Hiders, Fighters and Lovers in Marriage

Building a lifetime of great relationships.

Dr. John Gottman has done research with couples for almost three decades. He has focused a lot of his studies on how couples deal with differences between them. And, there are many differences between them.

He has concluded several things but allow me to mention one. Gottman is convinced that a couple can manage their differences in three positive ways and one very toxic and dangerous way. The three healthy ways lead to long term marriages of satisfaction and functionality but the toxic process almost inevitably leads to divorce.

I. Some couples deal with differences and the conflict they cause by Avoiding each other and the topic of disagreement until things cool down. They says things such as, "Our marriage is so much more important than any small difference of opinion".

In one family, the man would go down to his workshop and the wife would sew. They might never mention the conflict again but simply stay committed to each other despite the difference.

II. Other couples are Volatile and like to argue. They disagree all the time and argue about many small, insignificant issues. However, the arguments do not get personal. They tend to stay focused on the details of the disagreement not the personal characteristics of their mate.

III. Lastly is the style that a lot of Counselors and Relationship Coaches suggest. It can be called, "the Lovers Style" because they talk everything through and share all their feelings and thoughts until they agree. This style eshausts every topic until there is little left to say.

What style did your parents use to disagree? Did they like to hide their disagreements by going to the workroom or kitchen until it blew over? Or did the like to dialogue about things in a deeply sharing manner? Some of your parents liked to keep things interesting and exciting by arguments.

Fill in this blank: My parents dealt with disagreements by _____________.

How about you and your spouse? We handle disagreements by _______________.

Another Area of Crisis

Doesn't it seem that we are in a state of serial crises in the world? Not only in America but around the world. Depression and anxiety are on the rise, wars and their rumors are getting worse and worse. Oppressive, brutal dictators take over a country that is prospering such as Zimbabwe and turn it into a place of starvation, murder and hopelessness. North Korea, Iran and the Islamic terrorists seem bent on world wide chaos and we do not seem to be able to stop them.

Now, just as you were about to suffer from a case of "Compassion Fatigue" I come along and tell you about another crisis. It is a crisis in the number of children born with severe birth defects. I will not bore you with dry statistics but simply remind you how many kids in our elementary schools can't read, learn or even sit still to listen to the teachers. One of five kids has an "official diagnosis".

But there is some hope if we Christians will reach out in love and prayer to their parents. Take a look at my Sweeten Life web page and my blog on Seasoned Believers to see what you can do to support these families.

Increasing Family Dysfunction in America

As a Family Therapist I read research and news from other therapists and experts about the state of families in the USA. Frankly, many of the writers are deeply concerned about what they see as the fast growing decrease in the health of family relationships. We see at a remarkable and serious downturn in the ability of families and the institutions that impact families to deal with the natural, normal stresses of life.

In 1940 the American divorce rate was some 16% and now it is above 50% for a three fold or 300% increase. We know that in some instances people stayed together despite serious and unhealthy relationships but even it we doubled the percent of marriages that failed in 1940 we will still be shocked by how high the numbers are today.

Every marriage has ups and downs. They always have had highs and lows and they always will. However, one of the most important ways to discern the overall health of a society is how well they deal with tough times. A 50% divorce rate indicates that our society is in trouble; deep, deep trouble.

One of the most insightful lessons I ever learned about family life was to assess how well the entire family unit is functioning from generation to generation. Some of that health or un-health is based on the individual psychological functioning of each family member. However, when we look at how well a family deals with transitions from developmental stage to the next stage we get a new insights about the causes and cures of dysfunction.

Most of my Doctoral education in Counseling focused on the individuals inner life as the cause and cure of problems and successes. Over the years parents have brought their kids to me and said, "Fix this kid. I can't do anything with him or her". For a long time I would try to fix the kid as if he were the only one involved in the problem. Now I look at this kid's "problems" as indicative of the way the entire family relates to each other from generation to generation.

That does not mean that the kid is innocent. He is part of the problem and part of the solution if we will just listen to the reasons he/she is acting the way that troubles mom and dad.

Sometimes it is the only way the child can ask for help for mom and dad.

Sometimes it is the only way mom and dad will actually communicate with each other.

