Relationships

Relationships: Week #1 - Foundations (Matt Massey)

This series is about what God actually says about doing relationships well. Not opinions. Not advice from someone who has it all figured out. God's Word — applied to the marriages, friendships, families, and workplaces we actually live in.

Here's where we start: healthy, loving relationships don't begin by finding healthy, loving people. They begin by becoming one.

That's a harder truth than most of us want to sit with. But when you look honestly at the common denominator in every strained relationship, every fracture, every falling out you've ever had — there's one person who shows up every single time. You.

Not to pile on. That's true for all of us. The question is what we do with it.

In Week 1 we open in Ephesians 5:1-2 and trace Paul's argument back through chapters 4 and 3 to show how the call to "walk in love" isn't a suggestion tacked onto the end of a letter. It's the logical conclusion of everything Paul has just said about who Jesus is, what He's done, and what it means to live as someone who's been deeply loved by God.

Relationships: Week #2 - Marriage & Dating (Matt Massey)

This series is about what God actually says about doing relationships well. Not opinions. Not advice from someone who has it all figured out. God's Word — applied to the marriages, friendships, families, and workplaces we actually live in.

This week we go to one of the most misread, most misused, most avoided passages in the New Testament: Ephesians 5:22-33.

Wives, submit to your husbands.

Before you close the tab — read verse 21 first.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That's the verse most people skip. And it changes everything that follows.

Relationships: Week #3 - Friendship (Beth Guckenberger)

This series is about what God actually says about doing relationships well. Not opinions. Not advice from someone who has it all figured out. God's Word — applied to the marriages, friendships, families, and workplaces we actually live in.

This week: friendship.

The number of people who report having no close personal friends has increased fourfold since 2000. Author and researcher David Brooks reports that 54% of Americans say nobody knows them well. We have more ways to connect than any generation in history — and we are lonelier than ever. 

We've done something strange to the word "friend." We know what strangers' homes look like on the inside, where they vacationed, what they ordered for dinner — and most of them aren't really our friends. The world has given us the illusion of connection while quietly replacing the real thing. But the loneliness epidemic isn't just a social problem. It's a spiritual one. And the church has an answer — because God designed us for exactly this.