Join us this Christmas at Manly Life Church as we celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world. We are a church full of life, love and peace! You and your whole family will have a great time with us this Christmas! There will be carols, readings, a kids play and a great message of hope.

Isaiah 9:6 says; “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

That is who we celebrate at Christmas! So come along…

Sunday 20th of December – Manly Life Christmas Celebration, 5pm at Star of the Sea Theatre – corner of Illuka and Collingwood Avenue, Manly.

Thursday 24th of December – Christmas Eve Service, 5pm at Star of the Sea Theatre – corner of Illuka and Collingwood Avenue, Manly.

Last week I wrote about the 4 signs that your marriage needs help. Well, it is time to go on the positive and talk about how to build a strong relationship. Marriage is such a gift from God, and is worth investing in on a daily level. Victoria and I are working our way through these suggestions that Allan Mathews has put together. Allan is married to the wonderful Julie (who is an elder at church) and a trained counsellor. In turn these suggestions come from Professor John Gottman who has mapped which marriages work and last.

There are some great practical things here (more compliments than criticisms) and also some key things that you need to spend time on like working out shared values and beliefs. So… with help from Allan Mathews from church, and using the picture of a house, here are the 3 main areas to build a strong relationship…

So firstly, building the foundation. A good marriage is composed of friendship. These foundation elements are:

• Build Love Maps – Know your partner intimately. A “love map” is that part of one’s brain where one stores all the relevant information about your spouse’s life, such as their worries, hopes, and goals in life; their history; and the facts and feelings of their world.
• Share Fondness and Admiration – Nurturing fondness and admiration involves meditating a bit on one’s partner and what makes one cherish him or her. Exercises suggested for doing this include thinking about incidents that illustrate characteristics one appreciates in your partner; talking about the happy events of the past.
• Turning towards – Turning towards each other means connecting with one’s spouse; being there for each other during the events in each other’s lives; and responding favourably to your spouse’s bids for attention, affection, humour or support.

Secondly, building strong living areas – the places where you daily rub against each other!

The Positive Perspective -. Gottman has a measure that says partners who give more than 5 compliments for every 1 negative comment to each other are up there with the “masters in marriage”. This is the opposite of the two indicators to divorce discussed in part 1 (criticism and contempt).

Managing Conflict Well – You will disagree on a large number of issues, so you will need to manage conflict in a healthy way. There are three parts to this:

Establish dialogue and agree on the rules of how you will discuss conflicts. This is the opposite of the two indicators to divorce discussed in part 1 (defensiveness and stonewalling) which leads to gridlock.

Gridlock occurs when: A conflict makes one feel rejected by one’s partner. They keep talking about the disagreement but make no headway. The partners become entrenched in their positions and are unwilling to budge. When the partners discuss the subject, they end up feeling more frustrated and hurt. The conversations about the problem are devoid of humour, amusement, or affection, and finally, the partners become even more immovable over time.

Conflict resolution involves: Softening the start-up (i.e. leading off of the discussion without criticism or contempt). Making a straightforward comment about a concern and expressing one’s need in a positive fashion. The efforts a couple makes to de-escalate the tension during a touchy discussion. Soothing oneself and one’s partner. Compromising and being tolerant of each other’s faults.

Finally, building a strong roof – the overall meaning of your relationship that you build your life together under!

The final level has to do with creating shared meaning for the marriage that both can share and aspire towards. This consists of:

Creating Shared Dreams – Meshing the couple’s individual life dreams together to create a shared life dream, for the two to work together towards.

Creating Shared Meaning – Meshing rituals of connection, goals, roles, beliefs, narratives, and metaphors.

Is that helpful? Why not take each part of the strong house and discuss with your partner an area each night, for 3 nights. Ask each other, how well do we do these things, and, how could I grow (take turns)?

If you ask a lot of people what does it mean to be a Christian, they may say ‘being good’ or ‘going to church’, or even ‘being a hypocrite’. The true essence of Christian faith though is very different. In this sermon from Romans 3:21-26, Pastor Tim explains that to be a Christian is to receive from God as a free gift, the righteousness of Jesus instead of our own record. This is grace, and it changes everything.

Have a listen (press play and wait for audio to start) and if you find it helpful, please feel free to share!

I had a great conversation this week with Allan Mathews from church and a friend who is about to get married. Allan is a trained counsellor and all round wise guy! We ended up speaking about the things that put great strain on a marriage, and the things that lead to a healthy, loving marriage. So, this is part 1 in a little series on marriage (the next one will be the 7 things great marriages have in common).

Every marriage is made of two imperfect people seeking to love each other. I know that the things below can creep into any marriage (um, hello, I thought I invented defensiveness). For all of our good intentions going into marriage we bring different ways of feeling loved, communicating, dealing with conflict and what we think is normal from watching our own parents.

As you read what Allan has sent me, if you recognise some of these traits in your marriage, then don’t be afraid seek some help. We get our cars checked and serviced every year… surely our marriages are even more important, and are worth investing in! So… over to Allan.

The 4 pointers to divorce or relationship break-up in 5 years

After extensive research an American Psychologist John Gottman has put together 4 indicators of a marriage that’s in trouble and will probably end in 5 years. He calls them the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

These indicators are:

Criticism – verbally attacking a partner’s character or personality.

Contempt –  attacking a partner’s sense of self with an intention to insult or psychologically abuse them.

Defensiveness –  seeing yourself as the victim in efforts to ward off a perceived attack and to reverse the blame.

Stonewalling –  Withdrawing from a relationship as a way to avoid conflict in efforts to convey disapproval, distance and separation.

The troubles normally start with one of the above manner of communicating (thinking) and quickly develop into all four. The earlier you recognise that there are issues between you and your partner, and take steps to deal with those issues, the more likely you are to build a sound marriage.

Seeking out help in sorting out issues from a professional counsellor early will save a lot of pain and distress later.

(part two to come…)