We’ll be closing down this site this weekend – so here’s a final reminder to change the links on your favorites and/or log on and subscribe to the new EBC Marriage and Family blog site.

Thanks for your continued following.  We’ll continue to bring you some great insights, resources and encouragement.

Big announcement – the family and marriage blog at Eagle Brook Church has a new look and address – www.ebcfamilyblog.com.  It will contain the same variety of topics, postings and resources to make your marriage and family all that God intends it to be.  So please update your favorites, re-subscribe and continue following this informative site.  Thanks again for following and tell your friends to check us out.

My wife Emily is pregnant. Our baby boy is due to arrive on July 29. And I’ll become a father.

We pray for this boy often. We pray that he will know what it means to be loved by our heavenly Father. We pray that he will be a difference maker. We pray that he will love others. Above all else, we pray that he will be a radical, Christ follower and will know the beauty, satisfaction, and fulfillment that comes from a relationship with Christ.

Sure, we also pray for health, we pray he will enjoy sports and music like us, and we pray for his future spouse.

But ultimately, there is only one thing we truly desire for his life, and that is to know what it means to love and be loved by the Father.

As future parents, we can only offer him a taste of that unique Fatherly love. Because of my relationship with him, my prayer is that he will come to know what it truly means to follow Christ in radical ways.

I know I can’t force it. I know I can’t coerce, manipulate, or trick. (Okay, maybe when he is younger I can?)

But I can love him, set healthy boundaries for him, and show him my own relationship with God.

I remember a story my brother-in-law told me. His father, a doctor who rarely watched any of the eight kids by himself, was home alone with the baby twins. As they were crying and crying, at two months old, he looked down and said in a rational, calm voice: “Why are you crying? You have everything you could possibly want. A home. A family. Love.”

As if these two-month old twins could comprehend his rational argument!

The point: There are seasons of my child’s life where I will have never entered before – well, every season I suppose. I won’t know how to love him correctly. I won’t know what to do. I won’t know how to carry him through the storms of life.

But God does. He knows. And He can.

As the summer approaches, and your kids will soon be out of school, life will be less time-demanding, and you’ll have more opportunities to spend time with them, show them the Father’s love. Don’t force. Don’t manipulate. Don’t rationalize. Just love them and point them to the Father who loves them even more.

This summer, give your kids an opportunity to live a better story. Dream of ways to bring them on a journey of caring for those in need, serving at church, or raising money for a great cause. Don’t let them drift and aimlessly wander into the dog days of summer.

My prayer as a parent is that I will show my son what it means to be loved by the Father and what it means to live a better story. Make this your prayer as well. And let God take over.

John Alexander is the Junior High teaching pastor. He and his wife Emily live in White Bear Lake with their two dogs. John blogs at atthegarage.wordpress.com and you can follow him on Twitter @johnalex5.

Many family members shared tributes to her.  The extended family, her husband and many nieces and nephews shared stories of how her life impacted theirs.  Annie’s two young adult sons were too moved to speak, but it was clear they will miss their mom tremendously.  A co-worker shared how everyone loved to work with her at the hospital.  It was truly a picture of a life that touched others along the way.

Life is kind of like the wake of a boat.  Our lives experience others as we travel through life.  On one side of our wake are the things we accomplish in life and on the other side are those relationships that God brings into our life.  Many times our wake can look a bit choppy as the tendency is to spend a lot of time and energy on those accomplishments, while neglecting the important relationships.  The question I always think about at these services is “Who will come to my funeral?”

I love what Henry Cloud says in his book 9 Simple Things You Must Do (to Succeed in Love and Life) about not playing fair.  “Here’s all you have to do in life to ruin every relationship in life—play fair.”  Playing fair is treating people well as long and they treat us well in return.  But if something bad happens, then we’re in trouble.  Cloud says that there is an interlocking dependency:  the other person needs to be good in order for me to be good.  We need the other person to be loving in order for us to be loving back.

