A Refreshing Reminder

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Pastor

Noah and Mike in "The Promised One" Cantata

The Christmas season has come and gone and as we all prepare for the New Year, it should not be without reflection upon what 2011 has taught us.   In my own life, there have been many lessons from last year and for 2012 I have set some personal goals that God will have to enable me to meet.

But for the sake of brevity, let me just share with you just a couple of thoughts on the impact that our churches musical drama “The Promised One” had on my life.   I felt the picture above (thank you Sara) captured the thoughts that I came away with perfectly.   The scene is the shepherds hearing the message of a Savior from the angel, and it reminded me simply of two thoughts….

1) The simplicity of life…  I was reminded that these shepherds heard the voice of God while living life in a simpler form.   I understand that busyness is part of our society, but as we enter 2012 it should not be planned so that God cannot get our attention or even change our plans.   Ministry and life is about people and relationships,  first with God, and then with other people… this father in this picture is making sure that his son understands the importance of a relationship with God, and keeping priorities straight.   I was challenged in my own life where sometimes even ministry invades our time with God…

2) The passion to serve...  in the play, our shepherds could not wait to tell those who had not heard of a Savior, that God had fulfilled his promise to the world and sent the Messiah.   In the Bible those shepherds were not commanded to go…  but they chose to go because they knew that what they had learned would benefit all who heard.

Within the pages of your Bible are the answers to the most perplexing issues of life.   Everyone today is dealing with something,  it doesn’t matter if it is a marital problem, or a wayward child or a financial problem.  As I look around and I see people seeking solutions to life’s problems everywhere but where the answer is… I am reminded of the passion that the Shepherds had.  They just wanted to tell everyone of what they knew to be true…   Lord, keep that passion alive in us this year.

 

Pastor

 

 

 

Posted in encouragement, Life | 1 Comment

Helper or Enabler, which one and I (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Pastor

Part of this idea of becoming dysfunctional is that when a family member steps out of their responsibilities, many times other people in the family step up to the plate and overcompensate.

Let’s say someone in your family… lets say Dad slips on the ice and he hurts his back and he has to miss 3 weeks of work.   So for three weeks Dad has to sit there and do not much of anything… well during that time, things still need to happen for that family to function, and the rest of the family will have to pitch in to make it all work…  maybe mom will have to pick up some cleaning work to help make ends meet… maybe the kids will not be able to do some afterschool activities because they just don’t have the money…  someone in the family has to do Dad’s chores, take our the trash that type of thing…  this is normal and it is expected.

At the end of three week, Dad says…  “you know… I like playing video games all day”… “I think I will leave my job and stay home for a while”.  So mom gets a full time job to pay the bills.  Now we move into a dysfunctional and overcompensation.

Instead of confronting the problem of dad refusing to work… mom steps up and starts to fill his role…   And here is the real problem… the better a family overcompensates for the family member who is out of sorts… the less accountable the dysfunctional member has to be for the rest of the family.   If mom gets a job making more than dad did… well then why in the world does he want to go back to work.

Let’s put a different face on this… let’s take a child who is old enough to work, but doesn’t want to… I am not putting an age on this because it happens at a lot of different ages.… so every time they need money, they come to dear old mom and dad looking for a handout.

 Now I am not talking about an emergency or an exception, I am talking about living that way on a regular basis…  let me ask you something, is it the right thing for children to live off their parents on a regular basis?  No, the parents job is to teach them to function in society…    Let’s say they are out of school,  they should be able to support themselves financially… They say to you… but I am only getting 20 hours a week at my job, so they need to go out and get another job.

If you continue to support them, many will say, it is because I love my child… but that is not love, you are teaching them to be irresponsible…

So now this family member can not function in their role just because they don’t want to… and there is no recourse for that.  And if it is not addressed, that family gets stuck in that mode of operating and they get used to the family being dysfunctional.

