Secrets of the Pure

As a youth pastor, counselor, and Christian I am very interested in the answer to this question: What is the secret to staying pure before marriage? I'm talking about people who are in committed relationships who in the course of dating and engagement do something that most couples (including Christian couples) do not: they stay pure. I've blogged about this before. Although evangelical Christians for the most part subscribe to a "not until marriage" theology, their practice says otherwise. In other words, Christian couples are getting sexual and yes, it's a big problem, our dirty little secret.

Anyway, I recently spoke with two people who have remained pure. The first is a Christian bartender who went out with her boyfriend for seven years and stayed pure the whole time. Seven years! They just got married. I asked her what the secret was to her staying pure. She told me that activity was never an option for them. Ever. (This reminded me of the secret to marriage that Will Smith recently espoused "You just both agree that divorce is never an option. Then you'll never be tempted by it.") My friend and her boyfriend both valued purity and believed that it was possible to stay pure. Principle 1: You have to decide that you are going to be pure. Not that you are going to try to be pure or do your best to be pure. You will be pure. Simple. If you do not have this rock solid commitment to waiting you will almost always fail. That is the reality and it is the main starting point on the journey of purity.

My second story is about a guy I know in his mid twenty's who has been going out with a girl for a few months. As I often do when catching up with guy friends I'll ask them about how their physical life is going with their significant other. I find that very few people ask this question! One guy I asked told me I was the first person who had ever asked him! Anyway, this friend told me that things were going great in his relationship, including the physical part. A few interesting things he told me:

When they started going out he told the girl he thought they should take the physical side of the relationship very slow. They made an agreement not to kiss for awhile which ended up being a few months. They did this, he said to work on their friendship first. A wise decision I think. Principle 2: When a relationship starts with the physical it is difficult to stop that side from becoming the focus of the relationship. Start with the friendship first. As an aside I wonder if the it is the guy who is the main "boundary keeper" in the relationship if the chances are higher that the couple will succeed in purity (without being sexist, my guess is that this is true).

The girl's uncles let him know in subtle ways that he was being watched by them. "Hey _(my friend), if you were going to be shot where would you want to be shot and with what kind of gun?" "Are you trying to say something?" "Nope, just curious, you know one of those "what if" questions." Seriously that's what they said to him! Of course there were no explicit threats, just subtle warning. Principle 3: It takes a community to keep one pure. My friend did not try to escape this accountability, instead he embraced it. Couples who fail sexually often have no accountability or they reject that that is offered them.

When my friend wanted to ask the girl out she told him that he had to ask her Dad. Yikes! Scary right? Actually it wasn't that bad. Mostly they talked about the girl and what she meant to both of them. The Dad did make one stipulation though: he told my friend that if he wanted to date his daughter that he wanted them to hang out mostly at their house (where she lived), not at my friend's house. I thought that this was genius because it took out the temptation to be alone in a place without any accountability. Principle 4: Stay away from tempting environments and avoid being alone very much. Many couples consistently put themselves into a place where they will be tempted - and eventually they fail.

My friend told me this story of renting a movie he had really wanted to see for a long time. So he invited his girlfriend. Unbeknowst to him, the movie had some nudity and he started to feel uncomfortable watching this with his girlfriend. So he made a difficult decision: he turned it off. "What was hard," he told me, "was that I really wanted to see that movie!" But it was the principle of the thing. Will one sex scene in a movie cause someone to be impure? Probably not. But it goes to show what my friend was willing to do to protect their relationship. Principle 5: Small decisions to protect purity add up to a pure relationship.

Let me add a principle from my own experience. Principle 6: Decide what your personal boundaries are ahead of time and make sure that who ever has the more conservative boundaries - those are the ones you never cross. Jobina and I did this. We openly discussed what we each thought was too far and then agreed to go with the "weaker" person's conscience. If the other person can't respect those boundaries, the couple will eventually fail. This means checking in on each other and putting your values ahead of your own desires. Speaking of boundaries, most couples who fail don't know how to talk about them, enforce them, or have consequences for if they fail. Yet they are so important. Knowing your partner's boundaries and not letting you (or them) go past them is a very loving thing to do. Many successful couples have used the same principle - with excellent results.

Do you know of any couples who have been successful in staying pure before marriage? If so, what worked for them? I'd be interested to know.

May Light increase!

Watching Them Grow Up

From 1998-2005 Jobina and I lived in Mennville, Manitoba where I was a youth pastor in the church and a director at Beaver Creek Bible Camp. These were some of the best years of my life and though I'm glad I am where I am, I look back at them with great fondness. While I was out there I got to meet so many wonderful people, especially the students and staff who I ministered to.

