How to Help Christian Sinners

Wait!

Stop!

Cut that out!

How can I write such an outlandish headline? What does it mean? Either a person is a Christian and holy or a sinner and not a Christian. Those two things are mutually exclusive.

Really?

I came to the Lord at age ten so I have been ruminating on this issue for a very long time. I grew up in an environment where I thought that being a Christian meant that I was supposed to be perfect just like God was perfect. I thought I knew what perfect meant when I read it in the King James Bible so I tried hard to be a perfectionist. I failed; and failed; and failed; and gave up.

Once I gave up I pretended to be a sinner who did not care anything about God, church or the Bible. I was at war with myself and with God's ways. Failure at perfection made me into a failure at life. Then, one night in June of 1958 I was headed to Benton, Illinois to pick up my gambling, smoking, drinking carousing friends and go to a bar in West City. This was a town of ten bars and fifty houses where underage kids could carouse without police intervention. I loved West City because I could put on a "bad boy persona" and no one would know I was from a Christian home.

I had left Ina, population 300 or so, early so I could miss the Preacher Brother Boatright and the Evangelist who was holding a revival in our Church. After work at Dowzer Electric Company in Mt. Vernon I hurried out of town in a 1957 Ford Fairlane. But I did not get far because even a new Ford can't outrun God's Spirit.

The County Line Road is two miles south of Ina and I sped pretty fast toward that demarcation point between Jefferson and Franklin Counties in a big hurry to escape the convicting presence of the Holy Spirit. A little over one mile from Ina I had a strange experience. I can still remember that I was passing the Burma Shave signs that dotted the right side of Highway 37. The dash lights on that Ford Fairlane brightened and a strange cloud filled the car. Then I heard it: "Gary! Choose this day who you will serve."

The voice in my head was not loud but certainly strong. Not shrill but with a sense of finality. I knew it was God speaking. I had only one choice. When a boy is reared in the Holiness Movement he knows that we never say "No" to God. I said, "Yes."

Actually I did more than that. I replied: "You Lord. Only you have the words of Life."

The lights dimmed and a sense of perfect peace filled the car. My life was changed forever. But I was still not 100% perfect and without sins, faults and stumbles. But I still had peace and knew who I was in Christ.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are born less than perfect with areas of Bondage, Rebellion, Guilt and Shame. Thankfully, God provided His only Son to take care of all four of those core issues.

Bondage: Dead: God Regenerated me and I was Born Again to new life as a Child of God

Rebellion: My way is best: God Converted me and turned my heart toward Him

True Moral Guilt: Deserve Justice: God Justified me and Forgave that Guilt

Shame: Loss of Identity and Inheritance: God Adopted me as an Eldest Son with His Family Identity and eternal Inheritance

After I was Reborn, Converted, Justified and Adopted I stumbled, made errors in judgment and sinned. But I am still in His family.

"Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus." RO 8:39

My kids and grand kids have my name and my inheritance. They will always be mine no matter what they do. They are imperfect and struggle in immature ways. I expect children to be imperfect but to grow in maturity, just as I did.

It is kind of crazy to believe that any person can be without sin, rebellion, guilt and feelings of shame. God provided a way for us to confess our sins and pray for each other so we would be healed. James 5:16

If we never had any rebellion or bondage or guilt why did God tell us how to deal with it?

How do we deal with Christian sinners?

Expect everyone to fail, sin and have guilt

Provide safe places for all persons to come for confession and forgiveness

Tell stories about falling, confession, repentance, and healing

Ask God what He wants to teach us each time we fall

Come to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace in our time of need

Grand Parenting

Karen and I are in Pittsburgh with Jack and Emma, our son's children while he and Shelley are in California. It is a lot of exhausting fun. I had forgotten how much work two kids are and how much joy they bring at the same time.

I awoke at 5:00 AM and Jack was already up. That means it is a long day. Getting him and Emma washed, dressed, fed and ready for the day was a challenge. Jack attends Covenant Presbyterian Pre-School so I had to find it and get him there in time. I met his teacher and saw the great program that Covenant has for kids and the way they preach the gospel in so many avenues.

Emma is MY girl. At age 14 months she loves her Papa. Her big smile anytime I am near melts my heart and we have a great time.

Children are messy. Very messy. They love to get their toys out and spread them liberally around the house. In five minutes the house is a wreck and they could care less.

But grand parents are not surprised or upset. It is just the way they are and we love it.

So, I am not writing about the Great Awakenings. I am just trying to stay awake.