People who succeed in life don’t keep score with their relationships.  They ‘run up the score’ by doing good to others, even when they don’t deserve it.  They are a redemptive force carrying a good infection where ever they go, infusing relationships with health, infusing work environments with health and even their neighborhoods and communities with health.

In Romans 12:  17-18 Paul writes “Do not repay evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

These people give back more than they are given.  They change those around them for the good.

I didn’t know Annie personally.  I met her on her final day here on earth.  But something tells me that she didn’t keep score with those around her.  She gave way more than she took.  And hundreds who were on the receiving end were all there last week—a lot of them to sing her tributes to others.

So who will come to your funeral?  Are your relationships a 50/50 bargains, or are you putting 100 percent into them, no matter what the outcome?

I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s how God treats us.  Romans 5:8: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Something to ponder this Easter.

Last fall, I traveled internationally for the very first time and was away from my family for 13 days.  I have to admit I was concerned for my husband and three children when I told them I’d be in Norway.  Not because they can’t manage without me, but because when the four are left alone, it’s all about having fun.

My first thought was, “Um…if I am gone, then who will clean the house and make meals?”  My husband Cary finds great delight spending time and playing with the kids.  He cannot pass up an opportunity!  For example, while I was gone, he decided to make a maze out of the entire back yard with the fallen leaves and created a game of tag.  When that got old, he raked the entire lawn and made a leaf pile so high he taught the children how to do back flips into the leaf piles. Or better yet to launch themselves off of chairs and fall into the leaves.  The children found this to be exceptionally fun—especially when dad is willing to lead the way. He plays countless card games and board games with the children.  He “accidentally” figured out a way to get our cat to chase him around the house. The bad news is that Jasper, the cat, won’t stop chasing the kids and they are sick of being pounced on.

Our family is wonderful, but we need balance so there isn’t complete chaos.  I’ve learned my strength is being the one who’s aware of the stuff that needs to be done around the house—like cleaning the kitchen, dusting, preparing meals, or stopping the cat from killing my kids.  Cary’s strength is in the area of practical jokes, playing and messing up my house.  Cary and I leverage our strengths for the better of the household and to have a happy healthy family.

Families show us how important each person’s strengths and gifts contribute to the overall good of the family.  As a parent/spouse, it is really our job to notice strengths and gifts in our children and our spouse and help draw them out.  Our homes need to be the environment that provides the greenhouse effect to grow and nurture our family members so that they can reach their God-given potential.

How is it going in your house?  Have you and your spouse sat down and thought about the strengths and weaknesses you have?  Have you discovered a way to complement one another?  I’ve noticed how easy it is for me to pick out the negative or focus on the problems rather than encouraging and supporting my spouse and kids.  But to create a strong greenhouse effect for your kids to grow in, we’ve got to get this figured out personally, and then as a married couple.

Proverbs 27:17 has become a reminder for me of how I am investing and supporting others.  It says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  If you haven’t figured this out yet, let me encourage you to take a GPS class at Eagle Brook.  You will find out about your spiritual gifts, what you are passionate about and how your experiences have impacted you.  It personally challenged me and I bet it will do the same for you!

Blaine Ministry Director Lisa Welter lives in Arden Hills with her husband, Cary, and their three children.  They are a blended family and have an extremely friendly ragdoll cat named Jasper.

The text from my husband read, “Josh is in registering…by himself. They won’t let parents in and he can’t have his cell phone with him.  You’d be crying right now.”

My husband and our oldest son Josh were registering for freshman classes at Winona University.  Wasn’t he just five years old, tooling around on errands with me?  Now he’s five inches taller than me, and all abuzz to leave for college in a few months.

I’m not all abuzz.

But I know this is what we’ve been raising him to do…leave.  And he’s ready.  He’s got a good head on his shoulders, great values, and basically knows how to do his own laundry.  Most of all, he’s genuinely made his faith his own. But I know the world that awaits him… persecution for his faith by professors and classmates and temptations that only a college campus can provide.

With that in mind, I’ve been thinking what to share with Josh before he packs up and begins this new phase of his life. Pastor Bob’s words from a few years ago keep bouncing around in my head, “When your kids are off on their own, and they face temptations, all you can bank on is the relationship you’ve established with them during the early years, and their inner moral compass that comes through their faith in Christ.”

So, what do I want to reinforce to Josh before he leaves for college?

1. Make advanced decisions about who you want to be and become, and set up boundaries to achieve those goals.  Decide now how you’re going to respond to an off-campus party invitation. Decide now how you and your girlfriend are going to remain pure in your relationship. (Did I mention they’re going to the same college?)  Decide now what your academic goals will be, so you can build your new routines around them. Decide now how much you should eat at the all-you-can-eat college cafeteria.
2. Remember to play the movie forward. In other words, remember that every decision you make has a consequence.  Henry Cloud, author of The 9 Things You Simply Must Do says, “Playing the movie forward means never to see any individual action as a singular thing in and of itself.  Any one thing you do is only a scene in a larger movie.  To understand that action, you have to play it out all the way to the end of the movie.” Josh has been around the message of God’s grace his whole life.  And while it’s true that any sin can be forgiven, I want him to remember that every sin also has a consequence.  Some of those consequences can last a lifetime—so play the movie forward.
3. Attend church. You probably expected that one from a pastor’s wife, but here’s my dilemma.  Josh grew up at Eagle Brook— it’s the only church he’s known. I’m not sure he even knows what an organ is, what a hymnal is , or why a guy would be in a robe.  I need to break it to him that not all churches are like Eagle Brook, and instead of comparing and critiquing the churches in Winona, he needs go and meet God there.  I want to assure him that even though the church isn’t “Eagle Brook,” God still has a message for him, will speak to him, and that going to church regularly will restore and revive what might’ve been lost during his week.

I guess I have more to say, like find good friends, brush your teeth, and remember to shower regularly.  But those things will (mostly) come naturally for him.  This reality has motivated me to make sure I maximize the next three to four years with my 14 and 15 year olds, because tomorrow they’ll be 18 too. (Sniff.)

Amy Anderson is Eagle Brook’s executive director of Weekend Services. She is married to Teaching Pastor Jason Anderson, and they have three teens: Josh, Sami and Cole.

Twenty five years ago my wife and I went on our first date. She was a really cute girl who worked in the library at the Bible school we both attended in Seattle. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the library that semester! But my grades didn’t improve much. That’s probably because I’d check out a book every day and return it the next day just to talk to that cute librarian. I never read any of the books, but it was a great excuse to talk to her. Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask her out.

On our first date we went to a Leon Patillo concert. You probably don’t know who Leon Patillo is, but if you followed Christian music in the mid 1980s, he was a pretty cool dude. He had this one hit called “Flesh of My Flesh.” Even though he wrote the lyrics, he didn’t originate the words “flesh of my flesh.” They come from the Bible.

In Genesis 2, after God had created Adam and all the animals, he realized there wasn’t a suitable partner for Adam. So the Bible says God created Eve from a rib he had taken out of Adam’s side. When Adam first saw her, he said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man.” It goes on to say, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” What reason? The reason the two will become one is because both they come from the same place. Even though they are separate beings, men and women are in essence, one.

Have you ever wondered why when marriage is going well, life’s great, but when it’s a struggle, life’s not so great? In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that when husbands love their wives, it’s like they’re loving their own bodies. When a man loves his wife, he loves himself. Paul goes on to say that people have a natural tendency to feed and care for their own bodies, but we also have that same innate desire to love and care for our spouse. Then Paul mentions the words of Genesis 2 and says it’s because men and women are from the same flesh. A husband and wife are meant to be together. They are one.

I know even today, it’s sometimes difficult for me to function in the reality that my wife and I are one flesh. When I’m in a hurry and trying to get someplace quickly and she’s taking her time, I need to remember we are one flesh. When we want to watch different TV shows on the same evening (and our DVR is already recording two other shows allowing us to watch just one program), I need to remember that we are one flesh. When I’m in a romantic mood and she’s had a tough day at work, I need to remember that we are one flesh. That’s how God created us. And as I think about this, the words of that old Leon Patillo song “Flesh of My Flesh” still ring through my ears.

You are flesh of my flesh
Bone of my bone
There’s no one closer
You are flesh of my flesh
Bone of my bone
We are one

Maybe you’re wondering how that first date turned out 25 years ago. Well, pretty good I guess. After the concert we spent more than two hours at Perkins drinking hot chocolate and just talking. Ten days later, we started officially going out. One year (to the day) later we were engaged, and 13 months after that we listened to “Flesh of My Flesh” at our wedding ceremony. And to this day the reality of being one flesh is a powerful reminder to help us through the tough times and celebrate the joys of marriage.

Mark Lenz is the Blaine connections pastor. He and his wife Carolyn have been married nearly 23 years and have three children.

To say that kids will change your life is a huge understatement.  I don’t know if anyone is totally ready for kids—but the key is that parenting is a responsibility that God gives us as we raise, nurture and instruct them for life.  The ultimate goal is to release them into the world as healthy adults who love and follow the Lord and his principles.

We first need to receive our children as gifts from God.  Our daughters are 22 months apart and are pretty close to each other—yet there are some great differences and uniqueness between them.  Our oldest played golf, loves math and majored in finance in college.  The youngest fell in love with horses, is extremely creative and professionally is a stylist at a salon.  Not only were they gifts from God, we had to recognize that they were uniquely created and wired differently.  Instead of cramming them into a preconceived notion of who we thought they should be, we observed their great gifting from God and encourage them to grow into who he created them to be.

Psalm 127: 3-4 says “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.”

Second, our children need to be released to fulfill God’s plan for their lives.  Here is the last big adjustment we went through—realizing that our kids are now adults and that their authority in their life has shifted from us to God.  They have always belonged to God and as stewards of the gift he gives us, we need to help them discover their purpose and to affirm God’s work in their lives.

We just got back from a weekend conference where we heard this quote worth passing on:

“If we abdicate our responsibilities as parents, we force our kids to learn life from others;  if we abuse our responsibilities as parents, we provoke our children to either run away or retaliate.”

One day last month I woke up and knew it was going to be one of ‘those’ days. You know, a day where nothing out of the ordinary happens, but somehow you feel put out, mistreated and edgy all day? Sure enough I spent the day being impatient with my kids, complaining to my husband and wallowing in self-pity. It wasn’t until that evening when I finally figured out the real problem. I hadn’t had a bad day and I hadn’t been ignored or taken for granted: I had fallen out of step with God.

If you have young children, like I do, being alone and free is rare. I find myself fantasizing about a whole day to clean my house without “help,” grocery shopping with latte in hand, because I don’t need that hand to wrangle toddlers, and having an uninterrupted conversation with my husband when he gets home from work. Don’t get me wrong; I love my kids. Still, there is a noticeable lack of down time in my schedule.

Every moment of every day seems filled with child rearing and home managing, leaving little room for much else. As a Christian, I am often left wondering where I will find time to tend to my soul when so much of my day is spent tending to everything else.

The problem is, my life doesn’t work when I don’t prioritize my relationship with God. Through prayer I gain an intimacy with Him that brings comfort, peace and an alignment with His values. Through spending time in Scripture I am reminded of His promises, His character and my identity as His child. Without these I am lost, yet it is so easy to neglect in the whirl of the day-to-day.

With the pace of our culture, I have a feeling that I’m not alone in this struggle.

Here are three practices that are transforming my life.

Keep God as Your Highest Priority

Intimacy and alignment with God ought to be our highest priority, not just because it’s what we’re called to in scripture, but also because the life God desires for us is the very best. When we give God the position to work in and through our lives, he produces love, joy, patience and hope. When these things infiltrate my life my whole family reaps the rewards.

Look for Pockets—They’re There!

Chances are that you have pockets of time that you could easily tap in to. I challenge you to look over your daily schedule for pockets in your day when you can be alone, quiet, and focused solely on the Lord. You may be surprised with what you find— most of us waste more time than we realize on Facebook or watching TV.

For me, the early morning is my only guaranteed alone time. Once my kids are awake and my schedule kicks in, it is likely that I will be on task until I collapse into bed that night. My squeaky staircase and coffee grinder are proven ways to wake my kids, which means I grind my coffee beans the night before and sneak down the stairs backwards (it’s quieter, I swear!) in the dark. I felt ridiculous doing this until I heard a famous preacher say that he used to pray on his bathroom floor because it was the only place he was alone.

You may be crawling backwards down your stairs in the dark or spending an unusual amount of time in the bathroom, but I’m confident that you can find time if your relationship with God is your highest priority.

Don’t Rule Out the Ordinary

Invite the spirit to work in your heart through the ordinary moments of your day. Purposely choose patience when frustration rises while teaching your child something new. Ask the spirit to produce selflessness in you as you begin to feel resentment over losing your weekend to a soccer tournament. Thank God for the shaping and refining that is available through your role as a parent.

It can be easy to fall out of step with God and miss the best life he offers. Keep God as your highest priority, spend time nurturing your relationship with him, and watch his transforming power extend through you to your entire family.

Jen Wise is a freelance writer working with various ministries around the country. She has been married to EBC Worship Arts Pastor Jon Wise for seven years. They live in White Bear Lake with two wild and creative sons and a snuggly, snorty pug.

1. Treat each other with kindness and respect.  Some of you may need to write out Colossians 3: 12-13 and tape it to your bathroom mirror.  You’d never treat a co-worker that way—so what’s up with ripping your spouse apart?  Is it really changing them or are you pushing them farther away?
2. Do you speak highly of your spouse with others?  If you don’t, try eliminating saying anything negative about them to others.  This especially includes your parents!  Be your spouse’s biggest fan.
3. If garbage is coming in—get the garbage out.  OK, I’m talking about pornography.  If you are looking at this (and I’m not just talking to the guys), stop. You may not realize that you’re playing with fire.  If you find it hard to stop looking, get help.  It’s out there.  You’re not alone.  (See Colossians 3: 5.)
4. I know you love your kids.  I know you want them to excel in everything and you have them signed up for every sporting event that’s available.  Please stop and look at the emotional dashboard of your family—any lights on?  When is the last time you peacefully ate together at the dining room table?  I see too many families who put their kids before their marriage.
5. Speaking of the frantic schedule, when is the last time you had a date with your spouse?  If you can’t remember, book a night to sit down to talk about it.  You need to pursue each other.  Talk about doing some things just the two of you together without the kids.  They’ll survive.
6. How’s the emotional love tank looking in your marriage?  If the tanks are low, do you know how to fill them up?  Read Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages together and talk about how you both are wired.  This is how affairs start—someone else is filling the tank.  It needs to be you!
7. Have you realized that your spouse isn’t perfect?  If you actually like 80 percent of who they are, praise God for that.  Don’t dwell on the 20 percent that you can’t fix.  By the way, you’re not perfect either!
8. It’s OK to have conflict.  It doesn’t mean you’re doomed.  Respectfully talk to one another and work toward solutions rather than whose fault this is.  If you’re stuck, get help.
9. Pray for one another.  Serve each other.  A marriage that is thriving is one where each person is putting the other one first.  (See Ephesians 5.)
10. Attend church on a regular basis.  Guys, it’s not your wife’s job to be the spiritual leader; she’s just doing it because no one else is stepping up.  Growing in your faith and in your relationship with Christ is probably the best thing you can do for each other.
11. If you’ve messed up (and haven’t we all) admit it.  Just don’t say you’re sorry.  Ask for forgiveness.
12. If you’re married, you need to have sex.  Put a lock on the door.  Use it.

Stay tuned as we’re cooking up a great series on marriage called “The Knot” that begins after Easter.  But don’t wait attend this weekend!

So what works for you? What would you add to this list?