I read a great line on the dust cover of a book.  Intimacy is not technique.

It isn’t exactly a profound statement.  Then again, many of the important truths in our lives don’t sound particularly deep when we say them.  For instance, all that glitters is not goldis an old adage.  No reasonable person will argue with its accuracy and no-one would swoon at the hearing of it.  It is a basic truth.  Things that look good to us aren’t automatically good for us…or of inherent value.  However, knowing this truth, many of us buy cars, choose mates and clothes that look good but are not what we need.

So back to intimacy is not technique.  I shake my head that even, as women, many of us often don’t pickup that what we lack in our marriage is intimacy.  We lament about a loss of libido (sex drive).  We speak of spice.  We ruminate on the lack of romance.  And the answers we receive are about putting on romantic music, lingerie or trying new sexual positions.  As though, getting on all fours is going to create Oprah’s ‘aha’ moment!

Others might suggest that we urge our hubby’s to surprise is with flowers and candy, a date night or with a candlelit dinner.  Flickering flames and the satisfying taste of Belgian chocolate notwithstanding, such remedies amount to popping the clutch on a stick shift car.  You can let it roll down the hill but if the engine is busted, your car still won’t start…and now you are broke down in a low lying place.  Get it?

Okay, how about this?  The thing that distinguishes a marital relationship is the relational, emotional, mental, spiritual and legal closeness the estate demands.  Sweet candy, love songs, romantic candlelight and good sex can help exploit such closeness.  However, these devices can only support what must be pre-existing: intimacy.  The closeness that marriage demands is the intimacy we seek.  We want to be able to trust, respect and love our men…and have them give that back to us!

The hard work in marriage is not the outward facing stuff for which our friends and others are ready and willing to give us techniques and strategies.  It is building and restoring the inward facing stuff: self-examination, honest communication, assumption of best intents, willingness to change and true devotion.

Intimacy is not a technique or strategy.  Intimacy is him being Into Me and I into him.  We springboard into relationship success from that special place.   Yeah?

But I’ll take the candy, love songs, candlelight…yeah, and the good sex too!

Here’s a phrase much heard and in my humble opinion much misused or misapplied.. “Power Exchange”

See there I go being all nice and politically correct again, so let me say just what I really belive about the phrase.  “It has absolutely NO place within a marriage CDD or otherwise!”

Ok was that definite enough for you? Well, having made such a bold statement let me explain a little on where I am coming from and to do so how about we look at three or four text book definitions...

“Power Exchange” According to wikipedia (yes I know it isn’t the greatest or most credible of resources but on this occasion it is pretty accurate) power exchange (certainly within BDSM circles) “refers to a relationship or activity in which the submissive gives to the dominant partner power and authority over the submissive’s body in exchange for the submissive’s happiness and health. The details of the arrangement would be negotiated and set out in a formal contract and can be for any duration, according to the agreement of the participants, ranging from a single scene, to a proscribed period of hours, days or weeks, to a 24 hour a day open-ended agreement with no termination date.”

Let’s consider that definition for a minute and since we are not talking about BDSM but are talking about a marriage lifestyle we can certainly delete the latter part of that definition and thus are left with…

““refers to a relationship or activity in which the submissive gives to the dominant partner power and authority over the submissive’s body in exchange for the submissive’s happiness and health.”

So let’s look at this in more detail and see if it truly is applicable to or in a CDD lifestyle.  Firstly the definition speaks of two specific characters or roles.  The “submissive” and the “dominant”

Here are a couple of interesting facts for you.…

1.  Biblically speaking – which after all is God’s instruction to us – When it comes to being submissive we are ALL called to be submissive.  Not just wives but all of us!

2.  Biblically speaking there is not one use of the word dominant in the NIV version and indeed in all of the other recognized versions it appears only once or twice and never in respect of people only landscape and circumstance.

So what does this tell us?

