Marriage Ministry Conference- Ron Deal

our story begins when this guy met this girl and fell madly in love first came loved then came marriage then came Emily Michael and John in a baby carriage they were living the dream until doubt and isolation tore love apart one love and one home became two in another part of the world a loving marriage welcome to beautiful children life and love for this couple went along as they hoped and they too were living the dream until mom became ill bad became worse and worse ended the dreamed courageously dad strove to pick up the pieces and help his grieving children carry on and together they did until one day when this lady met this fellow wait where have I heard that before well one thing led to another and a new dream for a new home was born yes they knew there would be challenges merging homes extended families parenting strategies finances loss experiences and holiday traditions but they were confident that love would see them through with hearts full of hope they married in the meantime this guy remember him announced that he and his girlfriend were getting married they too had a dream for a new home okay let's recap shall we what started out as two simple homes with for parents and five kids became three homes with three parents and five kids and then became two homes with two parents to step parents five children five step change in the living memory of a deceased mother and five sets of grandparents dozens of cousins uncles and aunts colliding family traditions kids with divided loyalties a home with five children on Sundays in order to the next two bedtimes different parenting styles conflict between homes debt from the past questions about whether this marriage will last and for adults who quickly realize that their simple dream to recreate their dream home has instead created a multi household family that is not simple at all but complex love and hope has brought these families together but how do they manage the complexity and how do they make the dream reality to find help this home went to their local church to their surprise they found a ministry to blended families just like theirs they weren't alone with the help of family life blended and their local church this home found answers to the questions step families answer for most becoming a healthy step family has its challenges become in step family smart is the first step toward helping this home and others like it live the dream live your dream family life blended strengthening step families love and hope has brought these people together but how do they manage the complexity that is essentially the journey of a step family that's why their divorce rate is 10 to 25% higher because they fall in love with a person and they get married but they don't know how to be a family and they end up divorcing because of that if you work with couples and I know you do and I know you're passionate about it you've run into some snip snip family couples am i right hello yes you have and if you have it you're not asking the right questions okay you're not diving deep enough let me spend a little time with you this morning just want to share four things with you that I really want you to understand about ministry to step family couples the first thing is this there are already a hundred million people in the United States with a step relationship 100 million people have a stepparent either a step-sibling or a stepchild if we look at it from a household perspective 40% of all families in the US are blended families there's a step relationship somewhere connected to that home but despite that reality here's what I want you to understand from Ron deal today number one I am NOT an advocate for more blended families I'm not an advocate for more blended families now that may sound a little strange coming from me with all the work that I've done in the time that I've invested in this so let me explain myself what I am is an advocate for God's design for the family I'm an advocate for one man one woman for life so that they because that household has the greatest promise for the people within that household we are as we just heard in marriage and in family trying to help one another get to the finish line and and the biological family nuclear home whatever you want to call it is God's design to help us do that we we help one another on that journey we mat or one another on that journey it's the incubator of faith so that one generation passes that to the next generation and we work together as a family unit and the biological family holds the most promise for that process in God's design you see if you're driving a biological family it looks like this okay it's a Volvo for crying out loud it's got a great engine transmission it's gonna last forever it is well built it is well designed it's got four wheels at corners really well at high speeds and if you get into a crash you're in this cage and there's front rear side top airbags it's okay you're probably gonna survive together now if you're driving a single-parent home it looks like this it's a little bit different you're still in a cage right you're still protected to some degree as a family unit but you lost a wheel somewhere along the way and it doesn't corner nearly as well as it used to and it's pretty susceptible to side impact and by the way most people who have lost that wheel do something to try to find somebody who can replace that wheel and so they do some marketing all right now here's the deception they feel like if they find somebody that will replace the old wheel they think they're going to create a Volvo but what they really don't realize is they're creating a stiff family and that's like driving this it is very susceptible to side rear front impact it is very fragile on the road it cannot corner nearly as well as the other units are as a matter of fact as I think about it if we add people to this it looks a little bit more like that okay now think about the harmony think about the harmony involved in making this family work think about how each individual has to do their part what if you have one child who decides they don't want to live in harmony and a balance with everybody else one kid can just lean over and it ripples throughout the entire family unit that's kind of how fragile step family living is especially in the early years when they're doing all the work of trying to come together and figure out how to be a family with one another and that's where a lot of the stress is and that's where a lot of the complications are the degree of difficulty on family life goes up considerably so what I am is an advocate for more first families we need more first families we ought to teach that message louder wider stronger than we ever have before and we should never give up on God's ideal but if life throws you a curve and you find yourself in a step family context I am an advocate for healthy step family living we've got to help them do it well because point number two I want you to understand is this step family's done well our redemptive I'm going to come back and say a little bit more about that in just a minute but it's the second thing that step families done poorly just adds more generational societal chaos and it's a hazard to the faith shaping process I don't know if you guys have seen the movie boyhood I'm talking about it wherever I go you need to rent that and watch that because I want to I want you to experience in some way especially if you didn't grow up in a step family and don't can't really relate to it I want you to watch that so you can just see what it is to grow up in a multi family con context where there's people on all sides people are coming in and out of your life the models you have about marriage a band flow really I believe wholeheartedly that the reason that cohabitation rate is so high in our culture today is simply because we've had now two three generations about 50 years of marriage and divorce and remarriage Andry divorce and moving in with somebody and another breakup and everybody's afraid of putting themselves in a relationship where they can get hurt again right and so if we stop that process at any point we're doing the next generation some benefit to years ago family life we launched a summit on step family ministry that we call blended and blessed and two years ago we had our first one and it was right here in this building and I brought a friend of mine in to speak during that summit dr. Francesca Adler Bader from Auburn University and she shared something that just completely floored us she walked in and she said you know we know what happens to children who grow up in a context where their parents get married divorce maybe move in with somebody break up and they have all these serial marital transitions in their life we know what happens to their future in terms of emotional well-being psychological well-being and relationships they have a poor view of the institution of marriage they're afraid of it they they divorced at a higher rate all of the stuff rolls out the research is really clear about that but she said kids who grow up in strong stable healthy step families get a positive role model of what marriage can be they've already maybe seen one that broke up now they get a positive role model they get an experience love they get to understand what grace is and relationships they get an understanding of what it is to be an outsider who is brought in to become an insider and isn't that the heart of the gospel we were all Outsiders and we're made by Christ's blood to become insiders they get to feel that in a very tangible way in their life and in their experience and those kids grow up they select better mates than their counterparts they have a more favorable attitude about the institution of marriage and the whole idea and what's behind it and their marriages when they do get married tend to reflect the high quality step couple marriage that they grew up with compared to the biological parents mayor that led to a divorce that led to the step family in the first place do you hear what I'm saying their marriage is more reflect the high-quality step family marriage rather than their parents breakup marriage relationship in other words we can take back God's design for the next generation in one generation we can make a difference we can go from the step family experience to the first family experience to the Volvo experience and the mitigating factor for those young people is a strong stable healthy step family folks that's redemptive that's good news that's God working through this family situation to make a difference for the next generation that's what we get to be a part of when we do this ministry well step family ministry is real generationally redemptive for everybody that's involved in that family situation but it has to be a healthy step family number three you're halfway there everything you're already doing in your marriage ministry is really helping it really contributes to a healthy environment for step couples in their relationship by the way I use that term step couple because it really captures the idea that they're a couple but they're embedded in this step family situation and what you already do is helpful for them as well but you're only halfway there I hate to say it but you're halfway there you see you got some other things you've got to attend to let me tell you a story about Suzy and John some of you have seen this before and some of the work that I've done but let's just use it to make an illustration Suzy and John got married and they had three kids Mary Mike and John jr. but unfortunately his life would have it they