and were proactive about, it would keep the oil going in her engine.

Here’s what you can do: email me at heart2heart@xc.org and I’ll send you a Feelings Exercise you do with your wife.

You initiate this every day for the next few months and see what happens. You will have to be intentional and consistent with it.

If you share your feelings only when you want sex it won’t work. You have to be consistent regardless of the mood of your marriage.

I have personally been doing this for more than 21 years and it keeps my wife Lisa and I emotionally connected.

3) Praying: Yes, sex and praying are connected. If you are not regularly praying with your wife, you are sabotaging your sex life. Guaranteed. God made sex as a spiritual, emotional and physical connection.

If you are not spiritually connected outside the bedroom, you won’t be spiritually connected inside it either. This lack of spiritual or emotional connection makes sex feel empty for women. In fact, you might be conditioning her to not enjoy sex because all you are offering is your body, which is only one third of what she needs to feel connected during sex.

On a practical note, pray with your wife daily. Pray to God to help you connect with your wife during sex so she is getting her needs met. Also, during sex, keep your eyes open and look into her eyes and that will radically improve your intimacy during sex.

4) Serving: You have all heard that doing the dishes is foreplay for women. Although I’ve never heard an actual story where this is factually based, it does impact her heart.

If she feels that you are her helpmate around the house, it builds respect and she sees you in a positive light. If you only serve her the days you want sex, she will think of you

as manipulative and won’t respect you.

However, if on a daily basis you pick up toys, do the dishes, fold laundry, pick up the kids and do random acts of kindness that speak to her, she will feel closer to you. This makes the transition to sex much easier than if she is resenting you for watching television while she does everything.

Practically speaking, commit the first hour when you come home to total service.

See what needs to get done and get right on it. You don’t need to be told to set the table, check laundry or work on homework. Get right in gear so she is really happy to see her hero walk through the door.

5) Pornography: This is the biggest threat to your sex life. Most men have used pornography and masturbated, gluing us to images hundreds and thousands of times over. If you are dabbling in sexual fantasy or pornography, you are creating a dual sexual neuropathway: one pathway to the porn, and the other to your wife. You are setting yourself up so she can’t satisfy you because of your own dual conditioning.

This is your battle. What or who you choose to protect will reveal what you really love.

Your first step out is getting honest.

If you bring your behaviour to the light it can heal.

However, if you choose to keep it a secret you will continue to be sick. So I encourage you to get accountable, block the porn on your computer, if need be, attend a Freedom Group (Christian support group for Sex Addicts). I have been free personally for more than 21 years and my sex life keeps getting better, so I

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know this process really works.

6) Lying: This is an absolute plan to fail sexually. You might not believe this, but after 20 years of counseling women, I believe what they tell me. They can’t handle lying! It seems they really don’t understand why their husbands would lie to someone they love. The lies are usually about money, their whereabouts, other relationships, pornography, masturbation, what he told somebody or if he did what he said he would do.

Lying is like a bolt of electricity hitting her heart. She feels hurt, offended, disrespected and unprotected. She knows her husband is not perfect, but when he lies it’s as if he would rather sacrifice her than to be honest about his flaws. Also, many wives count lies from the time the lie first occurred until she is told the truth. So if that’s a week, several years or a decade, in her mind her husband has been a liar that whole time. So don’t expect immediate congratulations on

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becoming honest.

Practically speaking, part of being honest is telling her when you make mistakes, not giving misinformation or flat out lies. By the way, not telling the whole truth or letting her believe something that is not true is also lying. Remember the commandment, “Thou shalt not lie.” Yes it’s God’s idea to be honest with His favourite little girl—your wife.

7) Planning: Last but not least, you do need to plan for sex. If you are being emotionally and spiritually intimate and serving her she will feel that she is married to a man. If this is the case, you could

consider making a sexual agreement.

If you are not doing these things then forget it. An agreement won’t work either.

You’re not mature enough and you have doomed yourself to beg for sex until you tackle some of what we have talked about. If you’re mature and your wife is as well, you can make an agreement on frequency per week and manage it. Some couples like rotating weeks or splitting the week so both people are actively initiating.

All areas in marriage including sex need to be discussed and must have at least some level of agreement to help maintain a healthy marriage.

There you go, the seven threats to a healthy marriage along with solutions to address them. Happy trails.

Douglas Weiss, Ph.D. is executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center and author of Intimacy: A 100 Day Guide to Lasting Relationships. www.drdougweiss.com

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A few manly observations about motherhood

by Doug Koop For reasons I assume to be obvious, my experience of motherhood is rather limited.

I do, however, have a mother, and I’ve also been married to one for quite a few years.

So, the fact that I am not actually a mother won’t disqualify me from making a few observations.

Mothers are necessary. This isn’t only because they are the ones who deliver babies into the world. That’s vitally significant, mind you, but it’s not the only necessary thing they do. Mothers, more than others, excel at the tasks of primary nurture. Especially during the early years of childhood, mothers more than others tend to the physical, social and emotional needs of their offspring.

This is incredibly important. The love and care mothers provide, and the sense of security they instill, shapes the adult character of children. Mothers serve as protectors, guidance counselors, homebuilders, teachers, janitors and more.

A full job description for mothers has never been, nor never will, be completed.

Suffice it to say, mothers are necessary to the well being of people on this planet.

Being a mother is difficult. As a keen observer of mother behaviour, I’ve noticed that many sacrifices seem to simply come with the territory. I have even observed (to my detriment), that childbearing demands the sacrifice of some mothers’ bodies.

And anyone who bothers to look at all closely will see that mothers are generally the first to sacrifice their own wants for their children’s well-being or pleasure. (Benefits abound to those who regularly observe and comment upon this.) Mothers will sacrifice their own sanity to maintain peace in the household, and to keep older children happy and at home. As they get older, they willingly sacrifice serenity to look after grandchildren.

Mothering is difficult because so much of it seems to be sacrifice and service. Sacrifice and serve—two tough words. Two necessary words; two words demonstrated more

consistently by mothers than by any other people group.

Mothers are easily taken for granted.

Because mothers so frequently and willingly put the interests of others ahead of their own, the rest of us tend to assume their good will and good service. This is not the best response. On the day before Mothers Day some years ago, our grass needed its first cut of the season. My son hauled the lawn mower from the dusty spot beside the house where it had been sitting unnoticed and mostly unsheltered through the chill of a Winnipeg winter. Its paint seemed more faded and rust spots larger, but by and large, it seemed in reasonable shape.

We cleaned the worst of the grime off the engine, topped up the oil, cleaned the spark plug, filled the gas tank and got ready to give it a go—total time, about 10 minutes. Wonder of wonders, with the second pull on the cord the engine coughed to life, sputtered for a minute and then steadied into a comfortable roar— ready for another season of work.

