Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Today is a bit of a break from my regular format:)
On the weekend of September 9-11, the BASIC community and friends will head an hour away to CrossPoint Retreat center for a weekend to grow, learn and play together. Consider joining us. Over that weekend we will be learning together about Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. What is that anyway? Men and women in hats doing bible study? (Get it..... manHOOD...hats...bible study!) Anyway....These are big words, actually totaling 27 letters. What does it mean? This is what we are going to explore over our BASIC retreat weekend.
If you pause to think about it, things seem pretty crazy in our world and culture these days. There is battle about who can use what bathroom at Target. Magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store bait us to find out more about the celebrity marriage that ended in tragic divorce because of Scientology or affairs and the reason why in the midst of divorce the person gained 130 pounds in 14 days. We hear stories of bakery owners being prosecuted because they are refusing to cater a wedding of someone with particular sexual orientation views. As I sit at Panera and pray through these words, I see men and women relating in different ways. Why do they relate in different ways? All of these ideas spring from an originating idea. People are created to relate. You can see the word relate in relationship. And because we are created to relate...all of these hundreds of plots and subplots emerge and fill our living with beautiful gifts and challenging struggles.
When I ponder all of this together, what rises to the surface in me is, "WE NEED HELP!" When some of you wrote questions down at our last BASIC retreat in February, many of those questions centered around things relating to relationships. Why are relationships such a big deal? Why do they even exist? What about dating and marriage?
When I use the words "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood", I mean "God's creative vision for what men and women relating with God and other humans looks like". All of those words funnel into this reality. Relationships are God's thing. He invented it from a particular context. It's creative because He created us....and on an on we could go...and Lord willing, will at our retreat.
We are not left hung out to dry, left to sift through the wreckage of our culture and hearts about relationships and relating with no hope. God says stuff about being men and women in the bible. Let's go there to learn what that looks like for our learning hearts, not the grocery store check out line. I hope you can join us for the BASIC retreat the weekend of September 9-11.
There's more.