#futurefamily

[gondorunsessizbahcesi]

Ben mutfakta yemek yaparken karım arkadan sarılsa, bebeğimiz de bize bakarak gülümsese… sanırım mutluluk tam olarak böyle bir şey olurdu.

[pennedbymaeve]

Everyone seems to love having a polaroid photo taken with their significant others (on the back of their phones), which is wonderful. But you know what I'd like to do with my partner? It is to begin filling the blank pages of a number of photo albums with our photographs, and then, maybe, soon, we will both be able to show it not only to the rest of the world, but especially to our future grandkids. 🤍

[langitsoreee]

One of my bucket list when married. Extremely Amazing!!

[frostbitfall]

[pastor-matt]

The Echo

     Today we are wrapping up our series, Future Family but we hope that the conversation does not end with this series as we all can use a little help when it comes to our families.  Today as we conclude this series, I would like to stretch your thinking beyond your current family environment.  When we talk about this topic you typically think of your immediate family because we are Westerners.  However, if you asked this question in other parts of the world, they would tell you about their past family, present family, and future family.  Here is why this is important for us today.  We are who we are because of our parent.  They are who they are or who they were because of their parents and grandparents.  In other words, we not only have influence in this generation but in the generation after us.

     The best illustration of this principle comes from Scripture however if you remember back to the first couple of weeks of this series, we talked about the lack of good examples in the Bible.  In fact, if you think your family is dysfunctional just read the Old Testament and you will feel better about your family!  The story that we are going to explore today covers about 60 years or half of the book of Genesis.  We know the second half of this story but we can’t fully appreciate it the second half until we know the first half.  This story emphasizes generational parenting and answers the question, “what kind of legacy am I leaving for the next generation?”

     The story begins with Abraham who had a son, Isaac who had two sons that were twins, Esau and Jacob.  It’s important to note that Esau was the firstborn who was due a double portion of the inheritance and would become the judge of his entire family, once his father passed away.  However, we are going to shift our attention to his twin brother, Jacob who had twelve sons and the most famous one was Joseph.  This is the story that many of us grew up hearing and know well.

     When Joseph was about seventeen years old he discovered that all of his brothers wit the exclusion of Benjamin who wasn’t born yet, hated him.  They hated Joseph because he was the son of his father’s favorite wife, just imagine the chaos that caused.  One day Jacob told Joseph to deliver a message to his brothers and as Joseph is approaching his brothers see him coming and begin to plot how to kill their brother because they are tired of him tattling on them constantly.  When Joseph gets there they smile, strip him of his fancy robe and throw him in a well to decide what to do with him.  Then they are overtaken with mercy and decide not to kill him but to sell him into slavery and tell their parents that Joseph was killed.  They sell their brother to some slave traders, mix his blood with animal’s blood on the robe and return it to their father telling him that his favorite son is dead.  Now just pause and think about what must be going through the mind of seventeen-year-old Joseph.  He is shackled behind some camels and dragged across the desert.  He understands the life of a slave because he has grown up around them, leaving him to believe that his life is over because he doesn’t know if he can make the journey to Egypt, who he will be sold to or what he will spend the rest of his life doing if he does make it there.

     Once Joseph gets to Egypt he was sold to Potiphar, who was a captain in the army of Pharaoh, meaning he was lucky to be sold to a powerful man.  Joseph decided to live life in a manner that conveyed God was with him, even when it seemed like God had abandoned him.  Then Potiphar’s wife presents a proposition to Joseph which he refuses because it would dishonor her, her husband, Joseph, and most importantly God.  Joseph sticks to his morals and doesn’t give in so Potiphar’s wife frames the Hebrew boy that was brought into their household tried to rape her.  The leaders had to listen to her so the salve, Joseph, was then thrown into the dungeon.  It was really bad to be a slave in the dungeon because you weren’t waiting for a court date, you were just waiting.  Yet Joseph continued to live as though God was with him even though it appeared that God had abandoned him.  

     Then a lite bit of time goes by and Pharaoh gets mad at a couple members of his posse so they are thrown into jail with Joseph where Joseph interprets their dreams.  One of the dreams he interprets is of the cupbearer and Joseph asks the cupbearer to remember him when he is released from prison because Joseph has been there for so long.  The cupbearer is released from the dungeon, what Joseph said would happen, happened but Genesis tells us that the cupbearer forgot all about Joseph.