This week I have thinking a lot about how awesome it is to watch students who you have worked with grow up. Being at camp last weekend warmed my heart as I saw people who I had coached, trained, talked to, and occasionally struggled with maturing and finding their place in the world. It is incredibly satisfying. Last night I went to see a movie with one such individual and afterwards we went out for coffee and he told me about all the cool things that were happening in his life. I just sat back amazed at how, well . . . mature he was. He was making some great relationship and life/faith decisions and I was very proud of him. Did he have it all together? Of course not, who does? But he has lots to celebrate and I celebrated with him. I've gotten a lot of emails recently from former students and staff and whether they are feeling blessed or are struggling I was really impacted by how through it all they are all maturing. Some through hardships, some through blessing. But they are all growing and it's wonderful to behold. My "students" are now challenging me with their lives, their words, and especially their courage and perseverance in life circumstances.

Walking with someone through a formative time in their lives is a great honor. But watching them later on as they grow up and mature . . . that is truly one of life's greatest blessings. I feel very thankful as I reflect on these things. And content.

May Light increase!

Camp Stuff

Wow, thanks Scott for taking the reins for a few days! Well, I spent the last few days up at camp doing training with the directors and doing LiMiT team development training with the staff. Although I was pretty rusty we had a great time and hopefully people learned some stuff. The team there this year was intense, mature, and higher then average in integrity - all good signs. The last TDA was extremely difficult but the team completed it in less then 2 hours - very impressive! Here's a picture of "Nitro Drop" from several years ago. Recognize anyone?

This was the first time I was overnight at camp for 2 years since I was director there and it felt good. It was fun to be up at camp training people and not having the responsibility/worries of getting staff last minute. So much more peaceful! Although I was jealous of all the good times the new directors are going to have I did not envy the mental burden of it all - I must remember to pray for them. Being back at camp was (as always) good for my soul.

Jobina and I went up to Gimli together where I dropped her off at my parents farm for the weekend. On the way I mentioned to her that maybe she should think about cooking at camp this week. There was (is?) a great need for cooks and one of her favorite people from Mennville was already signed up. Even though it was last minute we realized that if Camp could find a babysitter for her it could work. Sure enough they found someone to help her with the kids (at least for the first few days) so yesterday afternoon we said goodbye and she went up to camp while I returned to Winnipeg. Yup, so I'll be "batching" it this week while Jobina ministers up at camp. I have often told people that it is not the person at camp who sacrifices the most, but those who are left behind (family) and now I am learning just a little bit what that sacrifice feels like! If you are the praying type and you'd like to pray for Jobina here are some requests:

1. That BCBC would get enough cooks each day and that meals will be good, timely, and large enough.
2. That our kids would work well with the babysitter and that the babysitter will have time off and be blessed by her time up there.
3. That Jobina will have energy and strength when they are understaffed in the kitchen.
4. That she will meet God in a special way through serving Him.
5. That the camp will achieve it's goal: loving the campers and sharing the Good News with them.

UPDATE: Please pray for healing for Jobina's ankle. I haven't heard from her directly but apparently she fell and twisted it in a freak accident just after arriving . . . there was a nasty noise from it as she fell.

Church Membership?

Do we actually know why we become members of a certain church? Is it really necessary? I have never personally done it myself and believe allot of people do it just because it is the thing to do and don't think about why. I was asked once at a church I had been attending to become a member. I declined the offer and was asked why so. This church like most had a rather large statement of faith with about a dozen points if i remember right. I said that i didn't agree with all of the statements. This person told me just to forget about those points as long as I agreed with most of them. What a turn off for me.

I have had many discussions with people who made points to try to convince me that membership was good and why it had a place. One was "To get people to be more involved in the church". Tell me how participating in a weird ceremony and having your name on a register causes you to become more involved. I know many "adherents" {as we non members that attend regularly are called} that are far more into the church than most members. Another point was "so you can vote on issues and that it would keep bad people from influencing the church in a bad way". If a few people have an idea that the majority done agree with or like it won't matter because they are a majority. Also if too many are on their side they could just branch off and start another church{sarcasm in case you didn't catch it. Like we need to start more branched off churches}One more argument for membership was that " It keeps people accountable to monetary support". I don't see how this is accomplished. Has anyone been kicked out of a church because someone in power thought they were not giving enough? I have never heard of it happening.

I have often thought about other groups that require memberships. Biker Gangs, sororities and fraternities, and political parties, They all seem to have one thing in common. The members learn to be competitive, sometimes violent and negative towards other groups. There is almost always a thought that they are better than any other group. Are these qualities that God wants to see in our churches? Competition and a superior attitude is very strong in allot of churches.

I am not really a fan of denominations either. I really wish sometimes that we could all be members of "Gods church" and when someone asks what denomination we were we could just say Christian.I often wonder what the people around town that are not Christians think about our variety of denominations that can't stand each other or at least don't really get along. Not a great sales pitch for Christianity is it. This could be post topic on its own.
I wouldn't say I'm 100% against membership, but I have yet to hear a valid point that has convinced me or that the positives outweigh the negatives. I am curious what others think of this issue and am open to comments and opinions.