Let’s say Dad is a workaholic… he is always at the office… and rather than confront that situation… mom take the kids to all the places they need to go… Dad has not seen one ball game all year… and now when the kids have something going on… they don’t even expect dad to be there.   All that pressure is on mom.

Do you see the different ways that this rears its head…

Rest assured… this is not God’s way… this is the worlds way… so what is God’s way.

Galatians 6:1 – when one member of the family becomes irresponsible and they are not going to do what they are supposed to do… how do the other members of the family respond… are they supposed to just pick up the slack for their family members? Or sweep it under the rug and not deal with it.

“restore” means to fix something that is broken…  Notice that verse did not say to pick up the slack for them… or to turn a blind eye… or to endure their disobedience… no… it says  seek them out and restore them.   Not screaming and yelling, but with meekness and in the spirit of love.

If it is not dealt with… it will move from a problem… to a dysfunction.    We move from helping to enabling.   When someone refuses to function in their role, and we don’t address it… we enable them and we empower them to act that way.  we give them permission…. That is what enabling means… it is giving that person permission to be irresponsible.

And you may say.. well if I confront that person, they won’t listen to me…  and many times you have to bring someone else into the mix to confront that person… and that is where this idea falls apart for many, because nobody wants the confrontational part.    But you cannot just stay in a stuck broken position…  But let me show you one more bible example.

2 Thessalonians 3:  the setting is that in this church it is believed that after 1 Thessalonians when Paul was encouraging this church by reminding them of the second coming of Christ… that some of the believers had decided to quit their jobs because they were sure that the Lord was coming back right then… so they quit their jobs and they were waiting around for the Lord’s return.

And this causes some dysfunction in the local assembly.   The people who decided not to work were going from family to family trying get a free meal because they were not working…

So how does Paul say to deal with these folks… does he say, work harder and feed your brothers in Christ… does he say overcompensate for them…  does he say, wait a minute, they are brothers in Christ, you should just take care of them… just take up the slacke.

They need ot be allowed to continue in their dysfunctional behavior and just overcompensate for them… 3:7-11…   Now notice in verse 14-15… Paul says you don’t treat him with kit gloves.. you don’t sugar coat it…  you don’t OK their behavior, you don’t overcompensate…

You tell them the truth… that they are out of order… you let them know that they are not fulfilling your responsibility within the family…  and if they don’t listen you may even have to withdraw fellowship from them.   That is how serious this issue is.

Don’t count them as an enemy, but the lack of fellowship serves as a disciplinary tool that God uses.

When a family members behavior has gotten severely dysfunctional… there is usually a history of tolerating their behavior.   Somewhere along the line, they have been enabled.  Their behavior is not acceptable… but it is excepted.

When wrong behavior is not confronted… the person who is out of order is enabled and empowered to continue in their wrong behavior.

And the illustration we could use are endless… but here is where the rubber meets the road…  that person, and it may be you… needs to be confronted and restored… any other approach will result in overcompensating, enabling and empowering.

Listen, problem within any relationship are common, but within the family they are magnified, because we are a relation based system… and we are interrelational , and interdependent.

 Each person has a responsibility… too many situations today are the result of enabling.  The Lord requires accountability in our roles in our families… many tiems it just needs to be restored.

As always, I welcome your comments or observations

Pastor

Posted in Christian Growth, Family, Marriage | Leave a comment

Helper or Enabler, which one am I? (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Pastor

Please forgive the length between these posts, we just got our Internet back after the storm.

We are seeking to answer the question… Helper or Enabler, which one am I? In the last post, we came to 1 conclusion… The Body of Christ and the Family are interrelated and interdependent

That means that each person has a purpose and function and the fulfilling of that purpose/function effects those who are in either the church or the family.

Now, let’s take that principle and apply it to the family because they too are interrelated interdependent parts that make up that family… One family, but many members Ephesians 5 & 6 gives us those responsibilities that we went over already.

