Frustration with Religion

I am frustrated. Last night I was able to watch a few minutes of the Florida and Ohio State basketball game and it was a display of amazing athleticism, dedication, stamina, skill and good coaching. Both teams showed tremendous tenacity and resolve as well as resiliency to take a licking and keep on ticking.

Florida won the game, of course, but the fact that a team from Ohio lost is not why I am frustrated. My emotional pain arises from having been a teacher/coach at one time I know a little bit about what it takes to teach and coach people to perform well. However, sometimes I wish I were ignorant about how to "Equip Christians to do the work of the ministry" as Ephesians 4 says. If I were my frustration level would be reduced.

I just read that several big named Christians are mounting a campaign to "save marriages". The problem is, this intense fund raising and mobilizing campaign will undoubtedly fail as all similar campaigns have failed. They are simply exercises in anger release because they are poorly planned and poorly executed.

When a Big Name Christian says they are going to "save marriages" what they really mean is they are going to shout and holler that marriage is important and is threatened by gays or TV or some other bogey man. But rarely does one see anything happen because they spend all their time talking instead of training.

The coaches at Ohio State and Florida did not spend most of their time talking to the teams. A coach calls the talking time, "Chalk Talks" and they are closely regulated. Instead, they drilled the men in passing, defense, shooting, and physical strength building. They closely supervised each players development and made sure each person worked to perfect any weaknesses.

I know of very few churches that have any type of skill training or even pre-marital preparation despite the fact that many people are married in the church. We know that a couples' inability to deal with differences causes most divorces, yet few Christians have anything practical to help couples communicate, manage conflicts or understand the issues involved.

Nor do most seminaries require such skills for Pastors in training. They require a lot of training about talking but few on Equipping with good relationships. One can only assume that marriage and family life are not as important as basketball.

If we can teach kids to dribble, shoot and play defense we can teach adults how to relate with healthy skills. Why not give it a try? Why do we not even try to help couples?