Gary Sweeten Day in Cincinnati

 

This is a photo of the proclamation by Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory making October 2 Gary Sweeten Day in Cincinnati. It was a great blessing and honor to have EMI go to all the trouble to have the Mayor make the proclamation.

The Mayor also made Sunday, October 3 College Hill Presbyterian Church Day in Cincinnati for founding EMI and its predecessor, the Teleios Center, and supporting EMI's national and international ministries for thirty years.

THANKS

Without a doubt the EMI team led by Saddel Bradley along with Dave and Pam Ping put on a reunion and ceremony honoring myself and the pioneers who established EMI back in the days we served at College Hill Presbyterian Church.

The last post shows some of the photos from the event at the Marriott Hotel. I wish I could show you more and I will try to get additional shots from Friday night and from Sunday services at CHPC. Karen and I each said that the quality and quantity of EMI's ministry around the world have progressed dramatically since I retired. They have taken it much farther than I could have.

So, I want to thank the EMI team publicly.

I have often taught about the importance of following the biblical admonition to "Honor our fathers and mothers so we will live long on the earth." EMI did that with spades Friday and Sunday. May the blessings of God be yours for many generations.

Family Heriage

Take a look at my daughter's blog Hooked on Houses to see some of our family's proud heritage. The photo shows a piano bought when my wife Karen was about eight. Her mother Hazel is now 93 and she told us they paid $500.00 for it in 1948. That was a lot of money 61 years ago.

Hazel was a great but untrained piano player whose hymn renditions rang throughout the house as we stood around her piano and sang everything from Amazing Grace to We Will Understand it Better By and By.

Take note of the song book placed on the piano. This was from Karen's childhood and was used by her teacher to train those little fingers to find the correct notes.

What memories come back to you from this post?

Father's and Children

It is a joy to live long enough to see your kids grow up and become lovingly successful. Take a look at my daughter's blog from last year when she gave me a great tribute and planned a wonderful birthday bash for my 70 Th.

Dads are Important

Happy Fathers' Day

My father died a long time ago and i still miss him. Dad was a man of deep convictions and fervent likes and dislikes. He was a strong Democrat. No, I mean STRONG! (This photo was taken in 1971 with our son Timothy.)

But his convictions arose from having been poor, misunderstood, abused as a kid and abused by employers as an adult. At an early age, maybe 20, he lost two and a half fingers off his right hand in a manufacturing accident while working in Chicago. To hear him retell the story a million times the company wasn't very concerned with his pain or problems just the fact that his machine was idle for some time. Efficiency!

I crossed a picket line once. Just once. I was about nine and wandered across the picket line set up to protest unjust practices at a retail store in the County Seat, Mt. Vernon. We lived in the village of Ina, pop 300 just ten mils straight south from the city.

When dad was told by a man on the picket line that his second son had brazenly walked across that line Dad's shame rose up like the great speckled bird and descended upon my head like a hawk.

"Don't you know better than to cross a picket line? What's the matter with you boy? Have you lost your mind? All those men and women on that line SAW you. You sashayed across that line like you owned that scab store and made a fool out of me and my family.

Coming from a Union Family I had no excuse. I was supposed to have been as knowledgeable about union affairs as John L. Lewis, the head of the United Mine Workers. Being only nine and not thinking like a striking union man was a short cut to hell and my dad would have sent me there with a quick dispatch. So, I decided that becoming a deaf mute with a "face to the ground" look on my face was the best bet.

"Can't you hear me boy?! Explain yourself! Speak up!"


Dad did not really mean for me to speak up because there was no defense for being stupid and blind. Any nine year old kid from a union family would smell a strike for miles and I walked or sashayed right across the picket line like I owned the place.

So, silent shame was the best punishment. I prayed for a beating or a month in jail rather than the look of exasperation and complete shame in my dad's face and voice. Would we Sweetens ever be able to hold our heads up in public again? Had I so humiliated the Sweeten Clan that people would start whispering that we were secret REPUBLICANS?

What drastic penance would be demanded, silently of course, from our clan? Shame faced depression for two decades might assuage the guilt but to show just how callous I was a nine I never learned what price dad had to pay for my sin. So, I was forced to leave southern Illinois and come to Ohio where no one knows of my families generational sins. They are safely left behind.

Gary Sweeten

PS Please don't ask my brothers about this infamous affair lest it cause them to redouble their political activities for the Socialist Workers' Party.

Poverty and Christians

What social needs are churches supposed to meet? Are we supposed to eliminate Hunger, Homelessness, Abortion, Addiction, violence, Adoption, Pornography, Domestic abuse, Divorce,Ignorance,?