Well, its been interesting trying blogging out. its way more work than i imagined. I applaud Mark for being so dedicated to it. I don't think I could keep it up daily as he does.

Scott

What am I doing?

Hello everyone
My name is Scott Williamson. I am married to my beautiful wife Julie who you met as a guest blogger about a month ago. I also have a cute daughter Norah who is so much fun to watch as she grows up. I'm not sure I would agree with all of Marks comments about me but I will try to do them justice. First off I would like to apologize for my poor spelling and grammar. I fix airplanes for a living and hated English in school and almost failed. As for my title I never thought I would do something like this. I occasionally read Marks and other blogs. The thought of blogging seemed interesting but I don't think I could dedicate time to do it regularly. This Will be a chance to try it out. Thanks Mark.

I work for a small airline as the Director of Maintenance in St. Andrews. The majority of our business is to native reserves. Most of you probably heard about the young 16 tear old boy who murdered the 9 year old boy in the news. On Monday night I was asked to stay and help unload one of our aircraft when it came back from Little Grand Rapids. I was aware that on this flight was the 16 year old that killed the other boy along with 5 RCMP officers. I had had first hand information about the incident and it was much more brutal than the media had stated. They tend to do that as to not expose how bad things really are on reserves. While waiting for the plane i have to admit I had some really bad thoughts and opinions about this boy. One of our pilots and I talked about just dumping him off in the middle of nowhere or tossing him out of the plane. I had talked to Julie about it and she said that maybe God would change my heart when he arrived. She was so right! This young innocent boy who looked like he wouldn't kill a bug stepped off. I was instantly full of compassion and my heart felt so heavy. Every day I see small children with obvious FAS symptoms getting taken off the reserve by child and family services. They will often go back to the reserve in a few months just to be hauled away again because the parents hadn't changed. There is a serious problem in our native communities and it would take nothing short of a miracle from God to fix it. Continually just handing out money is not working. Doing this would ruin any race or group of people. I guess my point is I would like to encourage everyone to pray for these communities and pass it on to others to do so. Their is so much more that I see from these reserves but it would take days. I have been to lots of these communities and they are amazing people that need Gods love. Pray that our government leaders would find a way to start resolving these issues.

I guess I should mention that I in no way intended this to be a racial slander. It is something that I deal with every day and really weighs on my heart some times.

More thoughts tomorrow

New Blood

Just to let you know, I'm going to be really busy for a few days so I've asked a friend to tag in and do some posts for you the next few days. Fresh thoughts, fresh wit, and hopefully a fresh perspective! A mysterious and intriguing guest blogger cometh . . . prepare to be enlightened!

It Would Be Nice . . .

I saw this on Postsecret. For a few people, a counselor is the only person they really have to talk to. It's an incredible privilege yet sad at the same time. If you see someone today who likes they have no one to talk to - engage them. It's worth it.

May Light increase!

Is Torturing A Telemarketer Really That Wrong?

Video: Tormenting A Telemarketer With One Word:

As the above video shows, it's fun and very satisfying to play with the mind of a telemarketer. I laughed when I watched the video the first time and I snickered when I thought of it later. In retrospect I realized that torturing telemarketers is probably not the Christian thing to do. But is it really that wrong?

On the "not at all, they deserve it" side let's face it, telemarketing is mostly an evil thing. We get several calls a day from different companies trying to sell us stuff, get our donations, or get our free opinions on things. So often they call at bad times. Often they get my name wrong (or address me as "M. Westman"). They are usually trained not to take your first "no" for an answer. The charities can often be demanding. Very few us ever appreciate a telemarketer yet they can call us at will, interrupting our lives and privacy. In so many ways they are a blight on the North American landscape. Surely having a little fun at their expense is not wrong?

On the flipside, torturing people in any does not really fit into the "love" paradigm that the Gospel preaches. It also goes against the golden rule. I have known people who have been telemarketers - it's a terrible job for all but a handful of high achiever, high challenge salesman types. They take a lot of abuse and it's hard not to take it personally. Would you like to be sworn at, told off, screamed at, or spend your whole day at a desk calling people who don't want to talk to you?

Some people see their torture of telemarketers as a strike against tyranny and there is some truth to this. If telemarketers all got abuse maybe no one would take the job and companies would find other, less intrusive/abusive ways to market their wares. Hopefully Canada will soon get a "no call" list like our American neighbors. How should a Christian respond to telemarketers? I personally have a "no telephone solicitation" rule for myself which I inform 95% of telemarketers of as soon as I can get a word in edgewise. I also think that interrupting their monologue with a "sorry to interrupt but I don't accept telephone solicitation of any kind, please remove me from your list and have a nice day" is acceptable. We have to have our boundaries after all. What's your approach to telemarketers? Ever play around with them?

May Light increase!