Family Success

Thanks for the fun discussion last night.  I'm looking forward to talking more about Chapter 6 in a couple weeks.  There is some provoking stuff in the rest of the chapter.  If you haven't had a chance to read through it, I recommend it.

As a way to get our thoughts moving before the next time we meet....

There are some thoughts in the chapter about family, and what we desire for our children.  Here is the question I would love to see your response to:

What makes a "succesful" family?

Spiritual Disciplines- Losing Control

I read an interesting article (link at the bottom of this post) today (thanks Kent) that made me think about our conversation last night about the disciplines.  Some good food for thought from Dallas Willard and Eugene Peterson....

Willard offers this theological definition of the term “spiritual disciplines”: “Doing what we can do with our body, mind, spirit, to receive from God power or ability to do what we cannot do by human effort.” Peterson offers a different slant, less focused on activities that we do or perform: “There’s a certain learned passivity about the spiritual life that is hard to program and hard to make popular. People who give leadership in spiritual direction, the good ones, that’s basically what they’re doing: they’re trying to train us and teach us how not to be in control of our lives; to enter into what God is doing already.”

I love what Peterson says.  The purpose of the disciplines is to lose control...or, to put it in a more pretty tone, to give up control.

Shalom,

Tim

http://gratefultothedead.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/a-conversation-with-dallas-willard-richard-foster-eugene-peterson-and-james-houston-on-the-ressourcement-movement-in-evaneglical-spirituality/

Untamed- Chapter 5

Page 156, "We found that one trick of being an open-set missional church is getting over our need to control people and processes, and to instead open the way for people to meet with Jesus in the community... Practically, it means that our function is to introduce others to a right understanding of God.... our job is to free people, not bind them up with religious complexities."

Two questions:

1.  Is it healthy to have expectations in a relationship?


2.  What is dangerous about placing expectations on other people?