Which are we to focus on at church and in life? The answer is: YES.

But the core of these issues is a lack of salvation and mature Christians.

Here in Cincinnati, we are seeing an increase in deadly conflicts among young men and women. Almost daily we get images of families crowding around a crime scene weeping and wailing about the loss of a child or young person.

Many of the comments coming from the adults call on God and ask for His protection, yet the ones involved in the killings seem clueless to God's love and life. Another thing is missing: Males. Rarely do we see males in these photos. I would be willing to bet that over 90% of the youth involved in these killings came from homes where the father was absent most of all of their lives. I hope someone can prove me wrong.

Salvation is not enough. We must also have changed lives that bring dads back into the families they have fathered. Unfortunately, we have spawned a culture of polygamy without marriage and children without love. The rule is too often "hooking up" sexually and fathering a child with no personal responsibility to rear that child or model personal responsibility to him or her.

With abortion we also see a culture of death and despising children. The pro death politicians and feminist ideologues have brought such evil upon our nation that it is almost impossible to stop the carnage. We Christians must pray hard to reveal this deception and regain the culture of love, life and nurture we once enjoyed.

My dad had a favorite saying about this. "When we remove sex from marriage we will see the men become tom cats who kill their offspring and show no love to their partners." My dad was a prophet and it will get much worse in the years ahead.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:10 ff

Our enemy is not Obama or even the NARAL groups that promote killing and death.

The Pain in Single Parenting

The Wall Street Journal has another great article on the importance of strong marriages.

Sara McLanahan at Princeton University and her colleagues have found that boys who are raised by single mothers are twice as likely to end up in prison by age 32, that girls who are born outside of marriage are three times as likely to have a teenage pregnancy, and that teens born outside of marriage are about twice as likely to drop out of high school, compared with their peers who are raised in intact, married families.

Moreover, we should take cold comfort from the fact that many of these nonmarital births are, in Ms. Henriquez's words, to "women [who] may be living with a partner." It is true that most of the recent growth in nonmarital childbearing has been driven by births to cohabiting couples. But cohabiting couples are notoriously unstable, in large part because their relationships are not anchored by the legal, social and moral commitments associated with marriage. One study by Pamela Smock at the University of Michigan and Wendy Manning at Bowling Green State University found that 50% of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents part by age 5, compared with only 15% of children born to married parents.

And as both parents and scholars know, such instability is hard on young children. Not surprisingly, a growing body of research on cohabitation and child well-being indicates that kids who spend time in cohabiting unions are significantly more likely to experience emotional problems, school failure and physical and sexual abuse than children in intact, married homes -- in part because they are much more likely to be exposed to a revolving series of romantic partners, usually unrelated adult males, who do not have their best interests at heart.

For decades I have tried to teach people how to resolve the issues that lead to divorce. We have saved thousands of marriages from destruction. In a few weeks I will release a DVD that outlines the facts about the ways to prevent divorce and produce strong marriages.

Pray for us.

Gary Sweeten

Teen Bullying and Suicide

It seems that the term bullying has taken on a new meaning in our current culture. Every once in a while some teenager in America tragically commits suicide because they were, according to news media, bullied.

I do not doubt that kids often hurt each other by calling each other names. That has been going on since Adam and Eve's kids were caught in a case of extreme sibling rivalry. However, only recently have parents and media begun to call for new laws prohibiting it, and only recently have the kids who are being taunted, teased and harassed actually killing themselves as a result.

Why? Well, I don't know exactly why but I have some ideas. It seems to me that we have failed and are failing to prepare children and youth to endure the "Slings and arrows of unrighteous fortune" in the guise of verbal harassment. There has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of young people with depression and anxiety over the past 100 years. Despite the fact that life is much easier today than it was a century ago, kids are too often failing to meet and overcome the challenges they face.

There seems to be less resilience in people now than 1n 1909. Resilience grows out of facing and overcoming difficulties in life. It begins with encountering and overcoming small challenges and grows as we learn how to face and overcome great challenges. I fear that we are trying to shield our young people from small indignities and small challenges so when a big problem like harassment occur they are emotionally overwhelmed.

Here is my opinion for parents and grand parents. Make sure your offspring are experiencing small doses of disappointment, anger, rejection and pain. I prefer to do this through playing board games and sports. The pain of losing to someone else will help those youngsters develop the resiliency they need to face a bully or an illness. That is the only way they will develop the emotional muscles necessary to defeat the big obstacles in life.