Well for me it tells us exactly what we need to know.  That since we are all called to be submissive and since not one of us is called to be dominant then the whole power exchange philosophy is not applicable or suitable and (dare i say it again?) “has absolutely NO place within a marriage CDD or otherwise!”

So if we are all called to be submissive, just how can we be submissive if someone else isn’t being dominant?  Furthermore if being dominant is not a biblical characteristic and we are not called to be dominant then just where doers that leave us?

Well there within lies one of the problems doesn’t it?  But it really isn’t that much of a problem now is it?

After all, as a parent would you consider yourself to be a ‘dominant’ over your children (and if your answer is yes then I would strongly suggest you seek help.)  No of course you wouldn’t, now there may well be times when you have to take a dominant stance on things but any parent who feels the need to dominate his or her children is in my opinion a parent who has it all so very seriously wrong and not one who is parenting according to God’s example or standards.

It is by this very same token that I say that any husband who feels the need to dominate his wife, or conversely any wife who feels the need to be dominated by her husband, is NOT (in this writer’s opinion) having a biblically sound or Christian marriage.

So does that mean that a husband has no right to ‘take charge’ so to speak and that a wife has no place letting her husband do so?  Of course not!  It simply means that we need to step back and re-evaluate and re-adjust our understanding of what should be going on here.

You see Christ is the “head” of the Church and quite rightly is in charge  this is God’s will, the Bible is very clear on this. BUT he does so as a servant-leader.  He is submissive to God’s will and submits to our needs within that role.  Likewise we as the church submit (or at least we should) to His will.  But let us make no mistake here,  we do not do so (or at least we should not do so) solely out of a recognition of his power but out of love.

Love!  Now there is the word we have all been looking for!

You see God’s power is unquestionable and undeniable, isn’t it?  In terms of pure power He can smite us or destroy us just as easily as He created us.  And yet He choses not to use that power in that way and indeed chooses not only NOT to require us to have a relationship with Him out of fear of that awesome power, but to have a relationship with us that is real and personal and intimate and loving and love based.

So I ask you, how much more so should we then choose to have that same kind of relationship with each other?

No matter how much stronger or more powerful a  husband is than his wife, and no matter how much of a calling or an authority he has to be the Head of the House and regardless of the wife’s role or responsibility to “submit to him in everything” NO husband has the right to go against the free will and wishes of his wife or to force her to do the same.

God’s awesome love for us gave us the priceless gift of His son Jesus Christ but even before that His awesome love for us was demonstrated in the gift of our free will.  The ability to choose to love Him or not to love Him no matter how much the latter choice hurts Him.

Such is His love for us that He chose a relationship with us that benefits us more than it does simplify things for him.  God does not require us to surrender our power to Him because quite simply compared to Him and outside of Him we have no power and HE DOES NOT require us to surrender our power to each other because HE does not exist on those terms HE exists on the terms of and IS love.

So if you want a phrase that encompasses or describes what CDD is and if it has to include the word “exchange” in it here are some for you…

“Respect Exchange” “Compassion Exchange” “Submission Exchange” “Affection Exchange”  “LOVE exchange”

“The gift of speech is one of the noblest that God has given to man. It was meant to be loving, true, wise, enriching, and full of blessing. God gave us our tongues that with them we might speak to Him in praise and prayer—and to our fellow men [spouse] in love, in hope—in all gracious, helpful, encouraging words.”  – J.R. Miller (1912) [emphasis mine]

We live in a world bathed with words.  Everywhere we go we hear words proclaiming, disdaining or disagreeing with someone or something.  It is a noisy, often unkind world.  Yet this is where God has called us to live; in the midst of the trouble and turmoil.  He provides a place of refuge for us – it is buried deep within the love of Christ where we will find safety from the piercing arrow of the cruel words of others.

