Here, I wrote about WHY we believe that every married couple should write a One-Flesh Purpose Statement and I realize many people don't know the first step to take to write one.
Here's how (thanks to my hubs) we developed ours:
1) First, we recognized that God has purposed our marriage to glorify Him not just individually, but together. The together partnership is what we call the “double-glory” ministry and our individual ministry is what we call 1/2 glory.
That “double or 1/2 glory” statement gives us a nudge to move away from our tendency toward independent living to discover that glorious purpose God deposited in our marriage relationship. I mean, who wants to give God 1/2 the glory when we can give Him “double-glory?”
We believe God has deposited in every marriage relationship a double-glory purpose that we cannot fulfill without our spouse.
2) Second, we acknowledged our tendency to not only act independently, but see the diligent work it takes to move together as one - praying together, learning together, speaking the same language, moving together in God’s ways to bless others (rather than just individually—which is good, but not if it’s main thing –for it’s against God’s very design and purpose for our marriage). That’s when we got idea of the “1/2 glory or double-glory.”
3) Next, we acknowledged how “ministry” can be such a divider of marriage. We believe that God wants both marriage and ministry to be a blessing together—as we minister together. We also saw how many “ministry marriages” failed or are failing, and we didn’t want to be another statistic—growing apart from each other. We want to draw closer together as we grow in the Lord and we understand that it won’t happen if we each continue to do our own thing.
4) So, we resolved to move together, roll up our sleeves and get started—first with a purpose statement for our marriage. We believe that a purpose statement brings out the best in us and keeps us stretching, reaching for the prize when things are difficult. Also, just the act of wrestling through it and writing it down brought us a lot closer together.
5) We thought of areas that we already discovered that we do together well—areas we enjoyed doing together—that God has blessed —like hospitality. That’s why we have in our statement “opening up our home…”
6) Building on that, we discussed together what we could picture ourselves doing together. We started to get a few lines that we agreed upon and kept massaging it. Even this statement has been recently reformed.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’VE DISCOVERED YOUR LIFE-GIVING ONE-FLESH PURPOSE STATEMENT?
It will be just that: Life-giving! It will float your boat when you read it, when you think about it. Everybody’s “one-flesh” purpose is different. Don’t stop until both of you can say, “YES! THAT’S US! THAT’S WHAT GOD HAS PURPOSED FOR US! THAT FLOATS MY BOAT!” You’ll know you hit it when you write it down and you can say that. Here’s ours. It may not mean a lot to you, but it sure floats our boat!
1 comments:
These are great ideas and just what we need. You are right ministry couples tend to diverge rather than converge. We have to be intentional about doing ministry together. Thanks for writing your God given insights.
Bill Hook
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