Why do people quit on good relationships?

I quit

All good relationships start with the basic premise that more than one person and point of view is involved.  Everybody has dreams and wishes that need to be acknowledged and accommodated. There are basic rules for relationships just as there are rules in sports and games and law courts, and everything else in life.  In relationships, though, we don’t always know or follow them.  And there aren’t penalties for bad behavior.  So when rules of respect and caring are broken, the damage is profound and lasting but sometimes hard to identify and deal with.  People with good reason to feel hurt may react by lashing out, which makes everything worse.  People who hurt others don’t react well when confronted with anger.

The poet Robert Burns wrote in 1786 what a powerful gift it would be to see ourselves as others see us. Just as powerful would be the gift to see others as they really are. Stories of dysfunction in others are riveting. We just can’t help devouring reality shows and talk shows where we see conflict larger than life.  Watching people misbehave, however, encourages the viewer to judge others, while being spared from looking at themselves.  We love to judge others because it gives us a sense of self righteousness.  We become smug, judgmental, unteachable and ultimately destructive.  So we learn to dismantle before we destroy – a relationship quitter.

Puritan preacher and scholar, John Owens, said  “The person who understands the evil in his own heart is the only person who is useful, fruitful and solid in his beliefs and obedience.  Others only delude themselves and thus upset families, churches, and all other relationships.  In their self-pride and judgment of others, they show great inconsistency.”  (see Romans 7) This is the reason!  We quit not because we are too busy or just need some space or found other interests; we quit because we don’t see ourselves and our sin for what it is.  Shaping true community means that we confess our own sin and seek to love other in spite of their faults rather than being judgemental and smug.  (see Luke 14)

If we knew we did things to hurt our relationships, would we stop doing them? Could we?  If we suddenly understood that the people we demeaned were not so bad, would we suddenly praise them for their good qualities?

How would it feel to ask someone close to you, someone you trust, rather than a stranger in the newspaper, if you’re kind and easy to get along with? And then actually take a moment to listen without justifying or saying a single word. Then go away and think about it.

It is easier to quit, to be blind and miserable.  But is this what we really want?

To Save a Life

To Save a Life is a movie that covers many areas that our teens struggle with today. Northbridge’s High School Youth Group will be going to see this movie at M89 Theater in Otsego/Plainwell on Thursday, Jan 28, 2010 at the 6:05 pm showing. For parents of younger teens, this movie is rated PG13.  Lynn Coonrod and Cassie Keith were able to go to pre-screening of this movie prior to it coming out in theaters. It is a great movie and they are excited for the teens to see it and hope to do an outreach to the community when it comes out on dvd.

Northbridgers, if you would like to see the movie it is showing at M89 in Otsego/Plainwell on the following dates….to watch the trailer click To Save a Life.

Jan 22 – 23, Fri – Sat: 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, 3:15 pm, 6:05 pm, 8:40 pm & 11 pm

Jan 24 – 28, Sun – Thurs: 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, 3:15 pm, 6:05 pm &  8:40 pm

Synopsis

Ever since Jake Taylor was a kid, he was the type of guy you couldn’t help but like. For Jake, life is good. He has a ton of friends, a basketball scholarship, a hot girlfriend and a really bright future. Not much to get down about, right?

Enter Roger Dawson. He was Jake’s childhood best friend before Jake’s growing popularity pushed him out. Tired of not fitting in and having a place to belong, Roger walks onto campus and, with a gun in his pocket and pain in his heart, makes a tragic move.

