Husbands and wives who regularly date will have healthier marriages. Looking for a great date idea? Here’s one you may have not considered – regular, weekly Christian worship.
There are babysitters waiting for you and you don’t have to pay a dime. We have coffee and good food for you to eat together. There are good people to meet. But more importantly you both get to experience the presence of God in worship, and hear him speak to you personally in the preaching of his Word.
As you sit next to one another singing, praying, listening, partaking, it becomes a powerful-shared experience that knits your hearts together like no movie ever could. You become connected at the deepest level of who you are – your very spirit and soul. You walk out of the service stronger, encouraged, united, and stoked in your shared love for one another, equipped to make it through another week.
Don’t just send your spouse, while you sit at home doing housework. This is something you do together. When you go on a date, you don’t send her to the movie while you sit at home do you? You don’t send her to the restaurant to eat by herself while you clean the garage do you? You go together. Sunday worship is your best opportunity for a date together and it works best if you go together. Don’t let Sundays pass you by! That’s when your best dates will happen.
The Global Leadership Institute in Sierra Leone was recently the focus of the Crossway (ESV Study Bible publisher) blog. My good friend, and co-instructor in the institute, Pastor Brian Main of Vienna, OH was able to get 25 ESV study Bibles donated to the pastors who participated in the institute. Here’s a link to the blog article.
We are fortunate in America. If we’re thirsty we can reach for another 12 oz bottle of water and enjoy. This isn’t the case for those in Sierra Leone. Clean drinking water is a huge need. Many die from water born diseases from unclean water supplies.
I remember at the beginning of 2009 thinking, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if God would open up a door for Victory’s Crossing to drill a well in Africa.” I thought about it. Talked with my wife about it. Prayed about it. Little did I know that through my friend John Thompson, I would meet Pastor Gregory Bangura from the Ivory Coast this year.
Pastor Gregory was with us this weekend as our special speaker. He stayed in our home. We toured the White House and had much time to talk and dream. The short of it is he has contacts that drill wells. He’s going to help us sponsor a well to be dug in October of 2010. We’ll dig this well next to a church. This is a great way not only to help a community with a tangible need. It is a way to bring salvation in Jesus name as the church shows love.
Love opens all kinds of doors for the gospel. This well will be the first of many. These will be wells of salvation!
Robert Murray McCheyne put together a yearly Bible reading plan for his church in Scotland back in 1842. It’s still around. Today it’s known as McCheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar.
This plan gives 4 chapters of Bible reading a day – 2 from the Old Testament, 1 from the New Testament, and a portion from Psalms. This will allow the person to read the Old Testament once, and the New Testament and Psalms twice in a year.
What is unique about McCheyne’s plan is how he lays the whole thing out. You don’t just begin in Genesis and plow on through, reading 4 chapters at a pop. On January 1 the reader begins with the four great beginnings of Scripture – Genesis (the birth of creation), Ezra 1(the re-birth of Israel), Matthew (the birth of Christ), and Acts 1 (the birth of the church). Starting at these key places and reading on from there each day helps the reader see and appreciate how the Bible fits together as a whole.
I was struggling recently in my Bible reading. I was waking up each morning trying to remember what chapter I was on last. When I finished a book of the Bible it would take some time to decide where to go next. I found myself reading just a few of the main books, leaving the lesser-known ones untouched.
I’m enjoying McCheyne’s plan. It takes just 15 minutes to complete a day’s reading. I would encourage you to try it out if you don’t have one. You need one. Think about it now especially as we approach the New Year. It would be a great way to kick off 2010.
Isn’t Living Together Logical?
In a recent survey by Bennett, Blan, and Bloom (American Sociological Review, 1988, Vol 53: 127-138), it was discovered that 80% of couples living together without marriage vows later decided to separate not get married. That’s 80%! 60% of couples that were married by a Justice of the Peace later divorced. Tragically, 40% of couples married in a church were later divorced.
But of those couples that were married in a church, before God, friends, and family, and who made the decision to read the Bible together regularly, their divorce rate was just 1 in 1,025! That’s a failure rate of .009%!
So, living together before marriage isn’t the best approach. It’s best to do it God’s way. Marriage is his idea and it was given to us as a gift. God knows what is best. So, to make your relationship last, get married in a church, before God, friends, and family. Then commit to read the Bible together and worship on a regular basis. With that strong spiritual foundation you’ll be able to weather any storm!