In his excellent essay, Refuge from the Hurt of Tongues, J.R. Miller talks about the only safe refuge from this world:

In no other way can this lesson he taught so well, as by looking at the example of Christ. Never about any other life, did the strife of tongues wage as it did about Him. Men’s cruelty knew no limit. Poisoned tongues emptied their envenomed bitterness upon Him. But none of this rage and bitterness disturbed Him. You know the secrets. There were two—love and peace. His heart was full of love, and the peace of God guarded Him.

We should understand these secrets. If we truly love men—we will not be affected by cruel words. They will hurt and sting—but they will not embitter us. We will forgive injury and wrong. We will answer back hate—with kindness, rudeness with gentleness. Then if we have love in our heart—we will seek ever to allay bitterness in others. One of our Master’s beatitudes is, ” Blessed are the peacemakers.” We can do much to lessen the strife of tongues, by always speaking gently ourselves.

Parkhurst, in his little book on “The Sunny Side of Christianity,” tells this story: “One day on a trolley car there was a door . . . that squeaked every time it was opened or shut. A man, sitting near it, noticed this. Rising, he took a little can from his pocket, let fall a drop of oil on the offending spot, and sat down, saying, ‘I always carry an oil can in my pocket, for there are so many squeaky things that a drop of oil will set right.’ “

Love carries an oil can and is ready everywhere to lubricate squeaking things. We all know a few men and women who are ever dropping oil to soften friction, and smoothing and quieting strife among others. They have some gentle word, some happy suggestion, some bit of humor, some way of changing the subject, when there is danger of strife. Blessings on the people who carry oil cans in their pockets! Not only do they add immeasurably to the world’s sweetness—but they have found a refuge for themselves from the strife of tongues. Love is the secret. It was Christ’s secret. Amid hate and cruelty—He loved on. If we keep gentle, patient, sweet, forgiving, and loving—the wildest clamor of harsh and angry voices will not disturb us. Our soft answer—will turn away wrath. Your good—will overcome evil.

The Christian way to resist the strife of tongues—is with love. If anyone speaks evil of you—say something good of him in return. If the other person is angry—keep patient and sweet. If another has bitter words to say of an absent person—your task is to say a kind word of him. It was said of Starr King that if anyone did him an unkindness, or said a hard or bitter word of him—that was the very man he loved. His heart went out to him in yearning, and he would find ways to conquer him by love.

Our homes can be a place of refuge from this concert of angry and bitter words – or it can be a place where we add to the noise.  It is a choice we make daily.  We will talk more about the words we use with our spouse and the effect this has on our marriages on Thursday.  In the meantime, set aside some time to read J.R. Miller’s complete essay together with your spouse.  It will help in our discussion.

What a guy though… (most people would get annoyed hearing me talk about him all the time. So my blog is going to have to receive all the torture!)
I’ve heard people say:only marry someone you consider your very best friend. marry the person you know you can tell them everything and they’ll still love you the same.
I say:ok. I’ve met him already.

Ive heard people also say:what’s a marriage without an intense attraction? you need to be head over heels over him. you have to eyes for him and him only.
I say:ok. I’ve met him already.

I’ve heard people say this too: the person you marry has to be someone you know you can work with well, someone you can understand and that they understand you too. you need to agree on things like finances, the raising of children, etc.
I say:ok. I’ve met him already.

And lastly, I’ve heard people say: your future husband has to be someone who is willing to be the spiritual leader in this new family. He has to have a commitment to God and to you, to bring you up in Christ, and to keep Him at the center of the relationship.
I say:ok. I’ve met him already.

Am I missing something? I think I’ve got all bases covered. I think I’m the happiest girl on earth. I think the best is yet to come. I know my God is a loving God.

Every change agent in history, whether it be Scriptural or not, have a deep sense of calling.  Moses had a calling from God through a burning bush, Jeremiah was called by God audibly, the Spartans were called by a sense of duty to protect, the founding fathers of the United States were called by the sense of individual liberty, and the list goes on.