And that’s when it struck me how easy it is to treat mothers like lawn mowers. We take them and their service for granted just about every day. But once a year we haul them out of obscurity, put them on a pedestal, shine them up and tune them up. Then we yank the cord and anticipate another year of

stalwart service.

I’m not saying this is the best way to treat them, but it’s a fair description of too many households. And because mothers do so much work on an ongoing basis, few of us want to make very much of it if only because we might feel an inner compulsion to become more involved. Too convicting; let’s move on.

Mothers generally are well aware that the rest of us can’t live without them. And at least once a year, on Mothers Day, the rest of us briefly interrupt our self-centeredness to admit that deep down, we know that too.

Doug Koop is the editorial director for Fellowship for Print Witness, publishers of ChristianWeek, and managing editor of SEVEN.

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The lighter side of sex It’s time to stop laughing about sex and to start having it.

by Gerry Bowler Any questions as to whether God has a sense of humour can be answered by considering the means through which he decided the human race would reproduce itself. Begin by examining the male equipment. One look at the preposterous appendages we men have been given tells you right away why we call them the “private” parts and why mankind’s first manufactured object was a jockstrap. (See Genesis 3:7 for details.) Not only are they hilarious to look upon but male parts are excruciatingly external and vulnerable—this is why, to a group of men, the funniest sight that life can offer is that of another man, usually a good friend, writhing on the ice, clutching himself in agony, having taken a frozen tennis ball to the privities during a pick-up game of hockey. It brings tears

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of mirth to my eyes just to think of it.

Consider too just how much of their day young and misguided males waste contemplating the possibility of sexual congress—what females in his vicinity are most desirable (at that age what female not actually possessed of a beard is not desirable?); what to say to this female to encourage her in a horizontal direction; what after-shave (Panther Sweat, Macho Musk or Old Spice?) acts most powerfully to dissolve female inhibitions? If such powerful and ceaseless energy could have been harnessed for good we would have long since cured cancer, solved global warming and discovered how to lose weight on a beer and nachos diet.

And then there is the sex act itself.

What other human activity can produce

such a laughable compulsion toward bizarre and uncomfortable postures, involuntary noises and frenzied exhortations? And when it is over and the heavy breathing has ceased, why is it that one partner instantly yearns to be somewhere else, preferably very far away in front of a big-screen television, while the other intensely desires nothing better than to cuddle and talk endlessly about her feelings?

Is it any wonder then that when men get together sex is a prime topic in our joking?

These jokes, predictably, are seldom edifying or fit for more civilized settings, but they are awfully revealing. And one of the saddest things they reveal is a male dissatisfaction with the physical side of married love. “Did you know that scientists have discovered a food that reduces the female sexual drive

by 90 per cent?” asks one such piece of humour. “It’s called wedding cake.” Another specimen of bitter wisdom defines marriage as what couples do when they decide that they don’t want sex any more.

This sad state of affairs is not what God intended. In describing the origins of marriage, Genesis 2:24 says: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be of one flesh.” (Would all women who are sneaking a peek at this article please note that it did not say “one mind.” That’s never going to happen.)

Thomas Cranmer’s beautiful Book of Common Prayer notes that marriage was ordained “for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other”. What kind of comfort did he have in mind, this man who loved the married state so much that as a clergyman who had taken a vow of celibacy he smuggled his wife into town in a box? These are the words of the marriage ritual he created for the Church of England.

At the climax of the ceremony every husband is to say to his wife: “with this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow.”

Many of us, however, find ourselves in marriages where worshipping our wives’ bodies is low on the list of frequent marital activities, well behind taking the kids to hockey practice, watching TV or emptying the cat’s litter box. Sexless marriages too often become loveless marriages as husbands and wives find they become less connected out of the bedroom as well.

This is undoubtedly why a number of men have been calling recently for a change of attitude toward the marriage bed. In an article in The Times of London, 33-year-old Tim Scott described how his sex life had come to grinding halt because of the exhaustion in coping with a new baby.

Months would go by with scarcely any intimacy with his wife. Then on New Year’s Eve 2006 she suggested to her reluctant

husband that their resolution should be to have sex every day. At first things went, well, rather quickly, as the couple needed time to reacquaint themselves but soon the lovemaking moved from being a chore to being a delight, with benefits spilling out into the rest of their relationship. Their experience tells us that desire, like love, can be a decision as much as it is an emotion.

Douglas Brown and his wife decided to have sex daily for 101 days and chronicled their adventures in Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) Women too are on the frequentsex bandwagon. Charla Muller’s 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy describes how she offered to make love to her husband every night for a year. Her motives were partly to give him a 40th birthday gift to remember and partly to reconnect as the couple entered middle age. His initial reaction was to fall over in surprise and then decline the offer from his chubby, church-going mate. (He later reconsidered and went on to enjoy a deepened relationship with his wife.)

Charla’s advice: “When my girlfriends ask if it’s healthy to do it once a week, three times a week or whatever, I just tell them to do it twice as often as they are doing it at the moment. Their husbands will love them for it, and they might just find that they love themselves that little bit more, too. If they let themselves.”

Christian clergymen are now taking up the call. From a bed erected on the stage of his Dallas church Pastor Ed Young encouraged his Grapevine flock to have sex every day for a week.

It’s time, he said, to turn the

“whining” into “whoopee.”

“Sex is like Super Glue. It’s a spiritual thing, an emotional thing.” Not to be outdone, Florida pastor Paul Wirth called on married couples in his church to have sex every day for a month. (Unmarried couples were challenged not to have sex for 30 days.

No reports on the success of that plea.)

Wirth claimed that studies showed that actions repeated over a 30-day span could turn into habits.

Such an attitude of renewed interest in marital sex will also help to save the environment, at least according to British activist Rob Hopkins. He says that moving away from a consumption-based lifestyle to one that sustains the planet may involve putting renewed energy into sex. Increasing our intake of pleasure and intimacy will reduce the sum of loneliness and do more for the ecology than pictures of endangered polar bears.

The votes are in on the question of increased sex in marriage: more intimacy, less loneliness, happier relationships and a thriving planet. Gentlemen, start your engines. It’s time to stop laughing about sex and to start having it. Let the body worshipping begin.

Gerry Bowler is an astute observer of popular culture and renowned authority on Christmas.

He writes for a wide variety of publications and teaches History at the University of Manitoba.

And here we have man’s oldest manufactured item... seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 19

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sex and the single male An honest talk about a touchy subject

by Nathanael Gerber Hey... Thanks for meeting up. Can we just have one of those “brother to brother” conversations? Not the locker room kind, I’m thinking more coffee shop style. This one is on me. Let’s meet at Starbucks, exchange a firm handshake and pat on the back, grab our coffees and then find a seat at the back.