Gary Sweeten

Christian Counselors Trained in Australia

I just received a note from an old friend in Australia. Bruce and Nellie Litchfield run a Family Counselling Graduate School for Youth With A Mission in Canberra.

Bruce and Nellie attended our training many years ago at YWAM's University of the Nations in Hawaii. Thankfully, they took what they learned, integrated it with YWAM teaching and developed transferable models that have been implemented all over the world.

Take a look at their newest announcement: VOCATIONAL GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN COUNSELLING AND FAMILY THERAPY

You will be very interested to know that we (AIFC) have completed the final application for a Vocational Graduate Certificate in Counselling and Family Therapy (Christian) involving a third year training.

It is very gratifying to see our ideas being spread throughout the world by great Christian organizations. YWAM is a very large missionary organization that has training centers in nearly 200 places. They train Believers in all manner of ways so they can take the good news of Jesus Christ to individuals, families, businesses and educational institutions.

I have been blessed to teach at the YWAM University on several occasions and to see them up close and personal. One of the most remarkable and creative of ideas was setting up schools to train young men and women how to be beautiful. Another school taught Polynesians how to use their indigenenous dances to proclaim the gospel.

If you are interested in what Bruce and Nellie are doing you can write them at

blitchfield@bigpond.com Mention that you read about the school on my blog.

Gary Sweeten

http://www.sweetenlife.com/

You Are Welcome

I will be speaking at morning services at Tri County Assembly of God in Fairfield, Ohio north of Cincinnati on the next two Sundays. I would love for you to be praying for me and the service as I speak about, "I'll Be Home for Christmas".

Senior Pastor Brad Rosenberg will be glad to meet my friends so if you are in the area, come out and say "Hello".

Gary Sweeten

http://www.sweetenlife.com/

A Great Story on Thanksgiving

The L.A. Times has a terrific story about the First Thanksgiving in America. I highly recommend that you read it before your family celebration this year.

Honoring Mentors

Last Friday I attended the Memorial Service of Marge Miller. The sanctuary of College Hill Presbyterian Church was half full and it seemed that most of us were torn between grief over the loss of a wonderful friend and, at the same time, filled with joy because we knew she was now at the side of her husband Jim and son David.

The mixture was particularly strong when we sang some of Marge's favorite songs. She was Welsh and loved singing as much as anyone I ever met. The music brought back sweet memories of our great days together at CHPC as well as the reminder that some day a group will be singing that music at our service.

Marge Miller was on the edge of the huge shift in theology and practice of lay ministry. It is common today to see churches with numerous lay volunteers who do everything but the sacraments in churches. However, when I joined the staff at CHPC in 1973 it was unusual, especially in an Mainline Presbyterian Church.

Marge had been the Interim Minister of Christian Education when I came full time in that position. Marge took me under her wing and mentored me, coached me and showed me the ropes. I was a Baptist kid from a tiny village who knew nothing of Presbyterian polity, theology or practice. Marge was warm, caring, funny and straight forward. She was my life saver.

Thanks to Marge Miller and all the Marge Millers who labor in God's vineyards behind the scenes. They are the keys to how a church operates and few people recognize it. Most of the accolades and fame goes to the clergy who speak on Sunday mornings. They write the books and get quoted by Christianity. But it was Marge and Marie and Doris and Carole and Jim and Tom and Peter who made it all work.

Thanks Marge. The lights you lit in others will shine brightly for generations. God has blessed me and thousands more through you so now you can enjoy your reward.

ALL SENIOR and OTHER FULLTIME PASTORS

It is never t0o late to have a happy family

CALL 1.800.FL.TODAY
TO REGISTER FREE FOR THE MARCH 6-8, 2008
(even if you can only attend Friday and Saturday)
FAMILYLIFE
WEEKEND TO REMEMBER
MARRIAGE CONFERENCE

Dear Friends and Tri-State Pastors,

Please do your best to attend this special weekend to to get away from the distractions of daily pastoral life! Cell phones are shut-off and to-do lists are temporarily forgotten. It's a time to slow down and reconnect with just your spouse and it's FREE! Rest assured, you will not be asked to attend any meetings that weekend! Your presence at this weekend and your leadership in calling your church to pray for this weekend are very important if this event is to have the impact and ripple effect on our marriage, churches and city that the Lord intends for it to have!

