This much is certain: American Christians would profit from taking church commitment at least as seriously as we take marital commitment. One pastor of my acquaintance includes an interesting exercise in premarital counseling. She has the couple plan each other’s funeral. She finds that this makes the spouses-to-be think about what kind of person their lover may be years or decades later. And then the two start talking about how they might best take care of each other and their marriage right now. By asking how their marriage may end, they discover how it may best begin and be sustained to its end.
Something of the same quality pertains to one’s marriage or commitment to a church. Maybe churches (and their ministries) really are about nothing more important than marrying and burying. Maybe marrying and burying are more closely connected than we think.
Read it all.
Rodney Clapp: Blest be the ties that bind
This much is certain: American Christians would profit from taking church commitment at least as seriously as we take marital commitment. One pastor of my acquaintance includes an interesting exercise in premarital counseling. She has the couple plan each other’s funeral. She finds that this makes the spouses-to-be think about what kind of person their lover may be years or decades later. And then the two start talking about how they might best take care of each other and their marriage right now. By asking how their marriage may end, they discover how it may best begin and be sustained to its end.
Something of the same quality pertains to one’s marriage or commitment to a church. Maybe churches (and their ministries) really are about nothing more important than marrying and burying. Maybe marrying and burying are more closely connected than we think.
Read it all.