Hello everyone!
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and am having some minor issues with the design side of things. I’ve been meaning to redesign the site for a long time anyway, so this will force me to, but in the meantime, the content is all the same, things just look a little different for now. Let me know if you happen to run into any other problems!
I totally apologize to Craig Groeschel for trusting me to write a review of this book in a timely fashion and taking months to do it! I want to live up to my word, however, and make sure this does get reviewed, as this book is a very valuable resource.
Craig Groeschel of Lifechurch.tv recently wrote a book called “Going All the Way – Preparing for a Marriage that Goes the Distance.” It is a fantastic book. It’s easy to read in the fact that Craig’s humor and writing style are very personal and it is easy to relate to him. It’s hard to read in the fact that there are a lot of challenges to popular culture’s view of love and marriage that might be hard for some folks to get through. But bravo, Craig for hitting the nail on the head. From the first chapter:
Let me warn you: this book may require a radical shift in your thinking. If small changes would do the trick, everyone would be making them. Minor adjustments produce marginal results. Most of us need to overhaul our thought processes. To experience the kind of relationships we long for, we must, with God’s help, prepare to be genuinely different.” (pg 7)
Well said. The one thing I appreciated most out of all of this book was that after the introductory chapter, the first chapter is about “finding the one.” In common cultural language, we immediately think that he’s talking about finding the one person we’re meant for on this earth. But he doesn’t write about that at all. He writes about Jesus being the one. Jesus being our first love. The person you marry will always be “the two” and Jesus will always be “the one.” Fantastic way of opening the book.
The rest of the book goes on to present some great challenges in how we handle relationships. Friendships, romantic relationships, engagements, roles of husbands and wives.
This book is a very, very good resource, especially if you are struggling with wondering how to handle a romantic relationship in a godly way while being immersed in a culture that’s full of lies about relationships and sex. Craig breaks through the confusion and lies of our culture and sets things straight.
A great day on Sunday at Living Word.
Songs:
I will never get sick of Jesus, Thank You. What an amazing song to sing. Pastor Wade taught on four curses that came about as a result of the fall. One of the has been a very tricky subject for many Christians – the curse that man would rule over woman. He did such an awesome job explaining these things and pointing out that if men don’t step it up in there own lives and be a true spiritual head that is willing to die for his wife as Christ died for the church than it will never work. I’d encourage you to take a listen to the sermon. It was phenomenal. One fantastic quote from Wade:
Whoops, did I just do the stereotype of the American sitcom? Dad’s you want to get down about your role in life, just watch TV. Men, you will start to see that the cultural expectation for you is to commit adultery and to buy beer…we men are easy bait…God wants you to step up and lead your families…He wants you on your knees, taking your family before the Lord, doing battle. He wants you on your knees, He wants you in His word, to step up and be a man!”
Truth Project in small group was awesome. We looked at “Who is God” and El Qannah, one of the Hebrew names for God rocked my world. Study that name sometime. It will challenge, change and blow your mind on who God is.
Sunday was again a great day in the life of Living Word (as always).
Songs for the service:
We’ve been talking about “the day the universe changed” for the last two Sundays and it’s been really interesting. This past Sunday we talked about the blame game and were definitely challenged to examine ourselves. We were also reminded of the promise in Genesis 3 that the woman’s offspring (Jesus) would bruise his (the serpent’s) head. Literally blow a crushing blow to him and vanquish him. I thought it was awesome that Sing to the King has the exact words, “Satan is vanquished and Jesus is King” in it. I had no idea that there would be a section on “how to vanquish Satan” in the message. I love it when God works like that.
We had another awesome Truth Project small group meeting with some tough discussion. We talked about the question “who is man” and how society generally teaches that man is basically good with no tendency for evil. The Bible teaches the opposite. It was a struggle for some people in the group to understand how children could be born into sin. I have to admit that I was having a tough time coming up with an explanation. I know the Bible says “in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 139) and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3) but how do you argue that children are sinful to someone who doesn’t believe that the Bible is true (our group believes the Bible is true, I’m talking in general here)?
I also assured the group that even though children are sinful, there is somehow a mystery that they can have great faith, even at the infant stage (at least I’m fairly certain the Greek implies this in the New Testament where Jesus talks about having the faith of a child). This is something that we can never understand, one of those amazing mysteries of God that we can take joy in.
It’s now been over four years since I’ve been to a conference on worship and music. I am definitely missing it. The last conference I attended was Created to Praise in St. Louis where I witnessed the birthing of Paul Baloche’s latest arrangement of How Great Thou Art. That was pretty cool.
Anyone have any conferences near the SD, MN, NE, IA area that they would recommend or has there been one super-standout moment God has given you at a conference recently?
Ryan is a follower of Christ, husband, father of three, and Director of Worship & Creative Arts at Living Word Free Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