divorced in another part of the universe is Betty and Bob they two got married they two had two kids Ted and Kerry since then Betty and they divorced as well betty has since remarried Frank and Bob has since remarried Susie's everybody with me so far now Susie when she married her new husband Bob she knew she was getting a mother-in-law and a father-in-law but what she didn't realize is that she was also getting an ex-wife in-law nobody prepared her for that nobody let her know that Betty can pick up the phone and change Susie's life she had no clue that was going to happen she had no idea that Betty's parenting Franks step-parenting of Ted and Kerry can dramatically influence Susie's children nobody helped her understand that or the frustration around it or what she can do about it and what if Betty and Frank care nothing about God and the gospel but Susie and Bob do what kind of influence does that then have on the kids and how does that spin itself within their family environment Bob didn't know he was getting an ex-husband in law but there's more complexity if you're keeping track by the way Susie has primary custody of her three kids they live with mom and their stepdad and every other weekend is six weeks in the summer they spend time with their dad John Betty has primary custody of her two kids and on occasion Bob and Susie have all five are you staying with me and here's the funny thing that we do in marriage ministry we bring them into our context and we draw a little circle around Bob and Susie and we pretend as if that's all there is in their life it's kind of funny when you see it on the screen like that we do premarital counseling as if that's all there is in their universe we do marriage ministry in education we do communication skill training we we talk about managing conflict and forgiving one another but this is their world and this is the stuff that adds stress to their life in biological families we talk about stress flows from the top down it's the drip or later effect all right if the husband and wife are having a difficulty in their relationship that trickles down to the children to the parenting processes it's true the drip alator effect step families have that but they also have the percolator effect it can come from the children up to the step parent and between the then parent and step parent trying to figure out how to do live it can also come from side to side it can start in the other home and it ripples into this home so you have the what I call the step family trifecta alright of stress from the top from the bottom and from the sides that's their world and so what we do in traditional marriage ministry is really helpful for the couple's relationship and they need that from us but we have to give them more in other words think of marriage ministry we used to think of it as just being the top circle on the bottom left circle we would do things for marriage strategies that built up the couple's relationship or we would do premarital counseling and I'm just suggesting that there's third circle that must come under what we do we have to begin to think in terms of helping blendin's manage their life and the complexity of their life well so that they can become a redemptive organism for the next generation last point you can do this you can do this some of you this is your first exposure you've never heard anybody talk about Steph family living before and you're going wow I can feel overwhelmed yes I think you probably should it's a bit overwhelming some of your thinking I don't live this life I don't get that that's not my world I can't see inside that very well I get that I don't live in a Steph family and I didn't grow up in one all right nan I've been married for 29 years I introduced her as my first wife because everybody assumes she's my second or my third or something but it's not my world either but we just worked hard at it and you can do this don't get intimidated don't think you got a radically transform or change everything going on in your life or your ministry or your teaching just add one thing just do one thing over the next year a little bit different for example I love to suggest that people do sidebars in their teachings so talk about marriage and communication and content management conflict but then tell a story about managing conflict in a step family and you've begun just in your what you already do you've begun to talk to twenty to thirty to forty percent of the class that's in a blended family situation and you just perk their ears and you just told them we know you're there and we want to try to help and that just spurns a little conversation and all it took was a two minute story in the middle of what you already do that's a sidebar that's something you can get to you can get there or maybe if you already do sidebars you can add one class on to your premarital education program one workshop one breakout one something just add a little thing to what you already do if you have marriage mentors that come alongside couples find some step family couples and let them be mentors think small just add one thing read one book watch one video do something to kind of equip you come to my breakout this afternoon just something to kind of tool you up so that you can turn around and let that flow into other people and you'll be surprised what one change can do and maybe over time you can add something else

Channel: FamilyLife Blended

Views: 7,968

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: FamilyLife, Blended & Blessed, Parenting, Blended Family, Love Language, Step Family, Relationships, Healthy Relationships, Communication, Love & Respect, Marriage and Family Therapy, Divorce, Networking, Encouragement, Family Ministry, Marriage, Marriage Ministry

Id: bqbPZWncf-s

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2015