Sometimes the kid's issues are lengthening shadows of parental secrets and the need to confess to each other.

Sometimes it is the best way for a kid to obey the Bible's command to "Honor your father and mother so you days will be long and prosperous on the earth."

One thing is for sure about parenting. It is extremely difficult today in light of the downward spiral of the society. Recently a six year old boy was expelled from grade school because he made a hat like his dads for a school project. On the hat he made and place a tiny rifle just like the one on his dad's hat. But because the school has what they call, "A Zero Tolerance Policy" about guns in school, they had to expel the child.

As a society we are increasingly growing in our promotion of unthinking policies. This policy is so stupid, ignorant and ridiculous that no one with a brain of a marsh mellow would adopt it in the first place and certainly no one with the ability to reason rationally would implement it in this instance. This is only one small example of how unthinking and reactive our society is getting. And, it is occurring even in the halls of education by teachers and administrators. Any leader that does such an automatic, reptilian thing as this needs to be fired immediately.

How can parents rear peaceful, responsible and non reactive kids in such a climate? The only hope for parents is to build strong relationships with each other and our extended family members. Grandparents are very important to generational health as are uncles and aunts, friends and church members.

First, parents must work hard to heal all wounds from past generations. Forgive all hurts and sins of parents, grandparents, and siblings.

Second, get in a harmonious relationship with your spouse, even if you are divorced. (Divorce is easy but separation is impossible. Marriages last forever no matter what the court says.)

Third, develop healthy friendships for yourself as a support system. Fourth, get involved in a good, relational church.

We cannot outsource parenting.

Healing Marriages

A school in Moscow with kids trying on gas masks



A recent article in the New York Times shows the devastating effect of dysfunctional families in Russia. There are more orphans in Russia today than there were immediately after WWII when Russia lost 25 million people!!!

we have been working in Russia since the beginning of perestroika. My first trip was in 1991 but we got going a few years later after Dr. Galina came here and learned our methods of equipping lay and professionals how to "Heal the broken hearted and set the captives free."

We focus a great deal on breaking the bondage of addiction in Russia as well as the other nations where we minister. However, Russia has the most addicted population I have ever seen so we must do everything we can to raise up Pastors and Christian Lay people to minister to those in need of sobriety.

But sobriety is not enough. Couples must learn how to live together in harmony and parents must learn how to love their children and discipline them well. Almost every family has an addict in it so divorce, abortion and domestic abuse are rampant. And, the professional Pastors, Psychologists and Social workers have almost NO real skills to bring healing through Jesus Christ.

The result? Abandoned babies. Precious babies. Lovey babies. We help workers in orphanages learn the skills of loving and healing those abandoned babies. But the most important things we do are healing the parents. healing the marriages. healing the addicts so there are no abandoned babies.

Will you help us? Pray for us? Support us?

Sweeten Life Systems

Models of Ministry

I am in Copenhagen with Dr. Galina Chentsova, head of the Liferoute.ru ministry in Moscow, Russia. We are headed for a meeting with Peter Dyhr of DAWN to discuss setting up teleios training for 400 new church plants.

Then we go to Randers to be with Peder Poulsen to do a workshop on healing and growth.

For three days I have been with the brilliant and effective Kirsten Callesen. If you want to change the world with Christ's word, works and love, you need a good model of ministry. The current models are not doing so well. They are based on one person lecturing others who learn to be helpless, powerless and dependent.

I suggest that you read a book on a different model now used widely in businesses, internet companies and non profits. The book is: "The Spider and the Monkey.

it is easily read and well written with lots of examples and stories.

i saw the model being used in Denmark by Dr. Kirsten Callesen who heads the Asperbeger's Institute in Copenhagen. She is training the parents of disabled kids to help their children progress. The meet in small groups to learn, share and practice the new insights. the new insights are spreading like wild fire and helping hundreds of families.

The decentralized approach is the only way new ways of behaving can quickly sprad to others. read the book and get trained. Move out for God to touch others.

New Post about Tiger

Go to my other blog for information about Tiger and Elin. Who is guilty?