Tell you what; I’ll take the plunge.

I have a lot on my mind. Pull up a chair...

Sex. I think I messed it up. Big time.

You wouldn’t know it if you asked most of my friends. They think I’m pretty much perfect, some kind of innocent church kid who’s never seen porn. I wish I were.

I’m a twenty-something who grew up in a very Christian home. I believe in the importance of purity. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I have a strong commitment to waiting. I’m single, and I can’t wait to get married. I’m even praying for my future wife.

But... I’m not a virgin.

I’m convinced my parents gave me one of the most incredible sex talks ever delivered to an eight-year-old. It was amazing... Like, stunningly epic. There were no birds or bees, no cootie-filled anatomy pictures (with one exception—the classic half body x-ray of a baby forming in the mother’s womb). There was only one simple idea: My glorious God made us people with the beautiful ability to so love another person that the two could become one. The power of this oneness was so strong that God would use it to create new life from the two people.

I know... not a ton of anatomy here, but that wasn’t the point. In that conversation I saw a glimpse of my future, and it was straight from the Garden of Eden. It left me in awe. That conversation began in me the process of preparing to become a husband.

What it didn’t prepare me for was my 14th birthday.

“Mom! Dad! Look what I got! It’s a Playboy magazine!”

I don’t know for certain why I stopped myself. Somehow I knew that when my street

hockey pal gave me the manila envelope full of magazines, he meant for me to open it when I was at home, alone. I really had no idea what was in the envelope. None... And I definitely didn’t expect what it would pull out of my heart. Page after page I could literally feel my insides tearing apart. My brain was on fire, my body on autopilot and my heart isolated. The addiction was violently immediate, and I felt completely alone.

The only comforting emotion was shame, which I silently piled on myself by the bucket load. What a mess. This wasn’t the glorious purpose for my sexuality. There was no love in the empty eyes of each model, nor in the attempts of my imagination to turn them somehow back into real people. I wanted to stop, but something about the fact that a woman on a page would put herself out there to anonymously engage my sex drive seemed almost more real than the seemingly sterile world of a Christian culture where sexuality was a disconnected mythology.

I was trapped, robbed of a beautiful innocence and totally frustrated in my attempts to do something about it. The worst part was... I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to take most of our nice, Christian, “I’m struggling” language, and swap it out for a more raw, “I’m a sexual mess” rendition. Seriously.

I’m deeply unsatisfied with having to pretend that I have this whole sex thing together... I don’t. I’m working on it. I often feel like a failure. I often feel guilty, confused and broken. Sometimes it’s like a nightmare trying to track my hormones. And then there’s church. At times God’s presence feels so real, so tangible. My heart cries out for more of Him. But if Sunday was so good, why am I fighting to feel Him on Monday night?

Everyday I’m confronted and affected by a pressing culture of overt hyper-sexuality.

It’s pervasive. Radio, television, Internet…

I can’t check my email without facing a bombardment of sexual messages. A simple

Google search for something completely unrelated and up comes a string of barely clothed women—some of them seriously attractive. I’m in downtown Toronto all the time. Did anyone else notice the three story billboards of women in lingerie? What the heck!

As Christians we’ve mostly just accepted that this is the way things are. Then why can’t we seem to face the way we are? When was the last sermon you heard where a pastor walked you through his or her honest journey of sexual redemption? Am I the only person whose puberty was a nightmare?

The closer I get to God, the more He opens up my garbage. I would talk about it if I didn’t feel like the only one with this kind of junk to deal with. I know this is not true.

But think of the flip side: if I’m so good at pretending, what about all of these welldressed “godly men” around me? Have any of them truly conquered the sexual side of their humanity? Are we all just hypocrites?

I’ll never forget my first kiss. I was 17; she must have been older. Our lips met on a rooftop under the stars... The moment was like a terrifying thunderclap—God was not pleased! I knew it, but pretended that I was okay. Then she said it... “Nate, I don’t know why, but I feel like Eve in the Garden of Eden.” Whoa! Where did that come from?

Or maybe the better question is, what just happened? Where am I? These are messy questions, I know. But my life has been messy! Good luck sorting through the patterns and trends of my past relationships. So many different stories; one common factor—me. And I really don’t want to bring this into a marriage!

I still believe that our sexuality is a pure, beautiful, spiritual thing—a powerful expression of who we are in God. Sex is about “knowing” and “being known” in the most intimate sense. But only God knows who we are in spirit. If we don’t live with hearts united to God in trust, then our sexuality becomes self-centred, increasingly

devoid of life-giving spirit. Without that, what can we experience? Whatever it is, it isn’t true sex; not as God created it for us. It always comes up short. Personally, I’m sick of coming up short. How about you?

So the real question is this: Do I honestly believe that what God has for me is actually the best for me? My mentor Phil put it this way. “Do you believe that God lovesyou enough to give you whatyou truly need?” His second question was even more convicting. “Nate, do you love God enough to wait for what He has for you?”

Talkabout a paradigm shift.

Maybe this is the whole point. We were never meant to sort this out in isolation, silent islands drifting through the church.

God is not sending us out alone. He is taking us on a journey. We just run ahead sometimes. Let’s repent and let go of the

garbage. Let’s go back to the garden and practice intimacy with God. We still have the power to create. It is still possible for us to walk with God today. And we can walk with each other.

So, seriously, thank you for meeting up.

I say we do this more often.

Nathanael Gerber is passionate about arts, culture and communication.

He currently serves as the youth pastor at Nashville Road Community Church in Kleinberg, Ontario, is the founding director of Divine Force Company, and the Contemporary Music Director at Christ Church Anglican. For more info see www.nategerber.com

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“Dad, I’m pregnant” A family’s story of pain and joy

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 22

by Jerrad Peters and Josiah Neufeld Larry Wilson knew what his daughter was giving him even before she opened her hand—and his heart broke.

He had never expected this years earlier when he bought each of his teenage children a necklace to symbolize their commitments to remain sexually pure until marriage.

He had forgotten the necklaces.

All three of them—Larry, his wife Joyce and their 18-year-old daughter Bethany— were in tears. Bethany, a student at Providence College in Otterburne, Manitoba, called her parents at their home in Winnipeg in October 2007. She was coming over, and she needed to talk. When she arrived, Bethany asked her parents just to listen until she was through. Then she told them she was pregnant.

“My wife and I just sat there in pain, tears and silence,” Larry recalls. “When she reached out her hand and I saw it was the chain, I just burst into tears because of the pain.”