In looking at our lives, we must first examine what it is we are called to do.  For some, it might be mission work in a third world country, while for others; it could be a calling to the mission field known as our neighborhood.  Whatever the calling, before you can understand what Christ is calling you to become a change agent for, you must pray for your heart to be opened to the calling.  This is the first and sometimes, the most difficult step.  It starts from the inside out.

While I was working as an executive head hunter, I had the opportunity to speak with one of my candidates who was interviewing for a job here in Birmingham.  This candidate had traveled from California, where at the time, was suffering from a raging blaze that was consuming land and homes alike.  In fact, her flight was almost canceled due to the threat of her home being in the path of the raging fire.

All of that said, we had a unique conversation on the way back from the airport about the fires and how they spread.  She made a comment to the effect of, “it’s tough not being able to run the air conditioner, but it keeps my home safer.”  Of course, this struck me odd so I asked the reasoning for not running the air condition (which is unheard of where I live during the summer).  She began telling me how the fire expanded not by its own efforts, but by the wind.  Naturally, I thought she was alluding to the wind’s ability to push the fire along its path.  In fact, it was the contrary.

What would the wind be able to do outside of pushing the blaze in either direction?  I was astounded to discover the real threat came from the embers the wind would carry.  If one were to have their air condition on, the unit would pull in air from the air outside and push it through the various ducts throughout the house.  All it would take was one or two of these embers being sucked into the air ducts to begin a raging fire.  In my candidate’s words, “The houses burn from the inside out.”

For the rest of the week, my mind continued to chew upon this new bit of information.  I found great correlations between this story and the Holy Spirit’s ability to start with a simple, small word from one believer to a nonbeliever and turn it into a house consumed with fire.  One that started from the inside.

Most of Scripture’s greatest people had this small, all most inconspicuous ember be delivered to their hearts.  Over time, we start to see how that small ember slowly consumes everything and it becomes a raging fire in their lives.  These agents find themselves open to Christ moving in their lives and transforming them, conforming them to His image.

One of my favorite songs currently remains one written by Hillsong called “Inside Out.”  After writing this article, I could not help but to turn this song on and let it become my prayer again.  I hope you enjoy it and may it help you recognize that small ember waiting to burn inside of you.

Join us as we continue to discuss how today’s Christian Men can step up and become the Christian Warrior their family, friends, work, and community need them to be.

Have new posts delivered right to your email, click here.
Subscribe to Christian Men-Christian Warriors by Email

About the Writer:

Trent Cotton has spent a number of years in management and business consulting. After spending some time in the field, he joined the HR department, beginning in recruiting and eventually serving as the Department Head of HR for one of the major lines of business. With such a varied background, he works to bring all of these together to help churches and other Christian organizations incorporate some common business practices into their ministries to enable them to better serve the Kingdom. He currently works for SourcePointe, an HR Outsourcing Agency while continuing to own and operate Christian Management Consulting as a ministry. In his free time, he also writes a lot on Church Development as a Church Consultant.

As a husband and father of three, Trent Cotton has a passion surrounding the role Christian Men are to play in their families, communities, churches and businesses.  This particular blog is dedicated to helping men take back the role that we have lost in society.

Every change agent in history, whether it be Scriptural or not, have a deep sense of calling.  Moses had a calling from God through a burning bush, Jeremiah was called by God audibly, the Spartans were called by a sense of duty to protect, the founding fathers of the United States were called by the sense of individual liberty, and the list goes on.

In looking at our lives, we must first examine what it is we are called to do.  For some, it might be mission work in a third world country, while for others; it could be a calling to the mission field known as our neighborhood.  Whatever the calling, before you can understand what Christ is calling you to become a change agent for, you must pray for your heart to be opened to the calling.  This is the first and sometimes, the most difficult step.  It starts from the inside out.

While I was working as an executive head hunter, I had the opportunity to speak with one of my candidates who was interviewing for a job here in Birmingham.  This candidate had traveled from California, where at the time, was suffering from a raging blaze that was consuming land and homes alike.  In fact, her flight was almost canceled due to the threat of her home being in the path of the raging fire.

