Is there a ministry or charity that you know of that does wonderful work? One with passionate vision, low overhead, and a focus on results and changed lives? FamilyLife is one of those ministries. Via marriage conferences and studies for small groups, FamilyLife provides resources for couples to invest in their marriage whether couples are days from divorce or happily-married for 50 years. Veronika and I have invested in our marriage by attending 3 of these conferences and leading FamilyLife small groups. There is probably a FamilyLife marriage conference coming to your town in the next couple months, and if you are married or engaged, I can't encourage you more to invest in your marriage by checking the schedule and discussing it with your spouse.
FamilyLife is also an example, I believe, of a ministry that has decided to weigh in on political matters at the expense of its core, person-to-person ministry of discipling couples. It's not that the quality of their core ministry is compromised by their entry into the political realm; rather, the number of people who would ever dream of walking through the front door of a FamilyLife conference is diminished to only those on the same side of the political fence as FamilyLife.
Once couples do walk through the doors of FamilyLife marriage conferences, they realize that people of all faiths are made to feel welcome. FamilyLife presumes no prior knowledge of its subject matter in order to participate. Participants in FamilyLife conferences and small groups begin with the basics - what is the world's plan for marriage and how does this contrast with God's plan for marriage as is found in the Bible? Lest the concept of a Biblical plan for marriage sound ominous, let me summarize the central distinction made by FamilyLife.
FamilyLife argues in its conferences and small group studies that a couple either pursues God's plan for marriage, or defaults to the world's plan for marriage. The world's plan for marriage is based on the concept of fairness, and as such produces marriages that are 50/50 relationships in which each partner is treated fairly (that is, receives as much as she gives to her mate). God's plan for marriage, in contrast, is based on sacrificial love (as opposed to fairness), and as such partners are expected to sacrifice for their mates without expectations or conditions. God's plan for marriage could be called a 100/0 relationship in contrast to the world's 50/50 marriages. The main reason this is viewed as God's plan for marriage is that sacrificial love was the example of Jesus, who gave everything for those he loved. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians,
"'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church."
According to Paul, married partners are expected to relate to each other as Christ related to the church (Christ died for the church). FamilyLife's message is, in my opinion, closely related to the growing conviction of many that the reason for Jesus' death has as much to do with bringing reconciliation into our world as it does with getting souls into heaven. (But that's another topic.)
This simple but powerful teaching of love has been invaluable for the millions of married and engaged couples who have participated in FamilyLife conferences and small groups. Unfortunately, this message is being heard increasingly by only a narrow segment of couples - those who support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. That is because FamilyLife has decided to engage anyone who will listen, including all the couples to whom it ministers, in political debates concerning gay marriage. Dennis Rainey, the head of FamilyLife, writes the following in the FamilyLife newsletter,
"We believe that the strength of a nation depends upon the strength of its families. We've already seen the results of redefining the concept of marriage over the last few decades; do we want to continue experimenting? Are we better off morally and spiritually as a nation? Can our nation survive the social re-engineering of its most basic unit, marriage? If you want to catch one glimpse of what could be our future, look no further than Scandanavia."
Rainey and others have engaged in the same polemics on the FamilyLife radio show and in other media. There are three important reasons why FamilyLife's decision to engage its own followers in political debate is tragic to its core mission of discipling couples who may know nothing about Biblical advice on marriage. And these three reasons are true regardless of one convictions on gay marriage.
First, the central thrust of FamilyLife's ministry (and any discipleship ministry) is to stop blaming others (like my spouse) for problems and discord and start looking in the mirror. This focus on oneself is always undermined by political speech which inherently redirects our focus to political opponents. FamilyLife should take note that ministries whose core focus is homosexual issues, such as Exodus and Desert Stream, have not jumped into the political debate on gay marriage. Perhaps this is because they realize that their primary activity of helping individuals work through their sexual pasts would only be undermined by redirecting their focus to others as the source of their problems.
Second, those who believe that gay marriage is not part of the biblical view of marriage cannot seriously expect to make this case to anyone who doesn't also agree on about ten other points. Extracting gay marriage from the worldview of those who oppose it is like extracting a prohibition against pork from Judaism and demanding that noone eat pork because it is unclean. Obviously the first issue at hand in such a case would be to train people into orthodox Judaism, and then to enjoin them from eating pork. But communication of one's worldview takes time. The gay marriage debate is not an attempt to share a worldview with others, but rather an attempt to convince others of one piece of that worldview in isolation.
Third, this isn't what Jesus did. Jesus could have engaged in political debates. But He didn't. Instead, He focused his time and energies discipling a small band of men who would carry on His life and ministry. Robert Coleman comments on this in The Master Plan of Evangelism that "one cannot transform a world except as individuals in the world are transformed" (pp 29-30). FamilyLife's core ministry of discipling couples in conferences and small groups is a beautiful legacy of Jesus' ministry of discipleship. It is confusing to the disciples of Rainey and his peers at FamilyLife to be asked to be part of a political project so radically different from what FamilyLife has meant to us. It is my hope when this political season passes (as they all do) that FamilyLife will return to its core focus that has done more to strenghten marriages in America than any Constitutional amendment ever could.
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