     Two years later, Pharaoh has a dream that no one can interpret and the cupbearer suddenly remembers Joseph.  Pharaoh summons Joseph and as he arrives in front of the most powerful man on the planet, Joseph tells Pharaoh that he (Joseph) cannot interpret his dream, but his God may be able to help Pharaoh with the dream.  Basically, in this moment Joseph tells Pharaoh that there is one true God that Pharaoh is accountable to and as the guards begin to grab their swords to kill Joseph because this is blasphemous to a man that was considered a God, Pharaoh tells Joseph to go ahead with the interpretation.  Joseph tells him that they will have seven years of fruitful crops so much so that they won’t know what to do with it and then seven years of famine that could potentially cripple their nation and surrounding areas.  But Joseph doesn’t stop there he then proceeds to give advice to Pharaoh telling him to find an advisor to oversee the project of collecting the fruitful crops and storing it so that when  the famine hits, Pharaoh can sell it back to the people making himself incredibly wealthy.  And the Pharaoh does the unthinkable by putting Joseph in that position as the Prime Minister, making him the second most powerful man in all of Egypt.  They store their crops and continuously have to build new holding silos for everything they have but then on the first day of the eighth year it all stops and no one can grow anything.  Joseph begins to distribute the grain and food to those in Egypt and word begins to spread that help is available.  Two years into the famine, Joseph’s original family has run out of food and they have no choice but to go to Egypt and buy food.

     Joseph is now 39 years old as it has been 22 years since he has seen his brothers and now they are bowed in a row before him.  He remembers their voices as he stood at the bottom of the cistern.  He remembers his fear as a seventeen year old boy whose fate was held in the hands of his ten older brothers.  He remembers their smiles as they sold him and the clink of silver as they were paid for him.  He remembers all of the years he spent in the dungeon unsure about his future.  As he is remembering all of this he sees his brothers bowed before him and their fate is in his hands.

     At that moment Joseph remembered a scene from his childhood and connected the dots.  To understand this part of the story that often gets overlooked we need to rewind the story.  Remember, that we started with Abraham who was the father of Isaac who was the father of Esau and Jacob.  This part of the story happens when Esau and Jacob were teenagers who were very different.  Esau was a woodsman and Jacob was an extraordinary cook.  Genesis tells us that one day after Esau had been out hunting for several days, he had nothing to show for it and returned home to smell something amazing that Jacob was preparing.  Esau comes in a begs his brother to give him some of the stew or he will surely die.  This is an important moment because younger brothers are never given an opportunity to leverage anything to older brothers because the older brothers never need anything from the younger brother.  Jacob proposes something that he believes is out of the question by asking for Esau’s birthright meant that Esau would have four to five times the wealth of his siblings.  In that moment teenage Esau, with an undeveloped frontal lobe agrees to the trade.  He ate his stew and when the stew is gone so was his birthright.

     Some time passes, we are unsure of how much and all of the children are called into receive their blessing, which was the legally binding ceremony with their dying father who was almost blind.  Part of this ceremony would include the father, Isaac laying his hands on Esau and declaring him judge over the entire family.  Jacob, with the assistance of his mother covers his arms with fur beaus Esau was a hairy individual and Jacob needed to deceive his father.  Jacob sneaks in ahead of Esau and lowers his voice and receives the blessing from his father.  A little while later Esau comes in for the blessing and Isaac is confused because he has already given it away.  Esau is angry with his brother as Jacob has stolen everything from his brother and there is nothing Esau can do about it.

     Esau vows that as soon as Isaac passes he is going to kill his brother so that he will get his birthright back.  Jacob is terrified and leaves the country to live with an uncle.  The uncle had two daughters, Leah and Rachel who Jacob marries and Rachel becomes his favorite wife.  Leah begins to give birth to children and Rachel offers him her maidservant because she can’t get pregnant and over 20 years go by with four women giving Jacob eleven sons.  During this time Jacob becomes so wealthy and so abundant that his uncle actually tells hi that he has to move because there simply isn’t room for them.

     Jacob is then instructed by God to return to his native land and he is hopeful that God is with him because if not he believes that Esau will kill him and all of his sons before taking Jacob’s wives as his own.  He will also take all of Jacob’s property and wealth believing that God had finally vindicated him of the acts of his foolish younger brother.