All of that said, we had a unique conversation on the way back from the airport about the fires and how they spread.  She made a comment to the effect of, “it’s tough not being able to run the air conditioner, but it keeps my home safer.”  Of course, this struck me odd so I asked the reasoning for not running the air condition (which is unheard of where I live during the summer).  She began telling me how the fire expanded not by its own efforts, but by the wind.  Naturally, I thought she was alluding to the wind’s ability to push the fire along its path.  In fact, it was the contrary.

What would the wind be able to do outside of pushing the blaze in either direction?  I was astounded to discover the real threat came from the embers the wind would carry.  If one were to have their air condition on, the unit would pull in air from the air outside and push it through the various ducts throughout the house.  All it would take was one or two of these embers being sucked into the air ducts to begin a raging fire.  In my candidate’s words, “The houses burn from the inside out.”

For the rest of the week, my mind continued to chew upon this new bit of information.  I found great correlations between this story and the Holy Spirit’s ability to start with a simple, small word from one believer to a nonbeliever and turn it into a house consumed with fire.  One that started from the inside.

Most of Scripture’s greatest people had this small, all most inconspicuous ember be delivered to their hearts.  Over time, we start to see how that small ember slowly consumes everything and it becomes a raging fire in their lives.  These agents find themselves open to Christ moving in their lives and transforming them, conforming them to His image.

One of my favorite songs currently remains one written by Hillsong called “Inside Out.”  After writing this article, I could not help but to turn this song on and let it become my prayer again.  I hope you enjoy it and may it help you recognize that small ember waiting to burn inside of you.

Join us as we continue to discuss how today’s Christian Men can step up and become the Christian Warrior their family, friends, work, and community need them to be.

Have new posts delivered right to your email, click here.
Subscribe to Christian Men-Christian Warriors by Email

About the Writer:

Trent Cotton has spent a number of years in management and business consulting. After spending some time in the field, he joined the HR department, beginning in recruiting and eventually serving as the Department Head of HR for one of the major lines of business. With such a varied background, he works to bring all of these together to help churches and other Christian organizations incorporate some common business practices into their ministries to enable them to better serve the Kingdom. He currently works for SourcePointe, an HR Outsourcing Agency while continuing to own and operate Christian Management Consulting as a ministry. In his free time, he also writes a lot on Church Development as a Church Consultant.

As a husband and father of three, Trent Cotton has a passion surrounding the role Christian Men are to play in their families, communities, churches and businesses.  This particular blog is dedicated to helping men take back the role that we have lost in society.

In the middle of today’s homily a baby on the other side of the temple began to cry. A minute later my own toddler began to wail, too. The priest’s voice was not overly loud and it seemed to me that he was completely drowned out by these two wailing children. I quickly exited to calm down my son. When I returned my husband told me that the priest had mentioned that babies are “icons of innocence.” What a beautiful view of young children, and so different from the “beat the sin out of ‘em” viewpoint that I sometimes hear in other Christian circles.

While there may be some differences among individual parishes, overall I really appreciate the way that children are treated in the Orthodox church.

I was reading an article titled “Homeschooling High School… at Home” early this morning in Home School Enrichment. The author, Kim Lundberg, stated that home school families “should laugh at those who wave the ‘inadequate socialization’ flag in our faces”. I don’t necessarily disagree with that statement but she went on to say, ”Every day we watch our children have interesting, real-world interactions with a variety of people. Whether an orchestra rehearsal or an art group, a baseball game or a drama club, it seems there is always something enriching that irresistibly beckons us to fill in all those little squares in our monthly planners.” I simply cannot relate to that last statement because I do not have my planning calendar full of activities such as she described.

