Western Hills Christian Church: “You are family here!”

Overview: Love Must Be Tough. James Dobson, 1983. W Publishing Group. Text 237 pages

This marriage and family “classic” from one of Christianity’s most celebrated authors is straightforward and firm-handed counsel to those who are having significant relationship problems.

Dr. Dobson has tapped into some deep truths about human relationships. Beginning with the marital bond, but expanding to other relationships and situations, our author teaches us the techniques of “loving toughness”.

From this volume we glean such time-honored concepts as “keeping the line of respect” and “opening the cage door” - to help us keep our relationships healthy and out of harms way.

In addition to teaching us the ways of tough love, our author addresses adultery, alcoholism, abuse, homosexuality, and other damaging patterns in relationships. He makes the case that the healthy response to these negative influences is a form of tough love. He gives practical advise to his readers and provides hope for many who are hurting. In the complicated area of marital love, Dr. Dobson really cuts through culture and myth to bring us plain truth.

My impressions:

Upon re-reading this book, I am again reminded why it is one of the top five books I recommend for my clients. Its insights are very helpful, and its straightforward advice is medicine that many of us need to take - there is a spoon full of sugar in his compassion - helping this medicine to go down.

Western Hills Christian Church- Love Must Be Tough. James Dobson, 1983. W Publishing Group. Text 237 pages

Chapter list:

1. With Love to the Victims
2. Panic and Appeasement
3. The Tender Trap
4. Young Love, True Love
5. Opening the Cage Door
6. The Tougher Questions
7. The Valley of the Shadow
8. Three Women Who Tried It
9. Questions and Answers
10. Victims of Affairs: A Dialogue
11. Discussion of the Dialogue
12. Anatomy of Adultery
13. Loving Toughness in Other Settings
14. Angry Women and Passive Men
15. Loving Toughness for Singles
16. Components of a Good Marriage
17. With More Love to the Victims

Shawn Brue
August, 2007

Overview: Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make You Holy More Than to Make You Happy? Gary Thomas

“This isn’t a book that seeks to tell you how to have a happier marriage. This is a book that looks at how we can use the challenges, joys, struggles, and celebrations of marriage to draw closer to God.”

Thomas invites the reader to find places of growth, enlightenment and stretching of our Christ-likeness through the challenges we encounter in the marriage relationship. For Christians who are busy with marriage and family life, the spiritual disciplines lauded by antiquity may be out of reach. Growth and spiritual maturity can be gained, our author suggests in that we can “pursue God through marriage.”

Thomas uses many scriptures, ample quotes from recognized authors and very pithy anecdotes to illustrate each chapter’s main points. “Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value. . . the real purpose of marriage may not be happiness as much as it is holiness.” “The ultimate purpose of this book is not to make you love your spouse more. It’s to equip you to love your God more.”

My impressions:

This is a first-rate attempt to set the marriage relationship with all it’s joys and challenges into the realm of spiritual discipline. The author’s insights invited me to see the trials of matrimony as an avenue of change and growth. Maybe even in marriage “the testing of [my] faith produces perseverance, and perseverance must finish it’s work, so that [I] can be complete and lacking nothing.”

Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make You Holy More Than to Make You Happy? Gary Thomas, 2000. Zondervan. Text 268 pages.

Chapter List:

1. The Greatest Challenge in the World
2. Finding God in Marriage
3. Learning to Love
4. Holy Honor
5. The Soul’s Embrace
6. The Cleansing of Marriage
7. Sacred History
8. Sacred Struggle
9. Falling Forward
10. Make Me a Servant
11. Sexual Saints
12. Sacred Presence
13. Sacred Mission
14. Epiloge: The Holy Couple

Shawn Brue
May, 2007

Overview: Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes our Souls by Gary Thomas

“Parenting is a school for spiritual formation - and our children are our teachers. The journey of caring for, rearing, training, and loving our children will profoundly alter us forever.”

In much the same style as “Sacred Parenting“, Thomas invites his readers to view our role as parent in a spiritually formative way. He uses scripture references, poignant stories and quotes to bring a deeper view to the “ordinary” of parenting.

Our author tells us that parenting is a sacred calling. The promise, he writes, is one of transformation. For if we allow God access to our heart in the process, we will be changed with every trial, joy, sacrifice, fear and pleasure into an image increasingly more like his son. As we see to our children’s physical maturity, God is using these experiences to spiritually mature us.

My impressions:

I have for some time believed parenting changes us (it has and is changing me). It is of great solace to know God can use those challenging years to make me more like his son. The stories he tells have caused me laughter, tears, and many moments of deep reflection. I highly recommend it

Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes our Souls. Gary Thomas, 2004. Zondervan. Text 223 pages

Chapter List:

1. Papa God
2. The Hardest Hurt of All
3. The Gold behind the Guilt
4. Seizing Heaven
5. Joy!
6. Vicious Vulnerability
7. Burning Love
8. The Glory behind the Grime
9. Walking on the Wild Side of Parenting: The Gift of Extremely Demanding Children
10. A Very Boring Chapter in the Bible (That Can Change Your Life Forever)
11. Xerox R Us
12. Sacrifice
13. Leaving
14. Epilogue: Receive Your Reward

Shawn Brue
May, 2007