Our New Role at FamilyLife

It is with great joy that we enter into a new phase of ministry here at FamilyLife as the National Prayer Directors for the Weekend to Remember® (WTR). It is the perfect time, the perfect place, to serve a Perfect God. We are excited to see how God will manifest himself according to John 14:13-14

As the National Prayer Directors we will provide an effective and transferable scripture-based prayer effort for the WTR through a volunteer organization in each Weekend to Remember getaway area. We will help the local WTR City Ministry Team and the Regional FamilyLife Staff in selecting prayer leadership and intercessors for each WTR getaway. We will also provide the personnel training, organizational strategies, and resources necessary for each Weekend to Remember getaway area to have effective and specific prayer coverage for the WTR getaway cycle culminating in on-site hour by hour prayer coverage during the WTR sessions.

Grandparents

Now that I have been a grandpa for a couple of months I have a whole new perspective on prayer.  It started when we got the phone call but really set in when I received the following 'official' birth announcement from our son.

 "We have been reminded of our smallness and of God's majesty these last few weeks and continue to marvel that Father God would give up his Son on our behalf. That He would pay mind to us who are so small and even exceed that by giving us joy in the arrival of our own smaller son has helped us cling to Christ even more. Please join with us as we worship Christ our creator who thought it for our best to give us a baby boy:

Zebulun Miller (Zeb) - 7 lbs, 20 inches long, born on Aug 25th @ 12:24 AM and healthy to boot!!!"

Not being able to be hands on in raising Zeb, I realized that my greatest influence on Zeb is and will be by praying for him and his mom and dad.

If you are a grandparent, aunt or uncle you may be interested in the following quote from The Family Manifest regarding grandparents.

"We believe grandparents are to be honored as valued family members. We believe their

The Art of Marriage

August was an exciting time as we joined the entire FamilyLife staff for our staff conference. Our time of fellowship and training was capped with the premiere of The Art of Marriage. Wow! This video event makes it possible for individuals and churches to bring the biblical principles of marriage to their local community.


 The Art of Marriage is like no other video 'conference' experience you have seen.  This is not a recording of a live event but is designed specifically for the video audience.  Take a look at this clip, The Art of Marriage , then decide how you might use The Art of Marriage to minister to those in your sphere of influence.

Marriage, The Foundations

As Margie and I celebrate 30 years of marriage today I was reflecting on our beginnings and journey to this point in our lives.  I attribute our 'success' in marriage to three things; Jesus Christ, mentors, and biblical blueprints.  Our personal relationships with Jesus Christ gives us the capacity to grow together in unity.  Christ-following mentors early in our relationship lived out a picture of what it looks like when two imperfect people join together in marriage.  Biblical teaching in our churches and the Weekend to Remember® getaways we attended throughout our years of marriage have provided solid blueprints on which to build a strong marriage foundation.

In a recent Marriage Memo article, God's Purposes for Marriage, Dennis Rainey writes that "three purposes give your marriage a sense of direction, internal stability, and the stamp of God’s design. They lift your marriage above the everyday, run-of-the-mill relationship and place it on a high and lofty spiritual plane." These purposes are; 1) Mirror God’s image, 2) Complete each other and experience companionship, and 3) Multiply a godly legacy. Margie and I took these teachings to heart in 1980 and look at us now!  To God the glory!

You can find out more details about building a strong marriage foundation in the book Starting Your Marriage Right, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey, Thomas Nelson Publisher, 2000. Or you may listen to Dennis and Barbara on a Starting Your Marriage Right CD from FamilyLife®.

A Very Special Romantic Getaway

Looking for a romantic getaway with your spouse? FamilyLife's Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise is the perfect place to reconnect, recommit, and strengthen your marriage. The ship departs February 14, 2011, from Port Canaveral, Florida, and makes stops in Cococay and Nassau, Bahamas. Check it out!

One of the great things about a cruise like this is that you do not have to put up with all the secular stuff of a regular cruise.  There'll be plenty of great teaching and encouragement in addition to time just for you two!  Margie and I have been on two previous cruises and even with our restricted choices of foods we had plenty to eat!  And good stuff too!!

Giving Away Ministry…

There are many heroes of the faith and Steve and Robbie Brooks, I believe fall into that category. In 1980 Steve and Robbie were involved with a ministry of discipleship of which Margie and I were beneficiaries. We learned skills of evangelism and developing disciples fo Christ but most profoundly they invited us to our very first Weekend to Remember! They gave away ministry allowing us to participate alongside of them, helping us help those we could influence. It is hard to imagine what our life would have been like without the influence of Stephen Robbie Brooks.

They are currently on staff with Crown Financial Ministries, Steve is the Area Director for Arizona. They touch the lives of hundreds each year through their ministry in the area of biblical financial responsibility. They are still in the business of giving away Gospel ministry.

As you know, the US economy has been struggling for a couple of years. Many people are trying to make ends meet each month. And unfortunately, most Americans are going further into debt each month, which only exacerbates the situation. I would like to let you know about some of the FREE (and nearly free) resources Crown Financial Ministries has to help people to get their financial house in order. If these resources are not for you, perhaps you know someone who could benefit from their use.

Here are some links that you might like to look at…

Address to the St. Louis Weekend to Remember® Volunteers

It is good to see each of you and be able to join you today via webcam.

We are on the beginning of some of the greatest ministry opportunities in the history of FamilyLife®. There are many individual reasons, some very personal, as to why each of us are involved with this ministry. But the underlying reason for all of us is that we want to share the Biblical principles of marriage with those around us because we know that this message is life changing.

I would like to take us to Matthew 25:14-30, The Parable of the Talents.

• A friend's book The Path of Consequence caused me to re-think the application of this parable on a day-to-day basis in my own life.

• God has given each of us talents to use in his Kingdom's work. I usually thought of the talents in terms of material possessions when studying this, not extending my thinking to gifts and abilities.

• The protagonists find themselves on a journey to discover a hidden treasure in the book The Path of Consequence by John W. Richardson. The lessons they learned as they looked for and pursued clues...