The author obviously comes from a locale that has an active home school support group of some type and a wide variety of enrichment activities to choose from. I don’t live in an area that offers the enrichment activities she describes. At the same time I have come to the conclusion that a lack of the aforementioned enrichment activities does not mean my children are being deprived of something necessary to their education and, for that matter, their socialization.

For a time I did feel like we were missing out on something vital to our home school experience. I felt envious toward those who have a wide variety of options open to them simply because they live in a more populous area of the United States. Yet, as a Christian I believe God places his children right where he wants them and for us that means he wants us here in Montana. If there is anything we truly need, God will provide that for us right where we are at.

At one time I did belong to a large home school association that provided activities throughout the month such as Ms. Lundberg described. In those days we lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Now we live in Montana which has a total population spread out all over this big beautiful state that is equivalent to the entire population of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. 

The home school association I left behind in Texas offered field trips, history and science fairs, camaraderie with other home school families. I have thought wistfully at times how nice it would be to live near an area with a wide variety of cultural events which are only a short drive away from home or how nice it would be to fellowship with like- minded home schooling families with like-minded children, to relate to them on a personal level having our minds sharpened by each other with the word of truth.

What we have instead is a handful, three families to be exact, of home school families in our northern location. My children are the oldest in the bunch, high school age. The others are elementary school age. We have discussed possibly doing something like a history or science fair at the end of the school year. Of course it wouldn’t be too involved with prizes and such like the one in Texas.

We may not have enrichment activities on our school planner but we certainly do have a full calendar. Much of our calendar is taken up with church work and regular work in addition to our school work. My children help out on Wednesday night with the young kids at AWANA. My sixteen year old twin sons work with the younger children, Sparks. They listen to them recite memory verses and discuss the meaning of those verse to the kids to make sure they understand what they are memorizing. Our boys are also responsible for setting up the microphones and sound board for Sunday morning service. Our daughter makes sure that there is no trash left in the auditorium after the service.

Our sons have owned and operated their own yard care service for the last three years. This has given them not only experience in managing their time and finances but they have learned how to deal with their customers. If socialization is an issue, there is no better way to learn how communicate effectively than trying to keep a customer happy and coming back. Some customers are so happy with their service that they also get called upon in the winter for snow removal as well.

This year our sons are trying out a new job experience over the winter months. They were hired part-time at our local radio station to run the sound boards and broadcast the local high school games. This job is giving them a whole new set of skills and experiences. It seems that every time they go to work a new technical problem arises that they have to try to figure out in order to get the game broadcast over the air waves. It can be stressful at times but I think they feel a sense of accomplishment when they get things figured out. As parents, my husband and I think it is neat to hear our sons broadcast the call letters of the station from time to time or announce the scoreboard at the end of the night.

As for our daughter, she has always loved animals and so it seems natural that she has a pet care business. She has satisfied customers who can count on her to be there for their pets, anything ranging from dogs to horses, when they go out of town. We have a wide variety of pets and she feeds and cares for all of them.  We pay her to groom our dog for us instead of taking him to the groomers. We would rather pay her twenty-five dollars which goes into her savings account than have to pay an outside groomer. She bought her own grooming table and has become quite proficient at it.

Instead of field trips we go on camping and hiking trips with our children. This too has proved to be a plus. Last year our sons took their biology books with them on one camping trip. One of our sons found gall on several plants up in the mountains. We didn’t know what gall was until that trip. There is always something new to see and explore. Our sons enjoy these trips so much that they dream of one day having jobs that will allow them to work outdoors. They are exploring possible careers in the field of science.

Our daughter shares their love of nature. She is a good artist and photographer. She always comes home from camping and hiking trips with loads of pictures. She recently got a digital SLR camera for Christmas so that she can get some of the close-up shots that she couldn’t quite get with her old camera.

