I’m looking forward to this Wednesday night and the first session of Sacred Marriage, a class I will be teaching over the next several weeks with my friend Bryan Atkinson. This will be the second time we have offered this class, but the first time Bryan and I have taught it together. This class is free and will meet in our chapel from 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. You can RSVP your spot on our church website.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the class.

The day we say “I do” is one of the most extraordinary moments of our lives. It is a day that is marked by hope, filled with joy, and defined by the great promises that we share with our spouse.

Yet, what many of us realize over the course of time, is that having a sacred marriage is much more difficult than planning an inspiring and beautiful wedding. Marriage is sometimes a difficult road, with twists and turns we often do not expect, and hurts and setbacks that can leave us discouraged, disheartened, and in some cases determined to walk away.

If you have ever found yourself discouraged in your marriage relationship, the Bible offers great words of encouragement.

Sacred Marriage is a five week learning experience designed to help us see the purpose behind God’s holy design of marriage. While this class will not make the issues in your marriage disappear, it will help you to see yourself, your spouse, and your marriage in a whole new way.
God designed marriage to be a blessing to you, to your spouse, and the entire world. The hope of Sacred Marriage is that we would begin to embrace that dream.

Holy and loving God, we pause this day to remember the tragedy that our nation experienced on September 11th, 2001.

Most of us Lord, cannot escape the memory of that Tuesday morning

We remember where we were,
we remember what we saw,
we remember how we felt,

We remember…
the shock and horror that left us paralyzed,
the fear that gripped our hearts and seemed to hold the world hostage in the weeks that followed.

We remember with sadness the terrible loss of life that resulted from senseless and evil acts of violence.

and we return to that grief today Lord,
to honor those whose lives were tragically cut short,
to give thanks for the heroes whose instincts may have told them to flee, but whose training and courage sent them into burning buildings to save and preserve life.
And to remind ourselves Lord that in our most perilous moment of need, we turned to you…

And in that turning Lord,
You grieved with us.
You cared for us.
You held us close.
You comforted those whose loved ones were lost.
And in each moment that has followed that terrible day, your spirit has been working to bring healing to these shared wounds…
And to restore what we cannot live without, our fervent hope in you and in your promise that good will prevail in the end.

We remember Lord that lesson that we learned in those horrible days.
that evil cannot stop the force of good,

and so as people of faith,
people of hope,
and people of love,
we commit ourselves again to your dream of peace for our world.
Use us as your people to see this dream come true.
In the name of Jesus we pray. AMEN.

This weekend we are beginning a new series simply titled, “Why?”

Over the next three weeks, we will be wrestling with some of the deeper questions of our faith. Along the way, we also hope to affirm the idea that questions are not only normal, they are an essential part of our process of becoming a more deeply committed follower of Jesus. You can see the three questions we will be looking at listed below as well as a video to introduce this series.

I hope to see you for this important series which starts this Saturday night.

Why is it so hard to find God’s will for my life?
Why do my prayers seem to go unanswered?
If God is God, why is there suffering?

Why? from First Methodist Mansfield on Vimeo.

In my sermon a few weeks ago I made the following statement.

“Isolation is an enemy of spiritual health.”

As with most messages, there is often something said that you really wish you could spend another 30 minutes discussing. In fact, there is often something said that you wish everyone could break into smaller groups and discuss because there is a lot of “meat” that you hope people dig into.

And you know the truth of that particular word or phrase or “nugget” because you’ve lived it. You’ve experienced it firsthand and your hope is that others can learn from that experience and as a result of that learning, they end up choosing a better path for their life.

But making a dramatic course correction in our life often involves more than just hearing someone say something.

It often involves wrestling and questioning and challenging and being humbled enough to see something or someone in a new way. Its what Romans refers to as the “renewing of our mind,” and that process often does not happen overnight. In other words, truth does not work it’s way into our heart and lives passively. It involves an active seeking on our part and a willingness to sit with uncertainty and mystery with the type of patience that trusts that God will reveal truth in God’s perfect time.

In the days ahead, I’m going to write a bit more about the idea that isolation is an enemy of spiritual health. I think it’s an important truth. But in the meantime, I want to ask…

What are you chewing on? What are you wrestling with? In what way is truth being worked into your life through the word, the phrase, the “nugget” that you are chewing on in your life?

God desires us to walk in truth and away from falsehood. It’s quite a journey and the questions that you are wrestling with today are step forward along the way.

Each week our church produces three podcasts. If you are not familiar with the term, here is a quick definition of how Wikipedia defines the term podcast.

A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word replaced webcast in common vernacular due to the fame of the iPod and its role in the rising popularity and innovation of web feeds.

The three audio podcasts that we produce each week are two sermon podcasts (my sermon from the previous weekend as well as the sermon from our Senior Pastor Mike Ramsdell) as well our GPS podcast which is a “radio style” program hosted by our Student Ministries Director Johnny Brower and includes Mike and I.

You can subscribe to each of these podcasts. If you do, the latest audio file will immediately download to your computer where you can either listen to it on your computer or sync it to a mobile device.

Here are some directions if you are interested in subscribing through iTunes.

1. Download iTunes here: http://www.itunes.com/download/
2. Install iTunes.
3. To subscribe with iTunes, click on one the links below (you may have to tell your browser it’s okay to launch iTunes)
4. Click the podcast icon in the iTunes sidebar to view your subscriptions and check for new downloads.
5. Double-click any file to play.

Links to subscribe

Mike’s Sermons
David’s Sermons
GPS Podcast

For all three of these podcasts, you can also listen online on our church website.

The links to stream each of these podcasts are available here.

Mike’s Sermons
David’s Sermons
GPS Podcast

Need any additional help, let me know.