     Jacob gathers his family and possessions together, placing them in a large unprotected caravan.  As they are walking along, Jacob notices his brother Esau waiting for them with 400 men who are poised to attack a vulnerable caravan.  Jacob gets scared and arranges the members of the caravan in order of importance to him.  Then Jacob proceeds to the front of the caravan and begins bowing down seven times to his brother until his brother realizes it is Jacob returning.  Everyone in the caravan is watching as their fate is the hands of a man who they do not know and that their master hasn’t seen in twenty years.  Esau shows mercy to his brother and this was a story that Joseph had experienced and heard about his entire life as his uncle Esau spared the life of his father Jacob, which brings us back to Joseph standing before his brothers with the power of life and death in his hands.  In that moment Joseph chose to do for his brothers what he witnessed his uncle do for his father.

     In a moment of conflicting emotion he chose to do what he saw modeled for him by his uncle and father, which was mercy.  Eventually the rest of the story unfolds as Joseph reveals who he is to his brothers and there is a moment of fear in all of them.  But then they embrace and weep together reconciling the relationship between the brothers.  Even after Isaac died and the brothers expected Joseph to extract his revenge he tells them that he will not because what they intended for harm God used for good.

     The moral of the story is this what our children and grandchildren see us do will lay the groundwork for what they do in moments of crisis.  They will forget almost everything we say but they will not forget who we are and what we stand for, or what we did in the face of adversity.  What if we are now determining what our future family will look like?  Chances are we are doing this already so what will our imprint be?  Actions don’t merely speak louder than words, sometimes they echo into the next generation.  What will echo from you life into the next generation?

[pastor-matt]

Our Way, A Way

     Welcome to week five of our series Future Family where we have been dealing with issues surrounding families.  Today’s post is going to be a little bit different because I want to address some questions surrounding parenting and provide some insights about our comprehensive curriculum that we recently purchased as a result of our FOR Campaign.  When it come to the topic of parenting I will admit that I am still learning so as we explore this topic we will pull from several sources that are more experienced than I am.

     As we explore this topic today we must first understand that the approach to this topic will look different for everyone.  Perhaps you are from a traditional family, blended family, single parent family, or maybe you don’t have children but regardless of your situation there will be things said for all of us that will help us because we should all desire to impact the next generation because someone once did that for us.  For those who have children one insight that could be very beneficial might be to establish rules or family commandments.  These could include things like “Thou shall not lie” and “Honor your mother.”  When we establish guidelines like these it becomes the standard or a reflection of the ideal that we discussed the first couple of weeks of this series.  In regards to the topic of lying, its important because if you lie you break the relationship.  In families, if you honor others, you become a hero.  In the church if you help parents/families win you become a hero.  We have to model this for other people not simply talk about it to them.  As a church this applies because one of the first things that children observe, is how the church treats their parents.  If the church empowers their parents and helps them feel supported, the children are happy.  But if the church devalues their parents, the children are likely to disengage and may never come back to the church.

     Maybe you want to take this a step further and establish family objectives that are based in how your children behave.  These could include things like: Have enjoyable adult relationships with your children.  In other words, once our children are grown we want them to want to be with us.  The goal here is not to be obedient or even good but to want to be with us.  Another example would be children who feel accountable to God and who seek His will for their lives.  We want our children to know that God has a plan for them and we don’t want them to miss it.  We need to help our children understand the voice of God, be discerning about it, and move towards it.  Finally, Don’t bail, let ‘em fail.  This means that we don’t protect every skinned knee or hurt feelings but allow our children to learn life-lessons.  When our children are young, they can learn life-lessons about friendship and authority, when the stakes are really low.  When these situations arise, you can support them entirely and march down to the school to confront the individual that hurt your child or you can ask them how they think they should respond to the situation.

     Shifting gears a little bit, I want to turn our attention to the two biggest factors that shape our soul, which are rejection and acceptance.  We are who we are today because of these two items and the dosage of them we have received.  These two items are shaped at home by the words we use and the schedule that we choose.  Perhaps there are words we used that even though they were true, conveyed a sense of rejection to our children.  We probably can recall the words of our parents that fall into this category and the reality is that our children will remember this category of our words as well.  To counteract this we must, decide what they need to hear and say it ten more times than you think they need to hear it.  Next we need to look at our schedules and how we schedule our time.  We need to examine how we spend our time and what we make a priority.  Our days may feel long, but our years are so short and we need to be aware of this.  We have to learn a key word in the English language that many of us are not good at saying, which is “no!”