Marriage for Thanksgiving

Today is November 21, 2009 and it is 48 years after Karen Judy Mayer and I said, "I do!" Karen and I had known each other for a few months when we decided to marry. It is popular for counselors and "experts" to insist that people date for a long time and really get to know each other before tying the knot. In fact, some even suggest that living together for a year or so before marriage will really cement things. The research data indicates otherwise. People who live together "without benefit of clergy" are most likely to divorce and more likely to find that they are really incompatible.

Karen and I were incompatible but we have lived together very successfully for 48 years. I am a man and she is a woman. That alone sets up enough incompatibilities to make divorce certain if other factors were not also available. Add to the male/female thing our differences in Temperament, (I am an ENTP and she is an ISFP), our family backgrounds, (She was reared by a single mother with one sister and I have two brothers and no sisters). But we had a very important commonality: Christ and Christian values.

Karen and I were married on the Thanksgiving holiday because I was a teacher. So, we always celebrate our anniversary with great thanks to God. Today we were able to be with daughter Julia's kids, Jacob 14 and Lily 7. It was a blast. And, HH Gregg delivered a new refrigerator to the lower level of our house as my anniversary present. (This allows our son Tim and family to come home for special occasions and stay with us. In other words, family makes it all worthwhile.

Karen and I also had a tendency to laugh a lot and have lot of fun. This and a deep attraction to each other overcame a lot of differences. Vivie Le difference!

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.

Predictions of Today's Marriages

This photo is of one famous man's wife and mistress.

July 22, 2009

Today's marriages as predicted 40 years ago
The wedding season is upon us. It runs from spring to late autumn. It's anybody's guess how many weddings occurred just this last weekend.
Today's weddings occur in a sociological atmosphere quite different from that of a couple's parents and grandparents.
The current atmosphere we've collectively spawned over the years is no friend of the newly married, or long-married for that matter. Didn't we ever see where we were going?

Someone did.

In 1970 an interesting book, "Future Shock," was written by Alvin Toffler. He was a sociology professor at Cornell University who conducted research into future value systems.

From this research he predicted what our culture could expect in the fast-arriving future and how it would affect our lives. He showed how we were fast forming a "throw-away" society.

This, in turn, would lead us to adopt a concept of transience, a new "temporariness" in everyday life as well as a mood of impermanence. This Age of Transience would soon affect our relationship with people, but also our attitude toward things, places, ideas, as well as toward institutions and organizations.

He wrote, "The people of the future will live in a condition of 'high transience' - a condition in which the duration of relationships is cut short ... things, places, people, ideas, and organizational structures will all get 'used up' more quickly." Permanent commitment to anything would become passé.

Before most of last week's brides and grooms were even born, Toffler predicted that success in the marriage of the future would come to be determined by the degree to which matched development actually occurs between spouses.

Love would be determined by the degree of shared growth, not necessarily by the giving of self.

Yet, he goes on to say, "The mathematical odds are heavily stacked against any couple achieving this ideal of parallel growth. The odds plummet when the rate of change in a society accelerates, as it is now doing. In a fast-moving society in which ... the family is again and again torn loose from home and community, in which individuals move further from their parents, further from the religion of origin, and further from traditional values, it is almost miraculous if two people develop at anything like comparable rates."

Dire words!

And now, almost 40 years later, our own observations bear him out. Human relationships have become more transient and the development of genuine love more tenuous. Love is now sought in serial marriages or clandestine affairs.

In 1970 Toffler claimed that in the future those who marry will have an average of three marriages in their lifetime: the first for the expression of sexuality; the second for procreating children; and the third for companionship.

"There will be some," he predicted, "who, through luck, interpersonal skill and high intelligence, will find it possible to make long-lasting monogamous marriages work. Some will succeed in marrying for life and finding durable love and affection. But the others will fail to make even sequential marriages endure for long."

My dear brides and grooms, isn't it remarkably sad that what was predicted 39 years ago has now become true?

May your marriage be counter-culture, your commitment permanent, your love enduring. And may your children find in your relationship an inspiration for their own.

Father Lou Guntzelman is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reach him at columns@communitypress.com or contact him directly at P.O. Box 428541, Cincinnati, OH 45242. Please include a mailing address or fax number if you wish for him to respond.