SEVEN sat down with Bethany and her father Larry, national director of the First Nations Alliance Churches of Canada, to hear how their relationship weathered this storm.

you to sin anymore. I don’t ask you to be sexually pure. I don’t ask anything. I just ask that you would remember that Daddy loves you.” And I asked her, “Would you accept it as a covenant of love?” And she said yes.

And it was a joy to put it back on her neck.

I did go through what I think is normal when you have a loss of innocence. You go through the process of loss: shock, anger, blame. Could I have been a better dad? Did I do something wrong?

But I decided to make my love for my daughter primary. I’m going to release some of those things. I’m going to accept my girl and my grandson. And I’m not going to attach negative thoughts or negative words to my grandson.

I told this story at a conference recently, and there was one girl who came up to me and she just hugged me for ten minutes.

She said, “The same thing happened to me.

I got pregnant, but my dad kicked me out.”

I just felt for her.

My wife and I have committed ourselves to our girl and our grandson—to support them and have them live with us in our home and be safe.

SEVEN: How did you respond when you saw the necklace in your daughter’s hand, knowing that she was returning it to you?

Larry: As she opened her hand, I just grabbed her hand and I held it, and I said, “Sweet-heart, I can’t take this. It’s too hard.”

And then as I was saying that, I thought, I made a covenant with my daughter—a covenant of love and relationship. And, I thought, I need to take the chain and fulfill my covenant.

All of a sudden the Spirit of God just put in my heart the thought to make another covenant with Bethany. I said, “Sweetheart I’d like to make another covenant with you.

I’d like to make a covenant of love. I’d like to give you this chain and put it on your neck for only one reason. So that every time you wear it you know that Daddy loves you. I don’t ask

Bethany, when you telephoned your parents and said you needed to speak with them, did you have any idea what their reaction would be?

Bethany: I kind of figured that they’d be disappointed. I wasn’t scared to tell them, though. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but I wasn’t scared that I was going to get kicked out. I knew that was the last thing they would do.

“The same thing happened to me.

I got pregnant, but my dad kicked me out”

How did your parents’ response affect you?

Bethany: It broke my heart. I knew that was not the life they wanted for me. And that wasn’t the life I wanted for me.

At first I was pretty scared about my future. I really wanted to travel and worship God with my voice. At Providence College I was the leader of a praise and worship band. continues on page 24

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there’s legitimate shame for sin. There really is. But I think that as dads we need to be really careful not to make quick judgments in terms of shame, because some of it is illegitimate. So being aware of that, I decided to love my daughter in the middle of that legitimate and illegitimate shame.

Did telling your parents you were pregnant create a rift in your relationship?

Bethany: I was kind of scared there would be a barrier between us at first. But they just showed their unconditional love when I told them, and that kind of calmed my heart.

I was more scared about what other people would think than what my parents would think.

That was the road I was going to take.

Then all of a sudden this speed-bump came. Right away I thought, abortion.

When I was in high school, almost all my friends had abortions. I just got used to hearing that.

I prayed about it lots. I had my whole dorm praying for me. After talking with my parents they convinced me that no matter what, God has a plan for me. I know that God has a plan for me, and as long as I keep with Him trust Him with everything I have, He’ll find Colby a good dad and use me in any way that He can.

Would it have been harder to choose to keep your child if your parents had reacted with anger?

Bethany: Yeah.

Larry, was there any thought in your mind that maybe you had let your daughter down?

Larry: Yes. But after all this happened, what God impressed on my heart was that even though my love for my daughter was without limit and had no boundaries, I cannot love my daughter enough to stop her from

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 24

Larry, tell us about the joyful side of all this.

Larry: If you don’t experience real pain in your soul—if you deny it— you don’t really experience the true joy that’s synonymous with it. And so I was very intentional in feeling the pain, but intermingled with it Josiah Neufeld were thoughts of a new human being, a new little soul, the value of my sinning. And all the sudden I realized I’m grandson. Kolbie is eight months old now. in the same situation; God cannot love That’s where the joy lies—the hope of a Larry enough to stop me from sinning future for this little guy, and what God has because I sin, and my daughter sins. in store for him.

I had this imaginary belief that if you There are stories in the Bible where love your children with all your heart—that people’s lives end up blessing others no if you love them from birth—that it would matter how they’ve come into the world. influence them to make godly decisions, So I guess I just have high hopes for this always. But that’s not true. You could do all little boy. I think that’s where dads need the right things and it still doesn’t guarantee to choose whether to embrace just the what your children or others will do. negative or to embrace the positive side, because you’re feeling both.

A father can’t control his child’s actions, but he can control his own response.

Larry: I was very intentional not to go down Jerrad Peters and Josiah Neufeld are staff the path of anger and not to criticize and editors with ChristianWeek, a biweekly judge, not to use words of death. I was very newspaper covering Christian faith and intentional to choose love. life in Canada.

When it comes to something like shame,

features

Always be genuine “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter,” says the bumper sticker on the back of our minimotorhome. No Christian slogan or fish emblem, however, identifies our car as being operated by a Christian.

In our motorhome, I never exceed the speed limit. Even on the 110-km/h freeway, I keep the speed to 90 km/h.

It is the economics—the slower I drive, the less wind resistance and therefore, less fuel consumption. On narrow roads, I happily pull over and let traffic behind me go past. Drivers smile and wave their thanks, and I feel like such a good Christian.

In our Chevy Tracker, it is a different story.

I tend to drive it just a bit more aggressively.

When it is safe to do so, I sometimes let the speedometer creep over the legal speed limit, do a “rolling stop” through some stop signs and occasionally scoot through yellow lights. Hence, in my car, I would rather be anonymous.

Am I a hypocrite? Or am I just being careful to “preserve a good testimony,” as I was taught in the church I attended as a teenager? It is a small step from living a good, clean life, to hiding the not-so-good parts of my life—all so that people will think better of me than they would if they knew about the messy parts.

It is not easy being authentic all the time, and in every circumstance. In Brazil, our German missionary friends followed their mission agency’s policy against beer drinking during the four-year field term in Brazil, but when they returned to Germany for furlough, many of them drank beer with their prayer and financial partners.

Meanwhile, North American missionaries, working under a mission agency, which had no rules against beer drinking, sometimes drank beer in their homes when they were in Brazil, but never touched a drop when they were on furlough among their archconservative supporting churches.

Even if you have to fake it

It reminds me of the slogan: “Always be genuine, even if you have to fake it.”

Jesus clearly indicated that there were greater and lesser commands (Matt. 23:23).

For instance, He considered Sabbath keeping as one of the lesser commands and repeatedly demonstrated that healing the sick was more important than keeping Sabbath rules (Matt. 12:12).

Driving home from a long meeting in Rio de Janeiro well after midnight, I slowed as we approached a red traffic light. “Don’t stop! Keep going!” a senior missionary shouted from the back seat. “If we stop in this neighbourhood, we’ll be mugged!”