One last thing that the lack of the typical enrichment activities has afforded us is more family time. We have grown into a close-knit family. I’m not sure that we would have derived the amount of a familial bond that we have if we had not moved to Montana. It would be so easy to get involved with so many good enrichment activities that we would have missed the most important thing of all.  We’ve learned that the family unit is very important to God and that godly families play an important role in God’s kingdom. All the enrichment activities in the world will not replace the importance of living a life dedicated to God’s purpose. Our secluded little home school is thriving here in northern Montana.

Those of us who live traditional lives accept the validity of headship – there has to be someone in charge in the family, and that’s the husband. Paul held that up as the model for Christian marriages, and it had worked for millenia before the church existed. So Christians held on to it, for many reasons. First, the husband was the one who moved in the outside world, who interacted the most with the official community. Father or husband held property for a woman, and represented her in court. Some of this became rather narrow-minded in Judaic custom, but Christians seem to have tried to loosen that up a bit.

Nonetheless, women ran their own businesses, had control of some kinds of property, and were in charge of the household itself. Women expected to find husbands who had been raised to be good providers and managers, who listened to their families, and who were integrated into the surrounding community. Women expected husbands who were reasonable, and who shared the responsibilities of family life.

Men expected to find wives who knew how to run a household, who could cook, clean, sew, care for children, and do what was necessary to make some money from their skills, such as spinning, weaving, trading, gardening, or raising livestock. Women were sometimes employed as scribes to copy manuscripts or as artists.

It’s not a bad model for Christian family life now.

Plain life echoes these traditions. We do as much as we can ourselves, whether it is food production, clothesmaking, raising livestock, or engaging in a craft that provides income. Sitting at a computer isn’t a Plain occupation, for many reasons, alhtough I admit it is a part of what I do from day to day. I would not want it to be my main occupation though.

The Christian model for family life is of Christ as the head of the family. We all serve Him in each other. That’s simply all it is. We look for spouses who are God-centered, and willing to be servants to the rest of the family. It’s not a matter of power or privilege.

I think that is a huge modern misunderstanding about Plain life, that father knows best and what he says goes, right or wrong. I’ve never known a family where that worked, or could work. Humans are frail and sometimes wrong; it is sinfully stubborn to refuse reason just because it comes from wife or child. If it comes down to a matter of both being equally right but in opposition (such as a matter of spending money on each one’s priority) one has to take charge, and in traditional Christian families, it is up to the husband. But first of all, the family and community needs are to be considered, not just one’s heart’s desire.

A Christian man treats his wife as an equal in reason, unless he has positive and longstanding proof otherwise! And if he is more likely to make whimsical and foolish decisions, it is up to her to gently lead him to the best choice. That may mean appealing to a relative or close friend for support in that decision; we don’t need so much autonomy that we can’t listen to the good advice of others.

I’m afraid modern marriages are made on the basis of superficial traits – who is beautiful or handsome, who is most popular, who is most appealing. Marriages are too often begun in deep debt, as couples look to start their new life together with expensive clothes for the wedding, big parties, luxurious honeymoons. Young people buy houses and cars they can’t afford, because they think it is what is expected of them. It’s a fantasy life, and not one of responsibility and reason.

In the traditional Plain wedding, the bride makes her dress, The groom will buy some new clothes, but they will be worn again and again. They will perhaps have their own household established, but family will have helped to furnish it. The biggest expense will be the huge home-cooked meal provided for the many guests!

Modern Plain people who live outside Plain communities might consider a different way of beginning their marriage. I recommend that the wedding apparel be the least of their concerns, and that they focus on receiving good counsel and preparation for the long term contract that marriage is! The wedding itself could be a small Saturday afternoon gathering of family in the church, with no expense except an at-home meal afterward. Or for those who are entirely tradition-minded, get married on Sunday morning during the service. This will throw most minsiters for a loop, having never done it that way, but it a very old and almost defunct custom. The promises are dropped in at the prayers of the people, or just before the offertory. It is right that the first meal the couple share is the eucharist. The wedding reception can be cake and coffee in the church hall afterward, with a family meal at home later in the day.