Multiple Sperm Donors-No Daddy

Abstract:

The claim that multiple partner fertility may pose a risk of adverse outcomes for children has not been tested. We test this argument using a sample of 4,027 resident fathers and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey by examining the pathways through which fathers' multipartnered fertility is associated with children's externalizing behaviors and physical health status at 36 months.

Path analyses indicate that multiple partner fertility exerted both a significant direct and indirect effect through paternal depression to influence children's externalizing behaviors. Fathers' multiple partner fertility also exerted a significant indirect effect through one mediator—father involvement—to influence children's physical health.

This evidence suggests that the disruptions brought about by multipartnered fertility are important for understanding child well-being.

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?

Legacy!

How do you want to be remembered? That question was asked of Jonas Salk several years after he had developed the Polio Vaccine. The answer he gave surprised me but it makes sense at the same time. He said, "I want to be remembered as a great ancestor."

Wow! That is heavy. I love his answer because that is my goal. I am a father of two kids and Grand Father of four. I want them to grow up with healthy lives, strong Christian family values and using all their gifts, talents and develop skills to add value to the well being of the world. I cannot control those things, of course, but I can plant seeds and develop systems that foster them.

This was the topic I spoke on tonight at the chapel service at Mason Christian Village. The scripture I chose was Hebrews 12:12-15

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

The writer starts out by giving us his goal of healing, peaceful relationships and holiness so we can see God at work in our lives. That is a very impressive set of goals. Overwhelming, in fact. How can it be done? What is required of us? How much education, money, hard work and striving is it going to take for these things to occur? See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

It will require God's Grace. Not Gary's striving but Christ's finished work and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now THAT'S good news.

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.

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

Marital Stress Kills

An article recently published on the BBC Website says that:

Women are more likely than men to suffer damage to their health from being in a strained marriage, research suggests.

Men may be so out of touch with themselves and the state of their marriage that they don't get as stressed.

Maybe this is why over 90% of the people looking for help in mmarriage and family life are women.

Go to LifeWay Counseling Centers to save your marriage and save yourself.

Love and Marriage

Karen and I have been married over 47 years and it gets sweeter every year. Here are some thoughts about marriage from youthful but keen observers.

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?

"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." Alan, age 10

"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with." Kirsten, age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

"Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then." Camille, age 10

"No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married." Freddie, age 6

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

"Married people usually look happy to talk to other people." Eddie, age 6

"You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids." Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

"Both don't want no more kids." Lori, age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

"Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." Lynne, age 8

"On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date." Martin, age 10

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

"I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns." Craig, age 9

WHEN IS IT OK TO KISS SOMEONE?

"When they're rich." Pam, age 7

"The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." Curt, age 7

"The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do." Howard, age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

"I don't know which is better, but I'll tell you one thing. I'm never going to have sex with my wife. I don't want to be all grossed out." Theodore, age 8

"It's better for girls to be single, but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them." Anita, age 9

"Single is better, for the simple reason that I wouldn't want to change no diapers. Of course, if I did get married, I'd just phone my mother and have her come over for some coffee and diaper-changing." Kirsten, age 10

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

"There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?" Kelvin, age 8

"You can be sure of one thing - the boys would come chasing after us just the same as they do now." Roberta, age 7

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

"If you want to last with your man, you should wear a lot of sexy clothes, especially underwear that is red and has a few diamonds on it." Lori, age 8

"Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck." Ricky, age 10

Ricky has it right. Affirm your wife no matter what. The research shows that we need a 5 X 1 ratio of affirmation to complaints to have a great marriage.

Gary Sweeten

Marriage Enrichment Retreat

Karen and I were with a group of ten couples Crestview Presbyterian Church in Mason-Westchester, Ohio from Friday through Sunday. We had a great time in the Hueston Woods Conference Center Lodge with a Winter Wonderland all around us.

One problem: I couldn't get my Internet to work. However, that was not too bad since I needed a break.

We had a great time. The people were warm, funny, open about their needs and seeking God's help for marriage and family. Pastor Alan Landes and wife Connie along with the Johnsons and Tyrones did a great job of planning.

If your church is not doing much for couples and families, visit Crestview and see what good things they are doing.

Gary Sweeten

www.sweetenlife.com