Jake is devastated by what Roger has done, and something in him changes. In seeking answers in his own life, one question plagues him the most: Could I have saved him? He finds himself deeply compelled to reach out to kids on the fringe — kids who aren’t viewed as cool enough. But this decision among other things, threatens Jake’s world. He may lose his friends, his scholarship and even his reputation by asking “What do I want my life to be about?” To view the trailer clickTo Save a Life

Falling Out: Message #4 Outline and Community Group Homework

Message Notes

Marriage and Singleness

1.  The Purpose of Marriage is to Reflect God’s Nature – Ephesians 5:20-33

2.   Marriage is Good and Ordained by God. Genesis 2:18

3.  Neither Marriage nor Singleness is God’s Best.

4.  Singleness Demonstrates Four Truths that are less Evident in Marriage

That the family of God grows not by propagation through sexual intercourse, but by regeneration through faith in Christ;

That relationships in Christ are more permanent, and more precious, than relationships in families (and, of course, it is wonderful when relationships in families are also relationships in Christ; but we know that is often not the case);

That marriage is temporary, and finally gives way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church—the way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face;

That faithfulness to Christ defines the value of life; all other relationships get their final significance from this. No family relationship is ultimate; relationship to Christ is.

How to remain single and love God!

1. See the bigger picture in redemptive history.

2. Claim the promise of blessing through singleness  Is 56:5,6; Is 53:5; Is 54:1

3.  Value your spiritual family that can provide for you as an earthly family.

4. Understand that Marriage is Temporary but God’s family is primary and eternal.  Luke 11:29; Mark 10:29-30

When should one should marry?

When you know that marriage is not merely:

Affection,

Sexual attraction,

Structure in which to raise a family

When you understand the 3 Principles of Marriage

1. Essence of Marriage – Legal Contract

2. Purpose of Marriage – Deepest companionship

3.    Priority of Marriage – Has great power to change you

When you pass the Three Tests.

1. Could this person be your #1 counselor and friend and no one else can come close? (Principle 2)

2. Are you headed in the same direction? (Principle 3)

3. Can you legally bind yourself to be serving, loving and tender to this person, regardless of how they act toward you – for the rest of your life. (Principle 1)

Community Group Homework

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Discuss as a group:  Why is idolatry so important in the Bible? Idolatry is by far the most frequently discussed problem in the Scriptures. So what? Is the problem of idolatry even relevant today, except in certain countries where worshipers still bow to images?

DIGGING DEEPER

The Idolatry Question – Has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to your heart’s trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delight? It is a question bearing on the immediate motivation for one’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

Who or what “rules” my behavior, the Lord or a substitute?

The undesirable answers to this question—answers which inform our understanding of the “idolatry” we are to avoid—are most graphically presented in

What do the following verses say about idolatry?

¨ 1 John 2:15-17

¨ 3:7-10

¨ 4:1-6

¨ 5:19

Where do idols come from according to the following verses?

¨ Ephesians 5:5

¨ Colossians 3:5.

¨ Ezekiel 14:1-6

TAKING IT HOME

How can the relationships within marriage and family become idols?

How can a person who is single worship marriage?

What advice would you give a person who is lonely and desires marriage but has not found a godly mate?

The life patterns often labeled “codependency” are more precisely and penetratingly understood as instances of “co-idolatry”.  Explain how an alcoholic husband and rescuing wife are enslaved within an idol system whose components complement each other.

What do you believe each person is worshipping?

Read the following statement by D. Polison.  How does he present the Gospel as the solution and ONLY solution to the problem of the idols in our heart?

The Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, “God accepts you just as Christ is. God has ‘contraconditional’ love for you.” Christ bears the curse you deserve. Christ is fully pleasing to the Father and gives you His own perfect goodness. Christ reigns in power, making you the Father’s child and coming close to you to begin to change what is unacceptable to God about you. God never accepts me “as I am.” He accepts me “as I am in Jesus Christ.” The center of gravity is different. The true Gospel does not allow God’s love to be sucked into the vortex of the soul’s lust for acceptability and worth in and of itself. Rather, it radically de-centers people—what the Bible calls “fear of the Lord” and “faith”—to look outside themselves.

In UK more Muslims listen to Imams than Christians to Preachers

Article by A. Mohler

Preaching has fallen on hard times. So suggests a report out of Durham University’s College of Preachers. The British university’s CODEC research center, which aims to explore “the interfaces between the Bible, the digital environment and contemporary culture,” conducted the study to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the College of Preachers. The report is not very encouraging.

As Ruth Gledhill of The Times [London] reports, “Sermons, history shows, can be among the most revolutionary forms of human speech. From John Calvin to Billy Graham, preaching has had the power to topple princes, to set nation against nation, to inspire campaigners to change the world and impel people to begin life anew.”

Indeed, preaching is the central act of Christian worship, but its great aim reaches far above merely changing the world. The preaching of the Word of God is the chief means by which God conforms Christians to the image of Christ. Rightly understood, true Christian preaching is not aimed only at this earthly life, but is the means whereby God prepares his people for eternity.

Yet, you wouldn’t know this if you judged the importance of preaching by its place in many of today’s congregations. Gledhill observes, “In many churches this most vibrant of moments has withered to little more than 20 minutes of tired droning that serves only to pad out the gap between hymns and lunch.”

The withering of preaching is not uniform in all congregations and denominations. Evangelicals were most enthusiastic about preaching, while others registered less appreciation for the preached Word. Interestingly, Gledhill reports that “Baptists and Catholics were also more enthusiastic about the Bible being mentioned in sermons than were Anglicans and Methodists.”

The Anglicans also expressed a desire to be entertained, rather then educated. The Rev. Kate Bruce, Fellow in Preaching and Communication at the CODEC center, said that “in a culture which values entertainment and likes stand-up, over a quarter [of respondents] said they want preaching to be entertaining, too.”

Well, they will have to be quick about the entertainment. Many Anglicans indicated that they wanted the sermon to be less than ten minutes long. As Gledhill remarks, they might be willing to allow up to twenty minutes “if there was no ‘waffle.’”

Perhaps the biggest question raised by the report is why so many British churchgoers (96.6%) said they “look forward” to the sermon. Ruth Gledhill comments:

In their report the Durham researchers admit to puzzlement that so many people looked forward to the sermons, and confess that more work was needed to find out why.

The report questions whether people look forward to the sermon so much for the content, the engagement, the entertainment, the theology or simply that it gives them time to switch off.

Time to switch off? According to the report, Britain has only 3.6 million “regular churchgoers” out of a population of over 60 million. That is, only about five percent of Britons even attend church services on any regular basis. Evidently, many of those who do attend “look forward” to a very short message from a preacher that entertains them.

England, of course, is the nation that once gave us preachers the likes of Charles Simeon, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Now, with the rare and blessed exception of some faithful evangelical churches, preaching has fallen on desperate times.

Some observers of British life now estimate that in any given week Muslim attendance at mosques outnumbers Christian attendance at churches. That means that there are probably now in Britain more people who listen to imams than to preachers.

This raises an interesting question: Is the marginalization of biblical preaching in so many churches a cause or a result of the nation’s retreat from Christianity? In truth, it must be both cause and effect. In any event, there is no hope for a recovery of biblical Christianity without a preceding recovery of biblical preaching. That means preaching that is expository, textual, evangelistic, and doctrinal. In other words, preaching that will take a lot longer than ten minutes and will not masquerade as a form of entertainment.

Time and time again, God’s people have been rescued by a recovery of biblical teaching and preaching. The right preaching of the Word of God is the first essential mark of the church. As the Reformers made clear, where that mark is absent, there is no church at all.

The study conducted for the College of Preachers is interesting, if also frightening. But little is gained from asking confused people what kind of preaching they want. The faithful preacher takes as his first and most sacred responsibility the charge to give the congregation the preaching it needs.

Ruth Gledhill, “To Some, Sermonizing is a Sin, but Christians Still Value the Preacher,” The Times [London], January 19, 2010.

Song of Solomon Teen Study Lesson 3 Notes

SESSION THREE… The Art of Courtship-Overview (Moving Beyond Dating)

Nine Steps of Courtship

1)Observation

2)Edification

3)Evaluation

4)Declaration

5)Invitation

6) Discovery

7) Resolution

8 ) Desire

9)Self control

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS…

1) Why do you think we feel so much guilt if we mess up in the area of sexuality and relationships?

2) What does Tommy suggest we should do about it?

3)Would this be helpful to you personally?

4)What type of things did Tommy say were necessary before you are ready to begin courting?

5)When do you think these things will be true for you? Why?

6)How do the steps of courtship that Tommy lays out compare with how our culture thinks about dating?

7)How are they better?

8 ) How would they be more difficult?

9) Would you be willing to commit to a process like this?

KEY THOUGHT

“If you’ve blown it, that’s why we have a savior. Jesus is the carpenter’s son-He takes our messed-up lives and reworks them into something beautiful. ”

MEMORY VERSE

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. Joel 2:25

Movie Night – Double Feature

Theater 1

Theater 2

Faith Like Potatoes Trailer

Racing Stripes Trailer

Are you looking for a night out with your family that costs you very little money if any at all?! Northbridge Church’s Family Movie Night is the place for you! Friday January 15, 2010 there will be two movies showing at the same time. Parents can be upstairs watching Faith Like Potatoes while their supervised children will be downstairs watching Racing Stripes. Many children come dressed in their pj’s and bring their blankets and pillows. Doors will open at 6:15 pm and the feature presentations will begin at 7:00 pm.

There is no charge for the movie with concessions being sold for 10 – 50 cents.

Northbridge Church is located just North of D Ave on Douglas (8824 Douglas Ave, Kalamazoo, MI 49009) If you have any questions please contact Lynn at 269-385-4378.

To read about the movie click on the picture above and to watch a preview click on the trailer link.

Coming Soon and Worth your Time!

“I’ve come to learn that theology matters. It matters not because we want to impress people with our knowledge, but because what we know about God shapes the way we think and live. Theology matters because if we get it wrong then our whole life will be wrong.”

Coming January 2010

From the Back Cover:
I know from experience that it’s possible to be a Christian but live life on the surface. The surface can be empty tradition. It can be emotionalism. It can be doctrine without application. I’ve done it all. I’ve spent my share of time on the sandy beaches of superficial Christianity.

This book is the story of how I learned dig into truth and build my life on a real knowledge of God. How I first discovered that orthodoxy isn’t just for old men but for anyone who longs to know a God who is bigger and more real and more glorious than the human mind can imagine.

The irony of my story is that the very things I needed, even longed for in my relationship with God, were wrapped up in the very things I was so sure could do me no good. I didn’t understand that seemingly worn-out words like theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy were the pathway to the mysterious, awe-filled experience of truly knowing the living Jesus Christ.

They told the story of the Person I longed to know.

–Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep
The Story Behind the Title:
The name for the book was inspired by a parable that Jesus told. Last summer I was on a beach in Florida reading Luke 6 and I came to the familiar story of the two builders. One built his house on sand and it was washed away by a flood. But the other “dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock” (Luke 6:48 NIV). When the torrent struck, his house stood firm.

Jesus said that the man who built his house on rock was a picture of the person who comes to him, listens to his words and them puts them into practice. That simple, slightly off-beat phrase “dug down deep” jumped out at me. And I knew I wanted to use that as name of the book I was writing. For me, it sums up the heart of what it means to build your life on what Scripture calls sound doctrine. Ultimately it’s all about the person and work of Jesus. It’s about coming to him, hearing his words and then putting them into practice.

Dug Down Deep has eleven chapters–eight of which are reflections of key Christian beliefs including the Doctrine of God, Scripture, the Person and Work of Christ, the Atonement and the Holy Spirit. The book is very personal and narrative-driven. I share the questions, misconceptions and hang-ups I’ve had what it’s meant to allow Scripture’s truth to reshape my thinking.

I hope the book will be accessible to people who might not normally read theological books. That includes Christians who are turned-off by doctrinally faithful but arrogant believers as well as people who are skeptical of the usefulness of Christian doctrine. I also hope that it will be given to friends outside the faith who have never really understood basic Christian beliefs.

Many of you have prayed for me during the writing of this book. Thank you so much. If you get to read the book, I hope you’ll be encouraged. Please continue to pray as the final stages of copy editing, proofing and design are finished by the publisher.

Falling Out: Message #3

PROMISE – Believe that God has a perfect plan for my life. (Jer. 29:11)

Overarching Dating Principle for Sons and Daughters – The authority of the parents, especially that of the
father is to be honored.

• How a child will respond to this principle depends on how parents have built up a “bank of trust” with their son/daughter.
• This is counter-cultural (Romans 12:2) and there is no guarantee that a young adult will follow unless they are seeking God’s best for their life.

Preparing Sons for Marriage
Principle – Prepare sons to leave their parents (Genesis 2:24)

Areas of instruction for boys and young men:

1. A Christian must marry a Christian (1 Corinthians 7:39)

2. The Bible defines the entry point, boundaries and ending of a marriage commitment.

3. Learn to create the atmosphere of a godly marriage. (1 Corinthians 4:16)

4. Learn what it means to be a man.

a. Biblical masculinity ‐ Masculinity: The possession and pursuit of redeemed

perspective and character, enhanced by qualities consistent with the

distinguishing male roles of leading, loving, protecting, and providing—all for

the glory of God.

b. The importance of fatherhood in a godly home

c. What a gentleman is

2. A gentleman takes responsibility for himself in following God’s

will.

Preparing Daughters for Marriage

Overarching Principle – Authority of the parents, especially that of the father is to be honored.

Reminder – Dad’s Dating Credentials are:

• Built on a daughter’s trust in her father
• Built up by the father as a biblical man over time in the little things
• Built up by fathers who love their daughters and do not frustrate them (Col. 3:21)

“Parents must prepare themselves to do the right thing in the great things by
doing the right thing in the small things” Douglas Wilson

Principle – Sons leave the home but daughters are given in marriage.
Areas of Instruction:

1. Christian women ought to marry Christian men.

2. How to dress with modesty

3. How to dress appropriately

4.What the Bible says about the high value of feminine beauty

5. Father’s Example and Protection

6. How to responsed to men or potential dates.

Do you believe God’s PROMISE?  Will you follow his PLAN?

Multi-Site is no longer a fad. It’s here to stay.

When churches started to offer multiple sites some said that this was just another church fad.  It will fade.  That doesn’t seem to be the case with many larger churches branching out and reaching more people in many places with their message.

Read USA Today’s article on the multi-site revolution:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-12-17-1Amultichurches17_CV_N.htm?csp=usat.me

Memorizing Scripture

“It’s hard for the flesh to think God thoughts. It’s hard to concentrate on spiritual concepts. The brain doesn’t like to think, especially if its on spiritual matters. We like to sit down in a nice, soft chair in a cool breeze and float to heaven on a flowery bed of ease. I’m that way and I know that in life, there are a lot of things that come easy, but getting the Word of God on your heart through memorization isn’t one of them. Its spiritual. Anything spiritual is work, and my flesh and blood doesn’t like work. But it can be done, and we can do it!”

Dawson Trotman

We can do it!  This week we begin a 4 year journey of weekly Scripture memorization!  The first Sunday of the month is a chronological verse for every man, woman and child to memorize.  The young ones will memorize that verse all month.  The chronological verses will help us locate the BIG stories of God’s Word.  In four years, we’ll have one verse for every Big story!

The weekly verses the rest of the month will help us locate the major teachings of God’s Word such as the authority of Scripture, the Trinity, the deity of Jesus Christ and much more.  In four years we will have many verses to locate the major teachings of Scripture memorized!

The verses will be printed in the bulletin every week.

We can do it!