Christian marriage is a relationship of love in Christ and mutual respect. It is not one taking orders from the other, or spouses competing for control. It is not about who is most popular with the children. It is about serving Christ in one another, and in the whole family and community.

One of the purposes of this blog is to provide tools and resources for busy Lutheran shepherds. (Though I also hope that anyone visiting this site could get something out of it!) The Shepherd’s Study has also rounded the bend into its second year of existence, so a little housekeeping and organizing was in order. I’ve updated the links on the side menu, including providing some new links to helpful sites and blogs.

So for your enjoyment, dear Reader, here are a few online tools I’ve found helpful, as well as three new links now available on The Shepherd’s Study main site.

Tools to Use:

• Dropbox – I found out about this free resource (up to 2 GB, though you can get additions of 250 MB when friends accept invitations and other means) from some fellow brothers in ministry serving in Toronto. Dropbox is a tool, basically a folder, through which you can much more easily share files between your own computers or even share files for collaboration or other purposes with others. It notifies you when a file in the Dropbox folder is updated on a different computer or by someone else with whom you’re collaborating. I’ve found this to be a helpful tool especially in a regional ministry setting like the one where I serve, where there are basically two congregations 75 miles apart served as one congregation. The brothers in Toronto were using it to collaborate on databases and other files since their congregation does not have a central location/facility at the present time. The Dropbox site has some helpful introductory videos to provide more info if you want it.

• Goodreads - I found out about this site through Pr. Johann Caauwe and being a bookaphile, it’s a great site. It’s a great way to not only keep track of what you’re reading and what you’ve read, but you can also have discussions about books you read as well as make recommendations on books. You can also follow what others are reading and share comments. For example, here is my profile on Goodreads.

• Joe’s Goals – This site is devoted to keeping you accountable to accomplishing goals. It’s very simple to use and  completely customizable. I’ve found it particularly helpful as I try to establish and maintain good daily habits like personal devotional reading and exercising. Basically you set up your goal(s), whether positive (doing something you want to do) or negative (not doing something you don’t want to do), and then “track your score”, by daily indicating if you did or did not meet your goal for the day. Like I said, it’s simple to use and can be very helpful.

• Wordle – This is simply a fun website where you can make word clouds out of sections of text that you provide. In fact, the creators of the site describe it as “a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.” Here’s an example created from the text of my recent Ash Wednesday sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:22-25. Click on the graphic to see it full-size. (By the way, if any of you out there know how to get a hold of a clear version of the full-sized graphic so it can be put into a blog post like this one, please let me know in the comments below!)

Blogs and Links:

• The Hausvater Project – Came across this some time ago and am not sure how much they’re updating it anymore, but this site is devoted to equipping “Christian men and women for distinctive and complementary vocations in family, church, and society, by fostering research and education in light of Holy Scripture as proclaimed by the Lutheran Confessions.” What I’ve found on there looks quite promising, so I’ve added it to the links in the sidebar.

• Liturgy, Hymnody, and Pulpit Quarterly Book Review – Not sure when I came across this blog, but it’s a useful resource for busy Lutheran shepherds as it takes a closer look at resources for Christian worship, preaching, and church music. The blog is run by Pr. Paul Cain (not to be confused with Pr. Paul McCain of Cyberbrethren), who serves an LC-MS congregation in Wyoming. It’s a blog worth including in your newsreader or if you prefer you can even download “issues” of the QBR in PDF format.

• Post-Reformation Digital Library – If you have interests in the writings of the Reformation and Post-Reformation era (not just Lutheran!), then this is a treasure trove for you! The site describes itself as is “a collection of resources relating to the development of theology during the Post-Reformation/early modern era (ca. 16th-18th c.), hosted by the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies of Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary.” The Luther section is excellent. Haven’t really checked out the sections of other authors, but I’m sure they are just as well done. By every indication, this digital library will only continue to grow.