Marriage
By far the most important and most complex relationship in my life
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Find Real Friends: How to Build Friendship in a Lonely World
We have never had more ways to connect, yet many of us feel increasingly alone. Real friendship begins when we stop waiting to be noticed and take the brave first step of noticing someone else.
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Build Your Imperfect Family: Five Practices for Healthier Relationships
Family is one of God’s greatest gifts—and one of life’s greatest challenges. There is no perfect family, but through prayer, forgiveness, honesty and grace, we can help build healthier families and churches.
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In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
It has been interesting to hear my daughters responding to the avalanche of abuse claims coming out after the #metoo movement gathered steam. International women’s day has been commemorated since 1975, but things have seismically shifted over the past 24 months in a way that has surprised many people including me. My girls are strong, beautiful and intelligent and they are very sensitive to anything that looks like injustice based on gender. On one occasion my youngest daughter was feeling tired and she burst into tears because she had suddenly internalised the data about the wages gap between men and women and told me “I am going to get paid 20%…
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We need to rediscover the self-giving generosity that actually is love, and stop settling for cheap imitations.
We received our postal ballot in the mail today. For those overseas who might not be aware, Australians are being invited to express their opinion on the legalisation of same-sex marriage. While it is not really a referendum, the Government have declared that they will base their policy on the result of what is, in fact, a giant opinion poll. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the whole question and what it means to be a follower of Jesus in this moment in our countries history. More people have read that reflection than anything else I have written in the last seven years, which gives an idea how…
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In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
Embrace big changes. Both the joyful, and the horrible moments of discontinuity produce life.
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The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
Every now and then life takes a major turning point. Something changes that means every other aspect of your life is affected. From an external perspective, my family and I are in a moment like that right now. In eight days time we will be boarding a Qantas flight to head back to Australia. I will begin my new job as Senior Pastor of Citywide Baptist church, Hobart, a week later. On the surface it looks and feels like a very big thing. It feels like a life turning point. At a deeper level though, I think real life turning points look much less dramatic. Last Sunday I gave my…
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I don’t know where the next 23 years will take us but I do know who I will be sharing the adventure with… the bravest person I know.
As we come up to Mothers day in just over a week, I’m going to take the opportunity over the next little while, to reflect on the ways that three women in particular have shaped my life I find myself at another point of transition. Transition isn’t easy. I wasn’t expecting my life to be so full of change when I left home as a 17 year old. When I was 21 I met someone who would become my partner on this crazy journey, and she has been the person, by far, who has had the biggest influence on my life. We started our journey together with long talks about…
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Embrace big changes. Both the joyful, and the horrible moments of discontinuity produce life.
We need to rediscover the self-giving generosity that actually is love, and stop settling for cheap imitations.
The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
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There is no question that women have not been seen or valued by the church in the way that Jesus saw or valued them. #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear
Often in brain-dead moments I will scan my Facebook or Twitter news feed. This morning I came across a post from Michael Frost which linked to the twitter hashtag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear, and intrigued, I clicked on the tag. If you are not on social media you can look at this blog by Rachel Elizabeth Asproth where 55 of the top tweets are collated. It is an interesting list, mostly of direct quotes that women report being said to them in the context of church. Apart from the odd one (and some were very odd), the overall sentiments could be summarized as: Women shouldn’t teach men (either because the Bible says so or because they…
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Embrace big changes. Both the joyful, and the horrible moments of discontinuity produce life.
There are moments in life when everything changes. We tend to forget that. We think that what we are experiencing now is “normal”, forgetting that our “normal” has changed time and time again throughout our lives. Of course things are actually changing all the time, but because the changes are so small we tend to ignore them until we are confronted with a photo or some other reminder about how things were a few years ago. Today, though, I am not so much thinking about those gradual changes, I am thinking about the life-altering moments that change “normal” in an instant. I had one of those moments on Wednesday. Maddi…
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We need to learn to live from grace, despite the dots.
Leeanne and I spent last Saturday at a Marriage seminar. A year and a half ago we watched a video series called “Marriage on the Rock”, which we found extremely helpful (despite the fact that the guy looked like a used-car salesman). But Saturday was the first specific input on marriage we have received from anyone in real life since we did our pre-marriage counselling. Back then we felt extremely confident about just how uniquely qualified for the business of marriage we were. I remember clearly going for a walk with my bride-to-be and having a very serious conversation about how long we should wait before we started dispensing all of…
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Build Your Imperfect Family: Five Practices for Healthier Relationships
The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
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Marriage isn’t easy, but true love is so much richer than the anaemic imitation that we see on the silver screen.
I love teaching about love and sexuality, both because it is such a huge issue that is largely avoided in the Christian church and also because l have spent the last 21 on a journey trying to learn what it means to be married. I have written before about how I love Leeanne. Loving someone though doesn’t mean that the relationship will be simple. I haven’t yet met a person married for more than 6 weeks who would say their relationship was simple. Marriage is complicated and marriage is a commitment. One of the big ideas I am always keen to communicate in a discussion about relationships is the difference between what…
- Leadership and Faith, Marriage, Parenting and Family, Prayer, Relationship with God, Relationships, Values, Work
Structural Grace
Happy New Year I love this time of year. It’s a time to stop and breathe, to reflect and to plan. It’s a time to try to make sense of all that has been and all that will be. New Year for me is a kind of structural grace. The promise that the past can be over and there is a whole year ahead without any major mistakes, crisis’ or blemishes.
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Coming home to my wife
Home Sweet home As I stumbled off the plane after what seemed like an eternity I saw Sophie’s face pressed up against the glass. As I walked through the doors I was almost bowled over by a hug from Daniel and Josh. After hugging the kids, I embraced my wife and remembered just how much I had missed her. It was great to be home.
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I don’t know where the next 23 years will take us but I do know who I will be sharing the adventure with… the bravest person I know.
In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
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People are different
First posted 27th May 2010….. The journey towards understanding I know saying that people are different is like saying the sky is blue.. obvious (unless of course you are English in which case the sky is rarely blue : ) ). But it is this fundamental observation which I think I am only slowly starting to understand. I began my journey with this understanding with my wife. She would say something, and I would assume that she meant what I would have meant if I said the same thing…. she almost never did (or does). I am in the process of developing a mental Leeanne translation book.. to translate her…
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Love and Marriage
I am sitting on the couch and watching my tired wife enjoy some time in front of the television. She has been quite tired lately. Marriage is complicated. We thought that it wouldn’t be.
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In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
The moments when you decide your core values are actually the biggest turning points of your life.
We need to learn to live from grace, despite the dots.
