Saturday, May 31, 2008

Economic Decline...

Does it parallel the rise of dual-income families? The decline in family structure (more singles, less marriage...)? Does the disintegration of traditional family on all fronts parallel the economic decline?

I'm not an economist, so I have no jurisdiction here. But, if you have an opinion, I'd love to hear it :)

Some articles to peruse on the subject (I will be adding to it as time permits):
Increased Financial Risk in Family Development

Rescue Me - Lesson Number 1

I was traipsing around the world of blogs the other day, trying to find out what Google would throw at me if I typed in "female submission". That was interesting...I came accross some very...curious...readings. I discovered that the world has done a fine job polarizing the topic of feminine submission. However, this particular blog is neither here nor there, so on to the subject at hand.

While perusing the stuff, I came across a blog by one of my readers :) She had some sermon notes posted that included some stuff that is common coming from the Elderidges. Pretty much, that women like to be rescued and men like to rescue. Some of the people who posted comments claimed that few of the women in scripture (if any) needed rescuing. I thought about it...I thought about it some more...

So my first subject is Rahab.

Her story can be found in Joshua. In a nutshell, she was a prostitute who lived in a home on the wall of Jericho. Joshua sent spies to scout out the area, and she hid them on her roof. She was a remarkable woman. When the spies left, she asked if she could go with them. They promised that if she left a red cord tied outside her window, they would rescue her when they destroyed Jericho.

And...guess what? They did =p And she married (there's some reason to think she married one of the spies) and is one of 5 women listed in the geneaology of Christ :)

Example #1 that strong, remarkable women can be rescued =) And a biblical example, none-the-less :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Living Single and Double Income Households

I have to start with this - I'm so stressed out right now, that I'm not certain how coherent this post will be, but I've been thinking about it for the last 2 weeks and today, I had to ask myself WHY is marriage happening so much later and WHY do couples insist on both working?

When I was in college, every vacation I would work 45-50 hours at a movie theatre. I worked there for 3 years, and my boss used to call me a workaholic. If you asked my boss now, he'd say I'm lazy and have a lot of potential that I don't use - simply because I refuse to work more than 40 hours a week.

This phenomenon in differences between my work ethic has recently begun to get to me...what has changed that I am no longer willing to work that many hours? My boss even yells at my young team (all of us under 30), claiming we should all be able to work more hours because we're so young. And then it dawned on me. In college, I had a mother who went shopping, cooked me dinner, cleaned the bathroom, did the dishes, vaccuumed the house...I had little brothers that helped take out the garbage, feed the dogs and cats, and help with other chores. Of course I had time to work 50 hours at work.

Now, I'm responsible for the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the garbage removal, paying the bills, and balancing the check book. PLUS working 40+ hours a week. But not only that, when you are trying to live a healthy life style, you have an additional hour a day to devote to that. Its like...where does the time go? I'm so stressed out that I'm ready to ram my head through a wall.

So...what could make this life a bit less stressful? I could definitly handle having my mom move in...but I think my dad would miss her only a little bit. It makes sense that having someone in my home devoted to managing the household while there's someone there taking care of providing the money to manage the household would actually work. And yet my generation is getting married later and later... Aren't they as stressed out as me? Or is it just me?

And then...double income homes...there has to be even more stress there...I mean, 2 people's messes and 2 people to do them...still the same amount of time taking care of bills, chores, and other responsibilites. PLUS working their own hours AND trying to make time to build a healthy relationship.

It just naturally makes sense that one of those 2 would make it their full time responsibility to care for the household and provide a relaxing and stress free environment for the both of them to spend time bonding and relaxing at the end of the day.

And I have a much better understanding of the following verse because of all of this:
"Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land."
~Proverbs 31:23

When her husband is able to take the time that would've been spent doing his doing his laundry, cleaning his home, feeding himself, he can now spend that time gaining respect and being more lucrative at work without sacrificing the time spent with his own family.

I know it sounds so sexist, but the tradtional roles make so much sense =p

Friday, May 16, 2008

Go ye therefore...

And make disciples of the world.

So says Jesus at the end of Matthew 28, before he ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God.

But what does that mean?

Does that have caveats to it? Does it mean leave your country and make disciples of the world? Does it mean go into your backyard and make disciples of the world? Does it mean neighborhoods, schools, cities?

Does it mean all of those?

Is teaching bible stories to 5 year olds in Grace Church Ocala FL's nursery just as viable as building an orphanage in Honduras?

Is teaching your 16 year old son in your living room the difference between God and Allah just as viable as teaching a 16 year old Arab in the Middle East the difference between God and Allah?

Is raising your daughter to be a compassionate witness of Christ's love just as viable as teaching an Indian temple prostitute about Christ's love?

I just listened to the Boundless Show's 17th Episode, and Rosenberg's attitude towards home missions is kind of appalling for someone who has always felt called to home missions.

What do you think?