It was 12 years ago today that Jennifer and I became one in marriage.   In light of our anniversary, Jennifer and I each compiled a list of 12 marital values/lessons we have each learned over 12 years of marriage (in no particular order) and thought it would be fun to share them with our family and friends.  Thank you for your support, prayers, encouragement and exhortations.

Hers:

1. Love, seek and enjoy Christ before your husband.
2. Enjoy and initiate God’s gift of intimacy with your husband often!
3. Communicate! Never assume he knows what you’re thinking!
4. Make your home a place he longs to come home to at the end of the day. (clean, restful, happy wife, obedient children)
5. Serve him with a joyful heart, not because of what you will get in return but out of selfless love for him.
6. Know his love language and look for ways to use that language to show him love even if it is different from your own.
7. When there is a rift between you cling to Christ and not the enemy who wants to divide you.
8. Always show him respect! Who can respect a man when he is not respected by his own wife?
9. Encourage him to have “guy time”. Value his time spent with other Godly men.
10. Have fun together, laugh and play often.
11. It’s okay to go to bed with unresolved issues as long your love for each other is expressed and you seek to resolve the conflict in the morning.
12. Your family is your first ministry that God has entrusted to you. Make sure you are stewarding them well before seeking out other areas to serve.

His:

1. Keep romance alive by prioritizing at least a weekly “Date night” without the kids.
2. Fight for each other instead of with each other by practicing empathetic listening. Listen for the heart behind your spouses differing opinions so you can humbly serve her and partner with her in life.
3. Model and practice a balanced & healthy life.  Invest intentional quality time into my bride and family by leading them in their spiritual, intellectual, social, physical and financial needs.
4. If she respects you, the kids will too.   This is on you not her!
5. Work with her to make your home, family outings, and vacations filled with fun, love, laughter and great memories.
6. Stay in church community and under godly authority.  God’s design for us is to be a part of a larger body of believers by which you gain their giftedness, vital counsel and support.
7. Feast on God’s word.  Man cannot live by bread alone.  Neither can a marriage or family thrive with out the living word.
8. Be diligent to find and keep an honest way to make enough money to be faithful to God, generous with others and have enough to take care of your family.
9. Prioritize & make possible, “Girl Time” for her to rest, recoup and have fun by enjoying herself while doing girl stuff.
10. Touch her heart and mind before you touch her body.
11. Sync schedules, plans and priorities weekly so that you live life together and not parallel.
12. Have Fun Together.  Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.  Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this life that God has given you under the sun.”

-Pastor Joshua Kirstine

When I started my career in pastoral ministry in 1999, I began to dream of a church that operated much more like a bridge than it did a destination.  It is amazing how the modern church struggles living this way, even ours.

The reality is, a great chasm separates the church and the world.  It separates those who have entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ and those who have yet to see the value of a surrendered life. The world’s need to see radically changed and compelling lives lived for Christ is often snuffed out by the superficial desire of followers of Christ to look Christian only to other Christians.  My heart’s desire is that we learn to bridge the Great Chasm and really value a connection with those longing for a new beginning.

Built on values like: Grace, Truth, Creativity, Stewardship, Community, Authenticity, Compassion & Restoration, the church can rediscover its essential role to not camp out within it’s walls but to live life outside the church walls in order to reach the skeptics on the other side of the Great Chasm.  We cannot be satisfied with shouting across the divide and hoping someone hears us and makes their way over.  We must be the bridge by living reconciliation daily amongst those God has surrounded us with at school, in the office, on the team, in our homes and any where else that is dangerous or uncomfortable.

“Bridges give life through two-way movement!”  If the church is not willing to cross the bridge and be salt and light on the other side, what reason have we given those who need God’s grace to cross over and find it?

“Faith.  Faith is an island in the setting sun. But proof, yes  Proof is the bottom line for everyone” -Paul Simon

Does the world look at the redeemed and see proclamations of belief or do they see the evidences and proofs of love in action.  I want the bride of Christ to embody the fact that Christ dwells inus and therefore our lives should count not for our own personal consumption but for the purpose of sacrificially loving those around us who need love.  Real Love!   His Love.  We can’t do this if we are staked in the middle of camp.

Lord, let us be the bridge of two way movement.  Sending the redeemed, equipped out of a season of true deep discipleship while at the same time inviting the broken into the grace filled arms of the savior and his body that is more than willing to slow down and help restore.

“a bridge over troubled waters between an isolated church and a cynical culture.  A bridge where credibility could be re established by God’s people before an increasingly skeptical and hostile world.  A bridge where people would be drawn to cross over rather than be repelled.  A bridge of proof rather that hollow proclamation. A bridge of incarnation:  the dynamic intersection of the divine and the human.” – Robert Lewis

- Pastor Joshua Kirstine

In February, over 100 of the ODC family gathered in the Great Room with no other agenda but to spend the evening praying and worshiping God together.  It was a great evening as we prayed together, worshiped through music together, and shared communion together.

We are really looking forward to this now becoming a monthly practice as our next prayer night on March 6 will be the first of the First Sunday Evening Prayer nights we will hold all year long.  We really encourage you to make these prayer nights a priority in your schedule each month as we seek to get before God together during this interim period.

We’re going to spend the next 10 weeks walking through Galatians together starting this Sunday, February 6.

Galatians was a letter the apostle Paul wrote to a handful of churches he helped plant in the Roman province of Galatia.  Just like us today, the Galatian Christians were having to deal with a culture that was constantly changing around them, and they were being pressured to redefine their lives through empty religious rituals and traditions.

In the middle of the chaos, Paul wrote what many consider his most poignant and straight forward letter in all of the New Testament.  Paul says that though the times and the culture might change, the Gospel never does.  Shifting cultures and pressures to adhere to empty religion will ultimately fail us if we allow them to be what we look to for life.  Rather, Paul says, as we see the depth of the Gospel – the good news that for His glory God sent Jesus to save us rather than waiting for us to save ourselves – we will find in Jesus a person who has the ability to bring restoration and healing into every aspect of our lives.

From relationships to family, from hope to ambition, from career to wealth – the Gospel truly has the power to redefine everything.

We hope you’ll join us over the next 10 weeks as we walk through Paul’s incredibly relevant letter to the Galatians.