FEBRUARY 2020 EDITION
THE WOODLANDS UMC
POINT MARRIAGE IS THE BUILDING BLOCK OF SOCIETY I will be honest. I love YouTube instruction videos on how to fix my car. Most of the time they tell me I am in too deep to even try. But I still love them. Sometimes they make the work look easy. Experience, expertise, and routine make it look easy. The truth is more systemic. Hard work, trial and error, and persistence gives the illusion of easy. The world wants the easy way of believing, the easy way to doing, the easy way of fixing. Easy is an illusion. Marriage is not easy—it is not supposed to be. Marriage is often difficult. Why? Perhaps from the beginning, God wanted us to be on a journey toward a holy, healthy, functional relationship. In our sin nature (Rom. 7), we are not so good at that. Our sin natures are selfish and self-centered and therefore at odds with the design of marriage, which is supposed to be a mutually beneficial, self-sacrificing relationship. Marriage is the building block of societies. But it is virtually ignored as such in culture and media. Statistically, married couples are now the minority in America. Divorce is too easy. And children from broken families want to avoid the pain of divorce so much they are not getting married. This huge relational epidemic has been silently eroding our country from within. The real victims of this melee are the children of failed marriages. So let us work together for them. After all, we Methodists do know how to work. We ignore political king of the mountain games. We never back down from working for our kids and our grandkids. They are the future church. They need to see the best models of marriage we can offer. So I believe in working diligently on this issue. The key to marital fulfillment is still Matthew 6:33, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (NLT). As a church I believe that: 1. Marriage is designed for us to grow personally, relationally, and in the ways that lead to holiness of heart and life. 2. The best environment and family system for a child to grow up is still the home where both the father and mother are present in a healthy marriage. 3. Marriage ministries is comprehensive, complementary, and the secret way to grow a church. 4. The church is the best place to teach about marriage. I am not a debater. Instead, I want to work on building good marriages within the walls of our church and offer our biblical model of marriage to those outside our church. In the coming year, we need testimonies of couples who have a great marriage. We need married couples to mentor younger couples. And we will continue to offer help through our Re|engage programming and counseling to those inside and outside the church from some of the best in the area to help married couples.
A MESSAGE FROM
CLIFF RITTER
PASTOR TO SENIOR ADULTS
It’s that time of year again. My mailbox is overflowing with seed catalogues from all around the country. The time has come to make plans for the next expansion of the orchard, time to plant seeds in the old greenhouse standing between the long, lonely shadows of the winter gardens, patiently waiting for the last threat of frost to pass. There is a game plan for the garden. It reminds me of those Parables in the Gospels where Jesus used the agrarian life to illustrate deeper truths about the Kingdom of Heaven. In that regard, I have always been drawn to the Parable of the Sower in Matthew’s Gospel. It opens with the best advice we can possibly hear. Jesus had been busy about doing ministry among the people. Pharisees and teachers of the law asked for a sign, and their confrontational attitudes continued to escalate. Even his mother and brothers came, wanting to “speak” with him. In the Gospel of Mark, his family wondered if he had “lost his mind.” (3:21). How could he possibly do the miracles they witnessed? Matthew writes, “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.” (13:1). Sounds like good advice. Rather than jump through hoops, like his detractors were demanding, Jesus found a quiet place to rest. The crowds persistently followed, and he continued to teach in parables. In the case of the sower, he even took time to explain what the images he described would mean for those who listened. The parable was literally about seeds, and soils and a sower, but Jesus was teaching a deeper truth about the Kingdom of God for those who might see and hear with spiritual discernment. My prayer is that we will see and hear the truth of God more clearly. May our spiritual yield be measured in multiples of 30, 60 or one hundred times what we sow. Sometimes, when life is hectic and the pressure to perform becomes overwhelming, we simply need to get out of the house and sit by the lake. Easy is better. May God give us peace, and may our hope always rest securely in Christ. With grace,
Dr. Stew Grant, Pastor of Marriage and Family Ministries Cliff Ritter