I kept going. The greater law, “Avoid muggers!” trumped the legal, but lesser, law, “Stop for red traffic lights.”

We are rightfully appalled when we hear of some hypocritical church pastor exhorting his congregation to live a clean life sexually, while he himself visits prostitutes and is addicted to hardcore pornography. What should bothers us even more, however, is how our North American Christian churches tend to fixate on certain commands (mostly having to do with sex) and related issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, while ignoring global issues that are vastly greater.

A church that is so badly governed that the pastor can continue for years while committing immorality is horrible. What is far worse, however, is tens of thousands of Christian churches that are so badly taught that they ignore the huge global problems in the world around them.

Millions of North American Christians watch the news on television and see extreme poverty, rampant disease, insidious illiteracy, constant wars, corrupt leadership, distressed environment, all exacerbated by a pervading spiritual emptiness. How many of us ask ourselves, “What should the Christian church do about these horrible problems? What should our local church do? What should my family and be doing?”

The Bible is packed with commands to God’s people to build His Kingdom, dealing with these major global problems in His way.

At the core of God’s government is faith, which, of course, comes through His Word, translated into the languages spoken by every person on earth.

As followers of Jesus, we believe that.

But we must be careful to make sure that what we strongly believe matches what we say, and that both match what we do.

I suspect some Christians sitting in church are just going through the motions. We bow our bodies in prayer, but our minds are not involved and our hearts are not engaged.

Some of us stand and sing loudly and passionately about our total commitment to God and His Kingdom, but 10 minutes later, when the offering plate comes around, we drop in a tip—not a tithe—and have no intention of ever helping a local ministry, going on a missions trip or doing our part to solve a global problem.

We have Bibles in our homes and carry one to church. It all looks good, but how many of us consistently read significant amounts of God’s Word every day, asking Him to connect what we read with what we see on television?

Driving home at 1:30 in the morning, we see a stop sign at an intersection on a deserted country road. Do we really need to come to a total and complete stop? Probably.

God, however, is vastly more concerned with our need to pray intensively, to give generously of ourselves and our finances, and to soak our minds and emotions in His Word. Then, having closed the Book, He wants us to love Him, to love others, and thus build His Kingdom. Anything less is faking it.

Jack Popjes is a former executive director of Wycliffe Canada. He currently describes himself as a speaker, writer and linguist/translator. Jack and Jo currently live in a cabin on the shore of Sandy Lake, a 45 minute drive north west of Edmonton, Alberta. Check out his web site: www.thewordman.ca

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 25

features

Be confident in who you are as a man A conversation with new Promise Keepers Canada president Kirk Giles Kirk Giles hopes it’s pure coincidence that he officially became president of Promise Keepers on April Fools Day. “Let’s not read too much into that,” he laughs. Laughter comes readily to the easygoing 35-year-old, who’s been active in the Promise Keepers organization for most of his adult life. And now he’s ready to be its most visible leader.

Those who work with him have long appreciated his personal and spiritual maturity. “Kirk has shown outstanding leadership skills in both business and ministry in the context of his love for the Lord. He is a model husband of one wife, a great dad to his four children and an elder in his church,” says former Promise Keepers president Ron Hannah. “I’m very excited about what our mighty Lord has in store for Promise Keepers Canada in the years to come.”

SEVEN caught up with Kirk at Promise Keepers Canada’s mid-March GPS national men’s conference in Winnipeg.

SEVEN: Is it true that to be considered for president of PK Canada you must have at least four kids to prove you’re doing your part to populate Canada with Christians?

Kirk Giles: [Laughs.] It was in the original job description, but apparently that requirement was removed for equity’s sake when the position opened up.

What is the most important thing in your life?

Without wanting to sound pious and over-spiritual, in all honesty, the most important thing is Jesus. Everything about who I am and how I operate stems from knowing God and what Jesus has done from me. After that, it’s definitely my family.

Shannon and I have been married for 15 years. We have four children between the ages of 6 and 13. God and family are my two greatest joys and priorities.

How long have you been involved with PK? It’s been about 14 years. I started as a volunteer and then came on staff in early 1996 as an administrative assistant for my dad. At the time he was a field ministry manager and needed someone to keep the files straight.

So you got your start by nepotism?

Absolutely. It’s not what you know, but who you know.

What attracted you to this ministry?

Promise Keepers had a big personal impact on my life. The ministry was instrumental in reconciling the relationship

between my dad and me. At the time I was also serving as a pastor and had the joyful experience of seeing what it looked like for a group of men to really support their pastor.

Both those things really captured me and made me want to give back.

Women are not invited to attend Promise Keepers events. What’s up with that?

My usual first comeback is: how many men are invited to women’s events? More seriously, there are some topics where men default to a macho, in-control pose rather than being real when women are around. We want to encourage men to be as real as possible so they can encounter what God has designed for them as a man and live that out in the context of everyday life with their wife and co-workers.

The gender thing can be a roadblock to authentic communication. It isn’t always to all men, but it can be for some.

Why do we need an organization like Promise Keeper’s Canada? Doesn’t every church have a men’s group?

Every church does not have a men’s group. The reality is that more women go to church than men—generally about 10 per cent more women than men attend regularly.

Many churches want to communicate more effectively with men. Promise Keepers is a tool they can use in this effort.

What reputation does Promise Keepers have? What does it desire?

That’s a big question. The perception is different in different contexts. In Canada we have a church support network that links us to 800-1000 churches. The majority of those have a positive perception of this ministry and its influence on the lives of men. Others

in the broader church community and world beyond have a very skeptical perception of PK because of the history of men who have used leadership negatively.

I would hope the perception of Promise Keepers Canada would be of an organization seeking to help men model the life of Jesus, who we consider to be the ultimate of what a man should look like.

Long hair, sandals and robes?

[Laughs.] In Jesus you had incredible balance of man who was bold and confident in calling and purpose, along with meek, gentle, loving and self-sacrificial. Promise Keepers wants men to be more like Jesus.

To be a follower of Jesus is to be confident in who you are as man—in terms of strengths and relationships, and to be bold in terms of seeing the lies the world has to offer about success. To be like Jesus is to trust God and do things in a way that is compassionate and humble in the midst of boldness. It is to follow His model, to be hardworking on the job, to not to be a complainer or slacker, and to be gentle with others.

What do others think of Promise Keepers?

Mainstream society today has little specific impression of our ministry. Joe Average on street hasn’t heard of Promise Keepers. If they Google it, they’re likely to discover three things. Many non-Christian sources say Promise Keepers exists to teach men to dominate; to suppress women and children and take authority negatively.

