Marriage, Children, Marriage, Children

Forum category
A friend of mine was commenting to me the other day that her church seems to primarily focus on couples with children. Many if not most sermons are directed toward this demographic, as well as fellowships and Bible studies. There are widows, divorcees, childless couples, and singles who apparently start to glaze over as directives and principles of marriage and parenting are again preached and taught, and they feel they are being ignored. There are also women whose husbands work schedules prevent them from attending many services, so wives go home in frustration, trying not feel bitter against their husbands because he 1) isn’t there to hear these messages and 2) since he’s not there, she feels weird trying to tell him what the messages were about because it feels like nagging (and so would buying the CD of the message) 3) she feels lonely when couples are asked to come forward and vow to do better in their marriage 4) she feels their marriage is not progressing spiritually 5) the obvious absence of her husband makes her feel like a red-headed stepchild…

Do you ever focus your messages (to the whole church) on one particular group? Do you have other ways to help couples, parents, widowed, singles, etc… with specific issues they may face? Or are expositions of general Biblical principles and mandates usually enough?

Discussion

I go verse by verse through books of the Bible and try real hard not to put my own spin on the text. It is hard not to relate everything to some modern issue, which is ok from time to time. We also rotate our fellowships around (Sunday am to pm) even a few Friday and Saturday events. One month may be a youth focused event, next month a potluck, next month a trip on Saturday. You can’t please everybody, but you can “offer” something for everybody.

to explain as I run out the door, but see how our pastor avoids this sort of narrow focus http://marks.9marks.org/Mark1] here (Application Grid under Related Downloads).