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Family Good News: Building Strong Families
Background: Marriage is an intimate and complementing union between a man and a woman in which the two become one for the rest of their lives. According to Genesis 1, God-ordained ideal for marriage from the beginning is to reflect His Image, which includes: same nature and essence, intimate relationship, common purpose, and distinct personalities with different roles, including authority and submission ,the husband leads and the wife submits to his leadership per (Eph.5:31). Being the most basic and significant social relationship to humankind, marital relationship must be nurtured and maintained for the welfare of all. Without marriage, Church, society, and nation will fail.
Benefits of stable marriages
- Married people are less likely than unmarried people to suffer from long-term illness, depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems, and overall mental health issues.
- There is greater overall happiness associated with having a stable family, compared to being unmarried or being in unhappy marriages.
- Stable families ensure the economic wellbeing as a result of planning together, investing together, and spending wisely.
- Due to the strong foundation provided, children raised up in stable families are less likely to drop out of high school, achieve high levels of education, and less likely to be victims of teenage pregnancy.
Current Marital Challenges Include
- Financial conflicts e.g. spending/investment disagreements.
- Culture mismatch in couples coming from different backgrounds.
- Child-rearing including its impact on marital relationships.
- Disagreements on career decision
- Disagreements and tense situations due to external influence e.g. from in-laws
- Domestic Violence
- Infidelity
- Addictions including technology addictions
- Children indiscipline
- Imbalanced work/ministry-family life
Goal of Family Good News
Supporting and building strong Christian-based families according to the Christian teachings and doctrines to enable marrieds enjoy the full fruits of marriage as God intended it to be.
Specific Objectives
Some of the objectives of Family Good News include
- Organize marriage fellowships that involve teachings from God’s Word to help each marriage reach the heights and goals that God has for it in Christ.
- Organize marriage retreats/classes designed to provide Bible-based, practical, relevant sharing, teaching, and tools to build, maintain, and/or restore marriages in an environment that encourages life-giving connections and relationships with other couples.
- Provide marriage counseling to guide and teach married couples the Scriptures concerning Christian marriage and help them realize that Jesus Christ is the foundational hope for every marriage.
- Organize a recovery program to help marrieds struggling with hurts, habits and hang-ups.
- Provide orientation necessary for building strong families.