If one of those people doesn’t fulfill their role, does it effect the other members of the family? Sure, because it is a relation based system. Because this is a relation based system… it gives us the ability to hurt those around us within that system.

Illustration: If it was my birthday and someone visited the church and they did not say happy birthday to me… that would not hurt my feelings because they are not close to me… they are not part of this system yet… but if my wife failed to acknowledge my birthday… it would hurt me because she is a part of this family… so within the systems… is the ability to be hurt… but also there is the ability and the responsibility to edify or build up.. Can your family encourage you ? Can your church family encourage you? Can you come away from one of those systems and be ready to take on another battle for the day? Sure….

A Family is dysfunctional when someone neglects the responsibilities that they have… and they are allowed to stay in that state of irresponsibility.

Illustration: let’s put some meat on this principle… let’s say we have a family with a three children … the youngest… Johnny is a 5 year old… and he is a brat… I mean just a spoiled brat. When mom and dad tell him to do something he backtalks them… his attitude is awful, and when he doesn’t get his own way, man he throws things and screams and disrespects his parents and his siblings.


The parents don’t discipline the child… in fact, they enable that child to continue being obnoxious by not only allowing him to be that way, but if he yells long and hard enough, they even give in to his wants.

Now what ends up happening, is that this family get stuck in this broken position… he never gets discipline… he never experiences consequences for his actions.. Let me ask you something, does that child’s behavior effect the rest of the family?

Of course, turn to 1 Corinthians 5:6 the setting here is that there was a member of the church (Verse 1), which is a relation based system who was in sin, he was out of order… and Paul says… that the way he is acting, is going to effect the entire family, because we are a relation based system.

So what happens is that one member who is out of line starts to effect the health of the rest of the family. How does that little undisciplined boy effect the family…. Well Dad knows that it is his responsibility to deal with that boy, and he is not, and the Spirit of God will bring conviction to that man… he may stick his nose in the newspaper, but inside he knows that he is not doing his job….

Because that boy acts so poorly, they never go out to a restaurant as a family, and mom can barely take this kid to the grocery store without a scene being made. The boy knows that mom is a pushover (and dad never backs her up ) …

Can I just stop here for a moment… if there is one truth that I could give to families tonight from the scriptures… it would be this… DAD… lead your families . Take the responsibility that God has given to you, and do your best to be faithful to your role… most of the problems in a marriage & family will fall into place if Dad will exercise Godly leadership.

If there is a serious problem with one of the kids, don’t make your wife deal with it… sit that child down and remind them that attitude is not allowed in your home. I am amazed at the parents who let the kid set the mood and the tone of a home.

Back to the undisciplined child… Mom isn’t listened to because all she does is warn and threaten so he doesn’t listen to her at all… and she gets mad and starts yelling and screaming …. The older sister, she can’t stand to even be around this kid, so she never comes out of her room… and the older brother… well if the bratty brother can get away with it, then so can he… and he begins to change.

Do you see how this system is effected by one member who is not doing right. Let’s look at it from another angle… mom is a spender, the family doesn’t have any savings because she spends money… she doesn’t look for bargains, she doesn’t use coupons…. If she wants it she buys it. There are no budgets set up… Dad never confronts her about these spending habits… never cancels the credit cards… never has that discussion, but he knows that the bills are getting harder and harder to pay… so instead of addressing the real problem which is mom’s spending habits… he looks for overtime at the shop… or looks for a second job. And it moves from being a family that is malfunctioning… to a family that is now dysfunctional they have stopped working.. They are actually now breaking things down emotionally, spiritually, and mentally .

Is the family effected… sure, dad sees mom as the problem… the kids never see dad anymore because he is always working… and when dad is home, he and mom just fight about money.

Now that illustration points out two things… first is the allowing of unhealthy behavior to exist to a point where a family becomes dysfunctional…. But the second idea is this idea of overcompensating .

We will finish this up next week.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions.
Pastor


Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment