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Family Ministry Blog

These blog posts are written by editors/contributors to this site on topics of their choosing.

Family Topics

   Establishing Identity and Security in Blended Families

2/27/2017

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             Although the word “family” can be defined by various means and methods, there are particular blanket functions required of any and all family types. The blended family may experience challenges that are brought on due to contrasting traditions, values, habits, and personalities that are found in each individual of which the blended relationship is comprised. Several patterns of concern center around the idea of integrating these various conditions into the blended family so as to give a solid and safe identity to the blended family relationship.

            Upon examination of necessary concerns in any and all families, economic support is by far one of the most critical. Concentrated effort through proper work ethic and a sense of familial responsibility must be in place to ensure peaceful co-existence within the blended family with regards to money and budgeting.

            The terms “child support” and “alimony” are recurrently used within the context of the blended family. Without personal maturity and integrity, which includes a proper sense of domestic duty and responsibility to the relationships one has created, these two terms can initiate and create patterns of argument, fueled by bitterness and animosity. Without the virtues of wisdom and sincerity in those who make up this unique group, economic security is highly threatened in the blended family situation.

            Another test the blended family often faces is that of emotional support. Emotional support is developed as intimacy is fostered through acts of mutual concern provided by all members of the family unit. Focused effort must be made to connect emotionally through learning better communication skills and engaging in family counseling that will help establish family identity. The word “blend” suggests learning to “mix smoothly” while remaining inseparably together. To achieve this perfect blend results in both security and solid, emotional oneness.

            The goal of the blended family should be to achieve the highest quality of emotional support possible in order to create a safe place that will cushion pain and distress felt from situations occuring outside the family relationship.

            Stepfamilies (another term for blended families), encounter various dilemmas regarding socialization. Children who comprise blended families are often subjected to very different norms, values, behaviors, social skills and even social positions as they encounter all of the aforementioned aspects in multiple family settings. Not only is this scenario confusing for the children involved, but it is also disconcerting to the adults as well, as they experience pressure to “be all things to all people”. It is important that this unique family unit discovers ways that defines their exclusiveness in spite of their multiple-family social surroundings.
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            In order to establish security and identity within the blended family, the members must persevere and commit to the intention of resolving conflicts created by personal differences. As the family determines and defines their exclusive family culture, each individual therein will begin to experience encouragement and pride within the network of their family particular family fusion. Great is the reward for all who endure!

​....................

Sheneka Land
Ministry With Families - 2016
            
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You Never Stop Being A Dad

2/25/2017

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On Christmas Eve 2000, I sat Marcy down, got on one knee and asked her to marry me.  Before she was able to respond, I added, “And I want to adopt Patrick!”  Much to my relief, she said yes to both!

A few months after our wedding, I was honored and privileged to adopt Patrick.  I didn’t have to adopt Patrick, but I wanted to either way, I would have loved him and raised him as my son.  However, I wanted to adopt him.  It was important to me, to Patrick and to God.  To me this was a declared commitment to accept Patrick as my son.

As the years flew by, I was busy taking Patrick to football and baseball practices and games, a season of school band practices, and many church activities.  Before my eyes, he grew into a young man of God, graduating from high school and going to Lee University. 

Amy, his high school sweetheart also enrolled at Lee University.  They married in June 2012 and I was honored to officiate their wedding.  They graduated from Lee together in May 2014 and moved back to our native Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where they are settled in as their own family.
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As I look back, I try to figure out where the time went.  It was just yesterday when I first met 6-year-old Patrick at our friend’s house, playing in the downstairs room with our friend’s son.  Now he is a man with his own family, his own direction, and his own calling in life. 

One can never turn off being a dad; there isn’t a stop button!  I pray for Patrick and Amy every day.  Even though he now has his own family, I still worry about him, wanting the best for him, sometimes pacing the floors because the miles between us keep me from hopping in the car and driving over to his house to give him a big hug, and to see with my own eyes that everything is ok.  A day never goes by without thinking about him. 

​..........................

​Don Steffy; MDiv. is Lead Pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Great Falls, Montana


 (The above blog are excerpts from my article titled “Fatherhood Predestined” published in the February 2015 Church of God Evangel.  Click on the following link to read the full article http://reader.mediawiremobile.com/PathwayPress/issues/100501/viewer?page=23  )
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Church and Family, Not a Competition

2/21/2017

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One of the major challenges of ministry with families is the misconception that the church and families exist in different spheres of God's Kingdom. The two are often placed in competition for time, energy and resources. A fruitless debate has emerged: does the church exist to serve the family or does the family exist to serve the church? Such needless contradictions exist only because we wrongly view the church and families as separate entities. It is sometimes stated that the family has priority because it was the first institution created by God. But that simply is not true. God created a people for Himself in the same action in which He created the first couple for each other. In the New Testament, Christian homes are viewed as expressions of the church. Pastors are in error when they give their congregational responsibilities priority over their families not because the family is more important than the church, but for the inverse reason. The family must be our first church. To view our family as anything less than the church is to devalue our family. Love, and all the other shared Christian graces, must begin in the home because the Christian home is the foundational expression of the church. Even our unredeemed family members share in those graces as those who are attached to the church for nurture until the day of their new birth. 
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Jackie Johns
Professor of Discipleship and Christian Formation
​Pentecostal Theological Seminary
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