Ending the Silence

I have been in blog silence for some time now.  No particular reason, but many non-particular ones.  We started writing a weekly follow up for our sermons that goes out via email so some of what I was writing here is now found there.  I should probably just blog it, but I haven’t.  I have been uber-busy with our church.  Blogging is one of the things I feel is easy to set aside for more urgent tasks at hand.  Plus I have had both of my parents fighting some health issues this Spring so that has taken some extra time.
 But there is one other reason…I only want to write words that matter…I don’t want to write to words to matter.  I feel the same way about preaching.  I want to speak words that matter…I don’t want to matter because I speak words.  I have not felt I had the time to do that, so I have chosen not to say something weakly because I do not have time to give it strength.  But if you stay silent long enough there is strength in what has built up inside you.
 So here are 10 things to catch up a little as I jump back in.  Some of the points are from my sermons, some for right here, and some from others I have learned from.
 1.     Your family is not picture perfect.  It’s priceless.
Too many people throw away a priceless family over a lousy year’s worth of snapshots.  It’s priceless…fight for it.2.     Conflict boils down to 2 heart issues a.  I am not getting what I want
 b.  You are not doing what I want.
Check your heart in conflict.3.     Conflict happens.  Marriages end not because of what we conflict over but how we conflict.
 Speak truth…but speak it in love.4.     Marriage is not an accidental snapshot of the Gospel…it is a designed portrait of Christ’s love for the Church and the love of the Church for Christ.
The vision I have for Wendy and I is that a hurting world and a confused church would see the love of Christ for the Church and the love of the Church for Christ in our relationship.5.     Servant leadership inspires loving submission.  Loving submission inspires leaders to serve. It is not either/or it is both/and.6.    Parenting is a great calling.  “Bring up” your children is not about making kids happy but about building honorable adults.
If you don’t plan for the destination you will never get there.7.     If decisions that are supposed to be hard are easy, your heart is hard.
Love adds great weight to all hard truths.8.    Making hard decisions benefits everyone involved…in the end.
The hard decision you are making today is about tomorrow…hope.9.     You cannot teach what you do not know and you cannot lead where you will not go.Pastor and parents, what are you saying do that you’re not doing?10.   Humility is humiliating.
The church that is THE CHURCH is a group of people that can confess the humiliating to one another and not be humiliated but be held up, held accountable, and headed forward.  Too many thoughts for one blog, but it got me back in the game and back on the page.