Some Christian sources call us false teachers, pointing primarily to discussions about unity within the body of Christ. They say we teach unity at the cost of truth. In fact, we teach unity within the context of what it

means to be part of the body of Christ.

Faith in God through Jesus Christ is our bottom line. Unity is not the same as uniformity. The third source, also Christian, says you know them by their fruit. For the most part, that has been incredible.

What do you actually have to do in this job?

This leadership change represents a generational hand-off. What’s going to be different?

Some things won’t change. We will continue to be a ministry that upholds its core values. We will stay focused on speaking and walking with men in Canada.

What’s different? We will continue to evolve and change in how we deliver ministry depending on the context of what connects with men.

No doubt we’ll see continual growth in the ways we use electronic technology.

We are also growing in our understanding that Canada is multicultural nation.

We recognize there are many men we are not serving well because they come from different cultural groups. We will be more intentional about seeking them and finding out how we can serve them.

The most important area where we’ll continue to grow is in our prayers for the men of Canada. We have been praying already, but if the current world climate has taught me one thing, it’s this—none of us is ever really in control. More than anything, we need to truly show by a focus on prayer that we need God to work. We need God to provide. We need God to give wisdom. Promise Keepers Canada will continue to grow in our focus on prayer.

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 27

Out of my depth

With my body I Thee worship Men are at risk to serve sexuality instead of offering it.

by Phil Wagler “With my body I thee worship.”

Once upon a time grooms uttered those words in marriage vows. To today’s postmodern ears they must sound like utter nonsense. They have a preposterous, even blasphemous ring about them. Does it not seem like something coined by an amorously tearful bride at the climax of the worst chick-flick of all time?

Wrong. The great English church reformer Thomas Cranmer, hopeless orthodox romantic that he was, framed it in the 17th century.

I’m now half way through the second decade of married life and still learning to worship with my body. Life, let alone marriage, is quite the sexual journey for a man. Visions of fireworks are quickly doused by the sudden realization that we have much to learn and unlearn. The wise one implored the testosterone-driven male to rejoice in the wife of his youth (Proverbs 5:18). Song of Songs swoons that her smooth, succulent, adventurous beauty is worthy of great joy and, if biblical wisdom and Cranmer are right, adoration.

The Word of God frees us to celebrate that season of life when the tree is green and the fire stoked and very nearly out of control.

The gift of youth is virility and fertility.

It is a wonder any man survives to tell of a more settled, supposedly contented land beyond Hormonedom. Does it really exist?

Can you get there from here? And, what of us who are single and no less endowed?

Each man must wrestle with the gift and problem of sexuality. A few among us actually don’t survive that wretchedly glorious springtime of life when this challenge assaults at our most vulnerable moment. Some men find themselves consumed by that blazing fire in the

lower realms. Having not given their bodies to worship, to give what is due both God and woman in on-fire fidelity, they become pitiful slaves to desires that are never satisfied; to a thirst no woman, try as she may, will adequately be able to quench.

“Each man must wrestle with the gift and problem of sexuality”

All men wander along a raging, potentially consuming libido current and are tempted to unreservedly dive into that river-of-no-return. I have yet to meet a man who is not somehow sexually broken. Admit it. Something has wrecked us. Some of us were never exposed rightly to this part of our identity; others were over-exposed.

Some were abused; others abused. Some were baited by airbrush and caught by fishnet; others were hoodwinked by a doctrine of male superiority. We are broken and risk serving our sexuality rather than offering it.

Our bodily functions are not to be served slavishly, but offered in free worship. The fertility cults of the ancients and contemporary Hollywood are disastrously misguided and blinded in this regard when they glorify unbridled smorgasbords of pleasure. Our bodies and all their various hungers and desires were not intended to be fed endlessly like some buffoon at a buffet, but, as the Apostle Paul said, to be offered as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2). It is our reluctance to offer

such worship that keeps us bound in deceptive slavery to that which was to be given, not horded.

We may argue that any joy in sex is equally fitting, like when as a teen I argued I was celebrating creation by watching Revenge of the Nerds. Stupid me, I wasn’t even celebrating good filmmaking. Such rationale is of course pathetically faulty, for it argues from and for self-worship.

If with my body I worship—give to another what they are worthy of—then I must willingly set aside the self. I must die to me. I give what God, my Creator and Redeemer, and woman my complement in the image of God is worthy of. God deserves my obedience; woman my fidelity and gentle awe. I hoard no more. I take up my cross and follow Jesus. I surrender to the selfcontrolling Spirit of God. The divine, not the diva, beautifully corrals my manhood.

Then I am free to give woman what she is worthy of—honour, faithfulness, singlemindedness, and my strength. I am free to rejoice, to wait, to give, to offer, to vow, to serve and to love. It is true: with my body I do worship.

Phil Wagler is a son, husband, father, friend, and servant of the Body of Christ in southwestern Ontario.

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 29

power play

Great games. Great toys.

Great gadgets.

Reviews by Sandy McMurray

EASYSCOOP www.easyscoop.ca Have you ever been too groggy to operate your coffee maker? Some mornings, the simple act of putting ground coffee and water into a machine is more than my sleepy brain can handle.

I have actually driven to Tim Horton’s to buy coffee in order to be awake enough to make coffee.

(Apparently, driving a car requires no such mental alertness for me.)

How much would you pay to solve this problem? How about five bucks?

Easy Scoop makes it better. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to follow these instructions: 1) Snap Easy Scoop onto coffee can.

2) Invert can over machine filter basket.

3) Pull handle once for each 8oz cup.

4) Done!

Ahhhh. Thanks, Easy Scoop. I get fresh coffee, and the streets are safe once again.

FLAIR HAIR www.flairhair.com Middle-aged men can be a little...sensitive about their hair. If you are bald or balding, you may miss the confidence that comes with a full head of hair. (Scalp does not blow in the wind.) Hair makes you feel more powerful, more secure, more masculine. It also improves your golf swing and makes food taste better. (Ear and nose hair do not count.)

If you find that middle age has increased the size of your forehead, Flair Hair may be right for you. Flair

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 30

Hair is not a wig or a toupee. It’s a full head of hair attached to a hat—a visor, to be specific.

Flair Hair isn’t meant to hide your baldness; you’re not fooling anyone. Think of it as a fancy hat—a hairy, goofy, awesome hat. Wear it with pride, and remember: people can’t laugh at you if they’re laughing with you.

KILL A WATT

barbecue and chicken and ribs and hot sauces and...

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. The Buccaneer Tailgate Grill is a man’s picnic pack— the ultimate tailgate cooler. It combines a BBQ grill and tool set with a removable, insulated, waterproof cooler tote bag.