     Now let’s concentrate on the topic of discipline.  There may come a time when your children do not like you or that you may be afraid of them.  As you think about this topic you need to understand that later is longer.  We want our children to like us later in their lives and later is longer than right now.  This topic is challenging because maybe you are saying the right things and doing the right things but it seem like your child is just pushing themselves away from you.  Whatever the case, I invite you to think about parenting in the following stages: The Discipline Years (Ages 1-5); The Training Years (Ages 5-12); The Coaching Years (Ages 12-18); and The Friendship Years (Ages 18+).  It is important to move through these stages in order and not try to skip around to what is convenient.

     As you think about the concept of discipline there are three main areas you can focus upon, disobedience, dishonesty, and disrespectful, otherwise you will wear yourself out.  There is a Biblical context about discipline that I just want to point out quickly.  We know that God is our Heavenly Father and He disciplines those He loves.  As Christians we need to remember that God has sided with us against sin.  When we sin, God is grieved because of the consequences we face and the scars we bear.  However, due to the cross, we know that God has sided with us against sin.  Discipline is all about reestablishing broken relationships.

     One final area that I want to explore is the concept of Faith and Family.  To understand this topic more fully we need to help our children understand the intersection between their faith and their decisions.  As a church we are choosing to emphasize the concepts of faith and family through the utilization of the Orange Curriculum.  This curriculum combines the light of the church (yellow) and the heart of the family (red) because two combined influences make a greater impact than just two influences.  The two influences must work together because there are 8,760 hours in a year of which the average parent has 3,000 hours of influence and the church has 40 hours in a given year of influence.

     To understand how we will accomplish this we need to integrate five central practices.  First, we must Integrate the Strategy by aligning leaders and parents to lead with the same end in mind.  A strategy is a plan of action with an end in mind.  That means you have identified what you want something or someone to be, you use your creativity and intellect to devise a way to get there.  Second, we must Refine the Message by crafting core truths into engaging, relevant, and memorable experiences.  It’s not what you say, its how you say what you say.  Say less more often so everyone will know what really matters.  Third, we must Reactivate the Family, by enlisting parents to act as partners in the spiritual formation of their own children.  Parents are looking for three simple things from the church: Give me a plan because they want a system of support, consistent influence, and a steady flow of relevant information.  Second show me how it works because parents need influence just as much as children do, and they desire to be engaged in the process in a way that prompts them to take the next step.  Third, Tell me what to do today.  If we are going to to truly partner with parents we have to give them specific instructions or resources to use this week.  Here is why this is so important: What happens at home is more important than what happens at church.  Family shapes us, connects us, and influences our story.  Who shaped your story?  Fourth, we must Elevate Community by connecting everyone to a caring leader and a consistent group of peers.  Everyone needs to be believed in by someone, and everyone needs to belong somewhere.  Fifth, we must Leverage Influence by providing consistent opportunities that are created for others to experience ministry.  The heart will gravitate toward whatever offers adventure and significance.

     Orange thinking is just a different way of looking at everything you do.  Orange thinking is not either/or but both/and.  If you are thinking both/and, yo are synchronizing the efforts of the church and family around a master plan.

     In regards to strategy, your key leaders are becoming both specialists and generalists who will break down silo thinking.

     In regards to the message you are valuing truths that are core and evolving your style to connect with culture.

     In regards to family, you are cultivating spiritual and moral leadership in parents who are inside and outside of your church.

      In regards to community, you are tapping into the influence of the parent and recruiting other adults to build influence with kids and teenagers.  

     In regards to influence you are mobilizing volunteers to BE the church and they are mobilizing those they are influencing to the BE the church as well.

[pastor-matt]

All the Fixin’s

     We are currently in the middle of our series entitled Future Family where we are dealing with the issues surrounding families.  It is important for us to remember that the words surrounding families are not emotionally neutral words.  The words father, mother, brother, sister, son, and daughter have emotions tied to them because they are not emotionless words.  One of the largest lies that you can tell yourself in regards to your family is this, I don’t care.