Thank you for your support in this effort to make a difference in the marriages of your church, community, city and region by:
Calling 1.800.FL.TODAY to register you and your spouse FREE for this event!
Forwarding us the name and contact information of your Prayer Ministry that will cover this event in prayer
Forwarding us the name of a couple you know has a heart to see marriages healed and would coordinate a group form your church to this event
God richly bless you and your marriage and your ministry partnership!

Working Together for Him,
Rodger and Gloria Henn
FamilyLife@ImportSpecialist.com
513.779.2288

Gary Sweeten
www.sweetenlife.com

Conservative on Marriage

In a year when the far Left won the Presidency and many Congressional seats, traditional marriage won in California. Voters in our largest and perhaps most liberal state voted overwhelmingly to ban same sex marriages. This was a very strong defeat for the gay rights movement nationally and a message that marriage is important to our society. (See the story here.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122586056759900673.html)

I suggest that every church in the land preach, teach and hold seminars on the importance of marriage and family life. Not just as a way to resist the radical ideas of the gay lobby. The primary focus needs to be on developing strong marriages and helping them be healthy for the adults and children.

We know how to keep marriages together and we know how to destroy them. Learning to communicate, solve problems and deal with differences are crucial to all successful relationships but is especially critical to building a successful and happy marriage. This requires more than lectures and preaching. A couple needs to learn the skills of listening and understanding one another.

Get my book, Listening for Heaven's Sake and learn how to develop more love and understanding.

++++++++++

Gary Sweeten

http://www.sweetenlife.com/

More on the Sweeten Clan

Here is Jack Donovan Sweeten holding Emma Taylor Sweeten. You will no doubt note that each has a middle name that is normally used as a family moniker.

Donovan is Shelley's Mother's maiden name. Yep, they are Irish and very proud of it.

Emma's middle name, Taylor, was my mother's maiden name. And, yes, that can be either Scot or Scots Irish.

I am very blessed that Tim and Shelley are memorializing their ancestors by giving such rich names to their children.

Family Relationships

Our continual focus at Sweeten Life Systems is "A lifetime of great relationships". There is no place that emphasis is more important than in the family. Since our son Timothy and his wife Shelley have just blessed us with a new daughter, Emma Taylor Sweeten, it is appropriate to claim the "Commandment with a promise" that St. Paul mentions in Ephesians 6:
The context to which he speaks is about child rearing and discipline but he throws a bit of a curve here by saying, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for that is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise." Paul continues and makes sure his readers that are no from a Jewish background will get it by saying, "That it may go well with you and that you may live a long time on the earth."

In this manner he reminds us that discipline and child rearing are not just in one direction from the parents to the child but also extend backward to and through the parents to grand parents, great grand parents and so forth. As a student of family life and child rearing I can not agree more and my agreement comes not just from faith in God and the Bible but also from research and thirty years of teaching, ministry and family counseling.


A few weeks ago I was able to speak at The Horizon Community Church on the topic of "Hidden Family Rules". You can go online and download that talk by clicking the Horizon name. You will find the presentation quite interesting because of the skills of the Horizon planning team. We are using the GodFather Trilogy to show how dysfunctional and even toxic family patterns as well as healthy and godly patterns can be passed from generation to generation.


It is a joy to see Tim and Shelley as they bless their parents by inviting Karen and me to enter in to their generational blessing. Next week Shelley's Mom will be here to further strengthen the multi-generational bond.



Ps I am still honoring my own ancestors and asking God to use that to bless the future generations of Sweetens born and unborn.

Any comments?

Want Your Kids to Make Better Grades?

Recent research on the relationship of church attendance and better grades is heartening to those of us who take the trouble to get our children in Sunday school and church. The study is found in the journal LiveScience and says: "If you want to boost your teenager's grade point average, take the kid to church. Or, a new study suggests, find some similar social activity to involve them in.
Researchers found that church attendance has as much effect on a teen's GPA as whether the parents earned a college degree. Students in grades 7 to 12 who went to church weekly also had lower dropout rates and felt more a part of their schools.
On average, students whose parents received a four-year college degree average a GPA .12 higher than those whose parents completed high school only. Students who attend religious services weekly average a GPA .144 higher than those who never attend services, said Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the University of Iowa."

This is just the latest study to affirm the positive aspects of church involvement for children, youth and adults. Just attending church is thought to lengthen life by three to five years and we know that kids who attend church drink and smoke less as well as do less drugs.

So, don't just send them to church; take them there and stay for a dose of healthy living yourself.

Sweeten Life Systems is all about "A lifetime of great relationships" and going to church as a family to worship God and follow the way of love is essential to building great relationships.