The padded handles, shoulder strap and reinforced base make it easier to carry this monster, either alone (if you’re showing off) or with a buddy.

www.p3international.com Of all the things men know for certain, one fact is more certain than most: someone or some thing is wasting electricity in your house. Which device or appliance is driving up your energy bills? Is it the old fridge in the basement? The computer? A hair dryer?

Would you like to know where all your money is going?

Kill A Watt is a simple energy metre that measures how much power is being consumed by whatever is plugged into it. The LCD display counts energy by the Kilowatt-hour, just like your local power company, so you can quickly figure out how much that trickle of energy is worth.

If you can find just one bad citizen on your household power grid, Kill A Watt will have paid for itself.

One word of caution: Kill A Watt is not a surge protector. Test one item at a time and don’t overload it.

www.postcard.fm This simple Web site is a fun new way to share music. Go to the Postcard.fm, enter the name of a song, enter a friend’s email address, and then press the Send button.

The site sends an email message to your friend containing a link to the song you selected.

If the song isn’t in the Postcard.fm database, you can upload a copy you own, then proceed. This song will then be available to everyone else who uses the service.

Unlike other file-sharing sites, this one dodges lawbreaking by playing the songs on the Web rather than copying or downloading any files. Postcard.fm also offers links to buy the music it plays, so the artists and labels can get paid. It’s a fun, simple idea. Give it a try!

BUCCANEER TAILGATE GRILL

LACIE KEY USB DRIVES

www.picnictime.com The word “picnic” makes me think of wicker baskets, red-checkered tablecloths and ants. The word tailgate, on the other hand, makes me think of football and

www.lacie.com Geeks like me have more than one USB drive lying around, but that’s actually a problem. When

POSTCARD.FM

I need one, I may not know where to find it.

Their small size makes them easy to lose.

LaCie’s new portable USB drives are literally memory keys. Slim and stylish, they look like keys, they’re shaped like keys, and they’re designed to carry on a key ring. What a smart idea!

Now, where did I put my keys?

LAWNBOTT www.lawnbott.com The LawnBott, from Kyodo America, is a small machine that mows the lawn without assistance from a human being. Do I have to say anything else? You probably have your wallet open already.

IPOD SHUFFLE WITH VOICEOVER www.apple.ca/ipodshuffle Just when you think Apple has done everything they can with the iPod, along comes another little surprise. The new iPod shuffle is smaller, lighter, and holds more music—four GB of storage is enough room for 1,000 songs.

What’s new is that this model talks to you. With the press of a button, the new iPod shuffle tells you what song is playing and who’s performing it. It can even tell you the names of your playlists, giving you a new way to navigate your music. (And that’s important, since the shuffle has no screen.)

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Like the floor-cleaning and pool-cleaning robots already on the market, the LawnBott is designed to cruise around on its own schedule, cutting the lawn whenever necessary to keep each blade of grass under 7 cm (1-3 inches).

The company’s marketing people say the Lawnbott’s “adaptive random cutting system” uses different rotation angles and “optimizes its cut with a patented Smart Spiral” when it senses taller grass.

Personally, I don’t care what it does or how it’s done as long as I don’t have to cut the grass.

The LawnBott is available in four different models ranging in price from $1,299 US for the simplest model to $3,249 US for the most complex. You may prefer to pay a neighbourhood teenager instead.

Churches can purchase bulk quantities by calling 1 888 901 9700 | Sign up at www.WiseChoices.ca

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 31

department

HOW MINISTRY TO MEN AFFECTS THE LOCAL CHURCH

by Steve Sonderman Before one of our Sunday services some years ago, I was talking with Stuart Briscoe, who at the time was the senior pastor of Elmbrook Church. He said, “Steve, look out there, what do you see?”

“I see a few thousand people, just like every other Sunday morning,” I replied. He said, “No, really. Don’t you see it?” No, I didn’t. I had to ask what he meant.

He explained. “I see a congregation full of men, and for that I want to thank you. Your work over the past 14 years has changed the complexion of this church.”

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I was walking down the hall at church and our new children’s pastor stopped me. “Steve, thanks a ton,” she said. “Well, you’re welcome. But, what for?” I had to ask. She replied, “In all the churches where I have worked or talked, I have never seen so many men involved in teaching the young kids. You must really be having an effective ministry to men here at Elmbrook.”

Over the past few months I thought a lot about those two conversations and been extremely encouraged by them. Sometimes

when you are fully involved in a ministry, you can’t evaluate the results of what you are doing. As I looked back over some 15 years of ministry to men at Elmbrook, I can now see the following results of an intentional disciple-making ministry to men: Men coming to Christ. We have seen hundreds of men surrender their lives to Christ through the personal evangelistic work of many men, as well as doing a couple of big events each year that are geared specifically to supplement their efforts.

Men growing in Christ. More than 800 men have gone through our two-year discipleship course called Basic and Discipleship Training. Each has been well grounded in what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. Lives have been transformed, relationships healed, marriages reconciled, addictions broken and men set free to follow hard after Jesus.

Men mobilized to serve. Countless men have moved from the pews and into the game. We’re working alongside the urban poor, tutoring students in Milwaukee, preaching in nursing homes, ministering to

the unemployed, discipling college age students, starting a ministry to executives and helping Christians in Romania start up their own small businesses. We have a church full of men with ears to hear God’s call on their lives.

Men connected to other men. We have gone from five small groups for men to more than 140. These groups are scattered all over the Milwaukee area studying the Word, sharing life and being missional in nature.

Men empowered to be leaders. Through training that is aimed at nurturing followers of Jesus, men have learned leadership. They are practicing leadership in their homes, communities, workplaces and world.

As I look back, God has truly done an incredible work in our midst. And, because I am confident that He is not done yet, I look to the future with hope and excitement.

Steve Sonderman has been an Associate Pastor of Men’s Ministry at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin since 1984. He is a frequent speaker for Promise Keepers Canada events.

ADVERTISE WITH SEVEN For more information contact us at 1.800.263.6695

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 32

department

SHAPE UP

by Todd Llewys Fitness: Everyone is wired differently When it comes to staying fit, you can’t be someone you aren’t. That’s to say that every guy has different fitness goals. Some of us just don’t like working out. The most exercise for someone in this category may be going for a half-hour walk each day, perhaps an occasional game of hockey.

Being sore afterward is acceptable; being a fitness fanatic is not this guy’s goal.

Next is the guy who is somewhere in between—he likes to be in decent shape, but due to time restrictions, he gets in his weight and cardio workouts when time allows. He may also play hockey, baseball or touch football in the summer to stay in shape. His main goal is to be fit enough to enjoy everyday life.

The third category features the guy who genuinely enjoys working out. He makes time to get in his weight reps and cardio several times a week, whether it means doing it early in the morning or heading to the gym in the evening after the kids are in bed. Or he may have a treadmill and weights at home so he can do it when the urge strikes (perhaps with his wife).