     Maybe for some of you, you used to care, but you stopped caring.  Maybe it was emotionally complicated to care or it wore you out.  The reality however is that this lie of I don’t care is one of the most harmful lies that you can tell yourself when it comes to your family.  We were born and created to care and if you don’t care, it means there is something wrong with you.  This becomes most evident not in the relationship with our mothers, children, or siblings but with our fathers.  We long for the approval of our fathers.  We need to remember that no matter how many times we tell others or ourselves that we don’t care, the reality is that we were created to care.

     Today, we are going to explore a topic that will make many of us uncomfortable but is necessary.  Today, we are going to discuss how to reconcile ourselves to that one family member that we say we don’t care about but deep down we really do.  When it comes to our relationship with these individuals, this is a losing battle that is worth fighting.  While complete restoration may never occur this is a battle worth fighting because of what happens inside of you.

      Christ’s love for us limits our options, focuses our energy, and leaves us with no choice.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that Christ died for us, which was something that was uncomfortable for us (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).  In other words we need to learn to say “no” to ourselves to say yes to what God is requiring of us.

     God initiated the act of Jesus coming and taking away our sin.  Reconciliation means that you take two things that are incompatible and make them compatible.  God took us when we were at odds with Him so that the door would be open for us to choose if we wanted to go through it or not.  We were guilty and God pursued reconciliation.  Here is what this means, through Christ, God removed every obstacle to reconciling with us except us.  God set the table, opened the door, and even sent you an invitation therefore the only obstacle to reconciling with God is you.  The only obstacle to you being reconciled with God is you.  God has removed every single barrier or obstacle between us and Him, meaning that the only barrier to us being reconciled with God is ourselves.  However, when it comes to reconciliation in the family typically we try to meet them halfway.  We don’t want to move in their direction unless we know they are going to move in ours but that is exactly what Jesus did for us.

     Reconciliation is in spite of ... it’s not because you are going to get everything right every time.  It’s not because suddenly you see as God sees because there will always be things that you don’t see eye to eye with God about.  Reconciliation is in spite of not because of.  God reconciled with us in spirt of our sin and calls us to do the same with our family and others.  As Christians we are to carry the message of reconciliation.  

     All of our relationships are to be reconciled to God and we can share this message with others.  This is what is to characterize the way we live and interact with people, which brings us to the problem.  We often tell others, you can be reconciled to God in spite of your sin.  But you can’t be reconciled to me because of your sin.  This proclaims a message that our standards are higher than God’s  God reconciled us to Him in spite of our sins so we should be willing to reconcile with others in spirt of our sins and theirs.  You may be wondering if there is ever a moment that you can say, I’m done trying to reconcile this relationship and the reality is that there is a time that you can stop trying to reconcile yourself with others, it’s when your Heavenly Father gives up on you.

     Now there may be objections to what you have read so far and let me just cover them quickly.  The first objection you may have to reconciliation is that it’s too complicated.  It’s not just one elephant in the room it’s an entire herd.  Reconciliation is not working through the issues or making sure the other person understands you or rehashing it over and over.  Reconciliation isn’t about coercing, controlling, or condemning another person.  Reconciliation is setting the table, opening the door, and sending an invitation and maybe never talking about the issues.  Why?  Because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  We don’t have to die but maybe just send a letter, make a phone call or something like that.  Reconciliation is in spite of everything.

     The second objection would be if I go over there, it’s like I’m condoning that relationship.  If someone calls you on condoning a relationship that you are trying to reconcile you are in the same company as Jesus.  The reality is that we often times hide behind this objection because we are uncomfortable with the relationship and we don’t want to move in their direction.  Remember that while we were still sinning and all of our future sins, Christ died for us.  He didn’t condone our sin, He just moved into our lives in spite of our sins and started working.  The third objection, is that you may believe that it’s not going to work.  Even if it doesn’t work on them, it will work on us, which can become the epicenter of God working in your life.  Author Bob Goff stated, “Loving people the way Jesus did either changes everything in us or it changes nothing.” (Everybody Always)

     As we land today I would like for you to think about this question; who in your family are you tempted to say I don’t care about right now?  Remember we were created to care and we are to do for them what our Heavenly Father did for us.  We are to set the table, open the door, and send the invitation just in case they ever decide to respond.

[taketherycen-brycen]

What can I say? I'm in love with the girl #futurefamily #me #mine #notouchy