Comments for Jonathan Woodard

Comment on Overflow by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 04:36:00 +0000

Good idea Dana, let’s make a CD this summer in MN.

Comment on Overflow by DanaJ

DanaJ — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 04:12:00 +0000

Love it. thanks for sharing! Id like a recording of this.

Comment on Quinnisms – 1st installment by Chuck Balsamo

Chuck Balsamo — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:15:42 +0000

Very funny Jonathan! I love your CREATIVITY! Always a pleasure to read your stuff! Way to go Quinn… naomi is SO LOVED! =)

Comment on Quinnisms – 1st installment by Catherine Davis

Catherine Davis — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:46:16 +0000

Cute post! Naomi sounds like a sweet baby!

Riley: bug, puppet,

Reagan: Baby

So creative, huh?

Comment on Leeland comforts loss of Delirious by Chuck Balsamo

Chuck Balsamo — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:03:16 +0000

Hey Jonathan… Delirious is my favorite worship band of all time… their influence on my earlier days in Christ is SO PROFOUND! I pray for God to bless them in whatever comes next! =)

Comment on First day in the pasture by Frankie Campbell

Frankie Campbell — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:11:31 +0000

Hi Johnathan,
beautiful horses !! Not sure you remember me from church but I played with you one night on stage during the Sunday evening service. Enjoyed your blog, lots of good information. Rebekah pointed me to the website, Jesus Central. I’ll look at that more when I have time. Anything we can to do help you guys out, let us know. We have quite a bit of land in Bealeton Fenced for animals with three paddocks and currently have chickens and Goats in two. Enough to feed horses but not sure the barn would be enough but if it helped till you found better accomidations your more than willing to come by and take a look, we’d love to have you both if only for a visit. God Bless and welcome to Liberty !! Frankie

Comment on 22 things if I couldn’t remarry by admin

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:51:49 +0000

Hi Catherine, I totally agree about church needing to build up the family and facilitate families to lead family-centered events. While I was a kids pastor in Maryland, I ran across The Family Friendly Church – by Ben Freudenburg, Rick Lawrence. You can read part of it on google book search. Many churches say they want to serve families, but their methods and programming doesn’t support it. You’re right, that is scary, but you’d be a great one to influence the church to become more family-friendly or just find family-friendly church. Actually, this is a book I need to finish reading myself.

I think the church should be a place where people feel safe to connect with other people no matter what they’ve done, while still walking in the fear of God (eg. Ananias and Sapphira). If someone divorces or remarries, there should still be great opportunities to participate in the life of the church. There are certain aspects of the church that should be helpful in dealing with turmoil. Part of the reason for writing this is to attune myself to ways I can help facilitate this better.

Comment on 22 things if I couldn’t remarry by Catherine

Catherine — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:22:10 +0000

I got something from my school in the mail today that said if you think the Christian life is about you, don’t come to school here. If you want to give to others, this school is for you. Service+Humility=Greatness. What I’ve seen the church miss in Seattle is that couples and families need to connect as couples and families with other couples and families. We are starting to find that completely outside of the church. We never found it in the church. We celebrate holidays, birthdays, neighborhood parties, births, death, we’re available to people, we volunteer in the community, whatever – but we’ve found these venues outside of the church. As a family, we’re seen as a resource to be tapped into for money and volunteering. It’s not until we have broken lives that the church can suddenly filter us into these groups and projects and counseling. I don’t get that. I don’t know if it’s just Seattle, but I eventually found the church to be nothing but a time and money drain with no resources relevant to our current daily lives. That’s scary.
A great list. I have a friend who was not free to marry for many years who was a great mentor and friend to me during that time. Her ex recently remarried and she subsequently married her best friend from 22 years. I was very happy for her. She goes to a church in this area known for practicing church discipline for divorce and not allowing remarriage. I didn’t stay at that church because I disagreed with their principles. I do; however, agree that until you wrap up on relationship in its entirety you will not be successful in the next. The grass is not greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it.