So, stick to that routine—as low impact or intense as it might be—and make the effort to eat right. Do the right things at any level and you’ll be doing what you need to maintain your body for the activity it needs to be at to enjoy everyday life—and more.

Nutrition: To eat well, or not There is definitely a difference between mere eating and eating well.

On the one hand, there’s just eating without much thought. All you know is that you’re hungry, and that that hunger needs to be fed. So, being a guy, if you’re passing

by New York Fries at the mall, you make a sharp right turn and get a large portion of fries and gravy (or worse yet, poutine).

True, the fries might satisfy your hunger with something hot and salty. But you are doing yourself a disservice by eating without putting much thought into what you’re consuming—especially if there’s a Tim Horton’s a couple spots over. Take maybe 15 more steps and you could have had some soup, toasted bagel with butter (not to mention a coffee) for the same dollar output.

At the same time (honestly!) the nutritional input would also have been far superior.

So here’s the key: when you’re hungry, eat. But make a point of eating well. At home, maybe go for a banana and bowl of Cheerios (with skim milk) instead of inhaling a bag of Cheetos or two slices of leftover pepperoni pizza. Occasional (maybe once-weekly) indulgences are allowed. But to stay reasonably fit, you have to eat well, rather than just wolfing down some grub.

Mental Side: Having the discipline to stay disciplined We’ve all seen him; I’m talking about the 45-year-old guy down the street who looks 10 to 15 years younger than his chronological age. Worse yet, you may know this guy well.

After hockey or baseball, he might limit himself to a bottle of beer, nibble at the pretzels and maybe have one slice of that wicked Meatza Pizza.

Why does he do this? Because his goal is to stay within shouting distance of his high school weight of 180 pounds. He’s now 187, and still has a 34 waist—the nerve of the guy.

He enjoys doing the things he did when he was 20. At 41, he can still do most of them—go end to end without needing oxygen when he goes back to the bench, steal a base standing up at softball and burn the 25-year-olds with a lightningquick post pattern in touch football.

For the most part, he maintains his discipline because he knows that losing it can lead to back problems, bad knees and not being able to enjoy the activities he loves when he hits 55.

Without question, staying disciplined isn’t easy. No one is perfect, so no matter how hard you try, you’ll have your lapses.

Maintain that discipline 80 per cent of the time, though—and build a decent amount of time into your busy schedule (even if it’s wrestling with the kids or doing yard maintenance)—and you’ll be able to maintain a spring in your step, much like you had 20 years ago when you were 25.

Todd Llewys is a Winnipeg-based sports writer and fitness enthusiast.

seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 33

What women want

Body and soul Sex is far more than just a physical act. It’s also a spiritual and emotional union.

by Sheila Wray Gregoire A few years ago, in an attempt to curry favour with me, my husband bought me several Diana Gabaldon novels. The nurses on the hospital floor where he worked were gushing about them. So he forked over the cash, hoping it might bear dividends for him in our marriage.

And it did. The romance focuses on a swash-buckling 18th century Scottish Highlander who knows his way around both the bedroom and the battlefield.

He’s fierce and brave, but when he comes into his wife’s arms, he melts in adoration.

And after reading them, I melted in my husband’s arms, too. And I did a few other things he greatly appreciated.

But then Keith went and wrecked it.

He dared to pick up a novel to see what all the fuss is about. “My darling,” he read, in his best Scottish accent. “I must possess ye, body and soul!” He then collapsed in fits of laughter, magnified by me flinging pillows his way in disgust.

You men should stop laughing and listen to us for a minute. We women tend to understand relationship a teeny bit better than you do. Relationships, after all, are our reason for being. We’ll do just about anything to feel loved, while you men will do just about anything for sex. That’s why women put up with users and abusers, and men are more prone to one-night stands. Women, can cheat, too, because we’re just as corruptible as you guys are.

It’s just that our particular weaknesses lie in different directions.

And what we women instinctively recognize is that sex is far more than just a physical act; it’s also a spiritual and emotional union. It’s that union that we so desperately want.

branding

•

You yearn for it, too, just not as overtly.

After all, God designed sex with a spiritual dimension. Read the old King James, and you’ll come across that archaic phrase, “Adam knew his wife Eve, and they conceived unto them a son.” The Hebrew word “knew” is the same verb that is used in Psalm 51, when David cries out, “Search me, O God, and know me.” Sex is fundamentally about knowing someone; it’s a joining that supersedes just the physical.

Unfortunately, like every other good thing, this was distorted. The early Gnostics took it to an extreme, declaring the body bad and the soul good. This idea then infiltrated the church, and sex became shameful, because the body was shameful.

Now we’ve come to the opposite end of the spectrum. We live in a pornographic culture that thinks the body is the end all and be all. If it feels good, we must do it!

An alien would think our world’s number one challenge is how to make sex more fun, because the covers of all the magazines advertise “Ten New Things to Try” (as if there were anything new under the sun) or “How to Leave Her Begging for More.” It doesn’t matter who you do it with, as long as you do it right!

Wrong. And Christians know that.

Sex is only right in a committed marriage relationship.

But do we really understand why?

It seems like the church’s new motto when it comes to sex is: “There’s freedom in Christ!—as long as you’re married—so go have fun!”

When I speak or write about sex, the most frequent questions I get are all about technique. Is it okay to do this? What about sex toys? What about pornography? We’re

i n f o r m at i o n

•

i d e nt i t y

just as focused on the physical as the world is!

The reason that our culture is focusing on more and more bizarre sex acts is that people have nothing else. They don’t know the wonder that comes from truly knowing one another, body and soul, because relationship is taken out of the picture.

Why would we try to mimic them?

When we reduce sex to the next orgasm, we’re missing out on its true potential. I’m glad sex is physically fun. I’m all in favour of fun, and if we can increase the fun, let’s go for it! But if that’s all we’re doing, all the time, we’re settling for potato chips and missing the steak. Sex is not only a way to feel good; it’s also a way to say “I love you,” “I need you” and “I belong to you.”

If sex has never been about saying “I love you” in your marriage, it’s not too late to start. Talk to your wife while you’re making love. Let her know it’s her you’re thinking about. Spend some time, by candlelight, just touching each other and whispering to each other. Look into her eyes in your most intimate moments. What you’ll find is that the high that comes from really “knowing” your wife is much deeper than the one that comes from the latest sex experiment. And that’s what makes sex really good—body and soul.

Sheila is the author of several marriage books, including Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight: Help for women who want to feel more in the mood. You can find her speaking at marriage conferences around the country, or at www.SheilaWrayGregoire.com.

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seven – issue six may–june 2009 page 34

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