Harvest Community Church

It is hard to believe, but Spring is here and summer is just around the corner.  That also means that the season of weddings is also upon us.  One of the things that Harvest offers is pre-marital counseling to anyone looking to get married.  The process of walking through pre-marital conversations with couples is fun and enlightening for all those involved.  Below are some important questions that I have compiled over the years that serve as a good starting point for couples looking to tie the knot.  These are not an exhaustive set of questions but they do help get the ball rolling.  How would you answer the following questions?

Theological Questions:

1. What do you believe about God? Creation? Everything?

2. Why are we here?

3. How do you form your beliefs?

4. What do you believe about the Bible? (A good exercise is to actually go through the Church’s doctrinal statement together and discuss your beliefs about each point)

5. How important is Church? Corporate Worship?

6. What are you personal habits when it comes to prayer, study, reading, worship, etc.?

7. What are we doing now when it comes to praying for one another? Is there something you would like to change in this area?

8. When kids come into the picture, should we do family devotions together and if so what should they look like? Who should lead these moments?

Relational Questions

1. Define the roles of the husband and wife in a marriage setting?  Who is going to do what?  What does the Bible say about roles in the household?

2. Define expectations when it comes to spending time with the opposite sex.  Alone?

3. How will we share home responsibilities: cleaning, cooking, yard work, car maintenance, bill paying, etc.?

4. What is an ideal date? Anniversary celebration?

5. Who keeps track of the checking account?

6. What are expectations when it comes to intimacy?

Children

1. Do you want kids? If so, how many?

2. When should we have kids? How far apart?

3. Would you or have you ever considered adopting?

4. What are the appropriate ways to discipline children?

5. When should kids go to bed?

6. How do plan to show your kids affection?

7. How would you prefer to school your kids? Home school? Public? Christian?

Lifestyle Choices

1. Rent or own a home?  How big?

2. What kind of neighborhood?

3. How many cars? New or used?

4. Financial goals? Retirement? College funds?

5. Talk about your views of money? How much money do you plan to give? (Church?)

7. Where do you plan to buy clothes?

Having Fun

1. Should we eat out? How often?

2. What kind of vacations are appropriate?

3. What kind of toys and how many toys should we have? Boat? Quads?

4. What kind of movies do you enjoy seeing?  Stay home or go to the theater?

Misc.

1. Who is going to be the main breadwinner?

2. Should a wife work outside the home?

3. What are your views on daycare?

4. What makes you angry?

5. How do you normally handle frustration?

6. Who should bring up an issue that is bothersome?

7. What is your views on getting help from friends or counselors?

8. Will we go to bed angry at each other?

9. Is it good to have guy time and girl time with the friends?

10. Do you have any health issues or physical problems that could affect our marriage?

11. What do you think about eating healthy and exercising?

12. Do you have an unhealthy habits?

I recently came across an article that talked about the cost of raising children in America. The article quoted a figure recently generated by our government of what it actually costs to raise a child in the US. Are you curious of what that number is? Well, here it is…

The calculated cost to raise a child from birth to 18 in a middle income family is…$160,140. You might be thinking that isn’t too bad. When you break it down it comes to…$8,896.66 a year… (or) $741.38 a month… (or) $171.08 a week. That’s a mere $24.24 a day- and that my friends is just over a dollar an hour.

At this point…if you are single or have no kids you might be thinking that good financial advice is to negate the kid thing. I mean…if you really want to experience great wealth. However, the opposite really is true.

As a parent I have found the cost involved is a worth while investment…because, the return I get on my money is beyond comprehension.

What I get for $1 an hour is…

1. I get a “Be a Kid Again” card…What I mean is that I get to play with toy cars, trucks, hide under covers, watch cartoons, and look at the clouds to find funny shapes.

2. I get a buddy to hang with…a hand to hold, bear hugs, someone to eat donuts with, and a friend to look at bugs with.

3. I get to be the hero…banged up knees, rescuing planes out of a tree, fixing a broken toy, removing splinters, to making all things better with a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles on top.

4. I get to watch history in the making…watching the first step, hearing a first word, to driving the first car.  Life is getting lived in front of me and I get the best seat in the house.

5. I get naming rights…first, middle, and last.

6. I get to experience first hand what unconditional love looks like!

Our Parenthood series is over, but parenting still continues.  As you wrestle through the trials of raising kids…don’t miss all the fun you get to be a apart of- all for just a dollar an hour!  What a bargain.

For the last month the Children’s Ministry team has been working on a new experience for families. Tomorrow morning, on Sunday January 30th we are going to launch our first ever Great Family Experience and we invite you as a family to participate! The Great Family experience is just that, an experience and it is designed for you as a family to interact in a fun way and begin to create a “Rhythm” with them.

One of the books that I have been reading called Parenting Beyond Your Capacity talks about 5 core family values. One of them being Creating a Rhythm, increasing the quantity of quality time you spend together. That’s what this experience is based on. If we all look at our lives we can see that it consists of a lot of Rhythm, a series of repeated patterns. You see, whether you recognize it or not we tend to be creatures of habit, we like to do things a certain way and often times we continue to repeat those things creating a rhythm. It begins to be tough to change our habits or to break the rhythm we’ve created.

The time we have with our kids is limited. Soon our 2 year olds will be 5. Our 2nd graders will be going into 6th grade and our 8th graders will be graduating from high school and it can all happen in a blink of an eye. Before we know it the time we thought we had is gone. So there it is, we have a certain amount of time with our kids before they grow up and become adults. So the question is not “how do we get more time”, it is “how do we become more intentional with the time we have?” How can we create a Rhythm that includes a consistent amount of quality time with our family.

The Great Family Experience, is designed to help jump start that process. It’s an experience designed for the whole family from birth through teenagers! This Sunday be sure to stop by the Clubhouse Kids Check-In table and pick up your packet. The experience is designed to be done over a meal and should last at least 90 min, so you can start right after Church or anytime these next few weeks. I am excited to see how God uses this to create a healthy Rhythm for your family.