Comment on Can a Christian divorcee remarry? by Catherine

Catherine — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:08:04 +0000

I think Paul said everything is permissable, but not everything is beneficial. In building the family unit, God set forth marriage as a protection for wives and children. To sum this up in its entirety, I’d have to refer to all of “Marriage, A History” by Stephanie Coontz which I thought was brilliant and well written. She was completely unbiased to religious affiliations and yet accurately dissected the build up to the breadwinner marriage of the 1950s to the divorce onslaught of the 1980s. In truth, the breadwinner marriage never worked.

I think Christians have set forth a platter of expectations for the family and for marriage that can be unrealistic to meet. In actuality, every family is different. It could be possible that some couples today may still decide to marry to organize property rights and protect and raise children. There is nothing saying they have to be “in love” and yet the church (correct me if I’m wrong) is still promoting intimate marriage values. Wasn’t the idea of an intimate marriage introduced in the late 1700′s with the beginning of the sexual revolution in the Victorian Era?

Does divorce hold the same consequences that it held thousands of years ago? Some people don’t marry at all anymore. Some couples feel that marriage has no value at all and the since women have equality in egalitarian relationships, we can move around with partners as we wish. On the other hand, marriage also protects children – a product of sexual relationships which are actually no longer produced within the bounds of marriage. Children from divorced families are still more likely to have issues than coming from a stable intact family. More importantly, children with no father present are more likely to be involved with crimes, drugs, or eventually commit suicide.

When it comes to marriage and making a vow before God? I think God forgives and it’s a terrible thing for people to live their lives with a stigma on themselves that they can’t move on thinking God doesn’t forgive. If there is no chance for reconciliation, it’s time to fogive and move on. Your parents divorce is done. The damage to the family unit is done. The consequences are done. Your dad has moved on. Does this mean this new marriage and child can not be legitimate? How can two wrongs make something right again?

50% of Christian Marriages end in divorce. Tell yourself all you want to that it’s wrong, that it isn’t allowed, that you’re not going to get divorced, but somehow I think the key must be realizing that it is a reality. It’s available, it’s real. It happens when people have hardened hearts or go for a long time without working through issues. You can’t avoid issues thinking that commitment to marriage is magic. If you said you were committed to getting to Disneyland, but did nothing to plan to get there or save to get there or book the tickets to get there, you wouldn’t really be committed to getting there.

God forgives a lot of things. I don’t think divorce is an exception. David was a murderer and an adulterer. I don’t want to scare you into thinking divorce is suddenly an option, but we married knowing divorce was always an option and have worked hard at making our marriage something we want to stay committed to.
From the perspective of how it would affect us and our kids, divorce isn’t a question of right and wrong, but of what’s best for all of us. Divorce can be selfish and in marrying someone else, it’s likely most people haven’t resolved the issues from one relationship before moving on to the next which means they carry the same issues into the next marriage. This breeds a higher second divorce rate. Can people be saddled with bad personality matches? Sure. That’s why the older you are or the more education you have or the better you know your spouse or yourself when you marry, the better your chances are at marriage.

Is divorce unbiblical? I don’t think so. Can a divorcee remarry? With much counseling and advice and only if there is no chance for reconciliation (including if the previous spouse has remarried) Does a remarried spouse need to divorce and marry their first spouse? I have never heard that. In fact, I think if the marriage were unBiblical, it could then be considered adultery. That spouse is accountable to God and the other spouse is free to move on.

Anyway, lots of thoughts…good luck with all of this!

Comment on Is repentance from divorce and remarriage possible? by admin

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:45:59 +0000

What statement was a yoke, or which statement says that remarried cannot receive the grace of God?

To clarify, I’ve heard that “repenting” means “turning around” to attempt to undo that sin. At first glance, turning around from remarriage would seem to dump the non-primary spouse. But I explain why that simplistic view cannot work.

Hope you had a great day pointing people to the cross of Christ, our only hope.