Facebook Relate
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Relate exists to encourage couples as they work through the dynamics of their relationships.
At the heart of ‘Relate’ is a desire to equip couples with tools for growing together. Tools that allow God’s intent to be made known in the love between two people.
There are people within our church community who have made themselves available to help you foster healthy couple relationships.
For more info please email
you can also check out Relate on Facebook
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Who is Responsible October 14, 2011
“It’s not my fault!!” sound familiar? I hear it frequently from the mouths of my children as they scramble for reasons why the thing that they were supposed to do didn’t happen and just who or what stood in the way…. How about this classic that I heard the other morning!… “It’s not my fault I am late for school, its cause you didn’t make my lunch!”
Statements like that one beg me to ask the question – What am I Responsible for?
We would all recognise we have ‘responsibilities’ in life but when It comes to taking responsibility for our behaviour or our words we don’t always find it so easy. Even in the closest earthly relationship we will ever have – Our marriage…. I might not use the phrase “It’s not my fault” out loud. But, I am guilty of inwardly justifying my behaviour because of something my husband did first that ‘made’ me behave the way I did………
The truth is – I have a choice in every situation, If I don’t examine my actions and choose my response, by default I will jump to defend myself just like my son did when he tried to shift the blame for his lateness that morning – If he had examined himself before choosing a response he would have said something like “I am late this morning because I didn’t leave myself enough time to get ready and I am disappointed that I wasn’t more organised!”
Obviously hearing that come out of a 14yr old mouth would be nothing short of a miracle – but in taking responsibility for himself he would have demonstrated to me that he is reliable, accountable and even trustworthy. Whereas his initial reaction left me feeling angry, disappointed and responsible for his problem.
The crazy thing is we do that to each other in our marriages all the time!
Who has had this conversation or similar? “Well, if you were a bit more helpful around here – Maybe I would be less Grumpy!”
In reality – I am responsible for my ‘grumpiness’ not you.
I can choose to be pleasant regardless of whether you are helping me around the house or not and when I do so I am communicating that you can rely on me not to lay blame for my behaviour at your feet. You may even learn that you can trust me to take responsibility for myself when you bring up things that I am doing that hurt you
…… Therefore, rather than leaving you feeling responsible for my problem, I leave you free to be responsible for yourself.
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Love Languages August 14, 2011
Have you ever planned a day, washed the car or bought your partner a gift in order to show them that you love them and found your left feeling underappreciated when you don’t get the reaction you expected? Maybe it is true that we each have a different way of expressing and receiving love? – One style that speaks louder than all the others and communicates to us that we are loved.
As I wade through countless books on Marriage and relationships it is hard not to note that a lot of authors refer to the ‘5 love languages’ (or variations of these) that Gary Chapman talks about in his book by the same name.
Maybe, there is something in this thing? This book is not a new one but is definitely worth a read if you can get your hands a copy or checkout the website www.5lovelanguages.com and discover your primary love language!
“I have chosen. From now on, my aim will be not to search for someone who will please me, but to please the one I have chosen”
Andre Maurois (The Art of being Happily Married 1953)
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Love Is May 19, 2011
I have been thinking this week of the sacrificial nature of the love we have received and are commanded to give to others in return.
“Let me give you a new command: Love one another in the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognise that you are my disciples – when they see the love that you have for each other.” MSG
John 13 v 34 – 35
This kind of love challenges me to put aside, my pride, my prejudices and my expectations of others in order to serve another.
If Jesus laid down his life for me knowing that I would sometimes let him down– what does that mean for me and my relationship with others?
love as an action – love is a choice to prioritize the needs of another above my own needs.
I don’t think it means that we never address our feelings with one another. In fact I believe telling each other the truth about how we are affecting one another helps to lift the levels of trust and intimacy in our relationships. I do wonder however, if it means that when I am in a healthy relationship where there has been mutual promise to serve one another that I can’t let my feelings be an excuse to withdraw my love.
I believe Jesus means to encourage us enter into and cultivate relationships that are places where each of us is serving the others needs knowing, that it is there that each of us will have our own needs met – in our giving we will receive.
Jesus know’s that it is those relationships that breed the unselfish love that encourages – honesty and vulnerability and allows us to experience what it is to be known and to be loved, and it is in those relationships where ‘outsiders’ would see modeled the sacrificial nature of his love for us.
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Love, Lies And Butterflies May 6, 2011
I was reminded this week of how much the way we relate effects others – Not just our relating to the people in our world but to the onlookers in our world – the people who watch us closely that we are for the most part unaware of. I really began to think about the ways in which we affect each other and not only that, how our effect on another can potentially change the way that person will affect someone else.
Just like a butterflies flapping wings have the potential to alter a weather pattern on the other side of the world*, it is true that my words and actions have the potential to influence someone I don’t know or even someone from a generation that will come after me.
We inevitably leave our print on the world and on the lives of others and once someone’s life is imprinted they are changed forever.
When I Consider the magnitude of that thought for a moment, it opens up the picture of what my life means even more – what is my purpose? It is to serve those who God has put near to me in such a manner that they know him better after having encountered me. It is to ensure that I relate in a way that reflects my responsibility to the lives of those I love and those I will never meet. It is to love God with all I am and to love others as I would myself.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect