Welcome to
Lakeview Church’s
Marriage and Family Ministry
Our Vision
To Help Equip and Empower Couples Grow Closer to Christ and Each
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Celebrating God’s Design!
•The
Marriage and Family Ministry exists to equip and empower
couples and families grow closer to Christ and each other.
•We
exist to offer couples, from engaged through milestone
anniversaries, a place to learn together from Scripture how to build
a home where:
(1) The love of Christ is shinning;
(2) Relationships are Biblically structured; and
(3) Genuine intimacy, authenticity and vulnerability is central.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Is God’s design and the God-given differences, which exist at
the root of our personhood, is what makes a man a man
and a woman a woman according to God’s Word.
This speaks to our God-designed Differences NOT our Value
in God’s eyes.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Complementarianism
The belief that God has created men and women equal in their
essential dignity and human personhood, but has assigned different
but complementary roles and responsibilities to men and woman within
marriage, family life and the church.
Additional Comment: It assigns leadership roles to men and support
roles to women, based on the interpretation of certain biblical passages.
One of its precepts is that while women may assist in the decision
making process, the ultimate authority for the decision is the purview of
the male.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Masculinity
•
At The Heart of Mature Masculinity is a Sense of Benevolent
responsibility to
• Lead,
• Provide, and
• Protect
women in ways Appropriate to a Man’s Differing Relationships.
•
Maturing - we are in the process of accepting and executing our
responsibilities and losing our “distortions”.
•
Responsibility – We men bear the “unique and primary” responsibility,
given to us by God, to exercise our role and responsibility to lead.
o As we “mature”, we are no longer to abdicate our God-given
responsibilities to our wives
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Marriage and Family Ministry
•
Discussion Questions – What was:
 New
 Interesting
 Challenging
 Encouraging
 What helped?
 What, from Chapter 2, did you try to apply to your life?
 What, from Chapter 3, did you try to apply to your life?
◦Your Feedback on the Questions
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Goal for this session:
“Biblical Womanhood”
What does a “Mature/Maturing” female look like?
What “Roles and Responsibilities”?
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity
At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to
affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from
worthy men in ways appropriate to a women's differing
relationships.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity is rooted in a commitment to Christ Jesus
as Lord and is discerning in what it approves
A Mature Woman:
•
has a clear, Biblical vision of mature masculinity
•
delights in it!
•
gives space for the man for natural, pure, mature expression
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When he is not mature:
o She does not abandon her femininity – her femininity remains intact as a
desire for things to be as God intended them to be (another’s actions
should not dictate my responses – respond vs react: I respond when I am
prepared)
o
She recognizes that the natural expression of her womanhood will be
hindered
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity
•
We must make careful distinctions between distortions and God's original
design. The mature and wise woman does not seek freedom by bending
reality to fit her desires, but seeks to be transformed in the renewal of
her desires to fit in with God's perfect will (Romans 12:2).
•
Maturing - we are in the process of accepting and executing our
design and losing our “distortions”.
•
A significant aspect of femininity is a way of responding to the pattern of
initiatives established by mature masculinity. Piper defines the heart of
femininity with three responses of a woman to the strength and
leadership of worthy men: affirm, receive and nurture.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity
the heart of femininity requests three responses of a woman to the strength and
leadership of worthy men: affirm, receive and nurture.
Affirm: declare one's support for; uphold or defend; accept or confirm the validity;
encourage
Mature women advocate (publicly support, recommend, plead on one's behalf) the
kind of masculine-feminine complementarity that we are learning about
•
•
Femininity is a disposition to affirm the strength and leadership of worthy men
Submission is a disposition to yield to the husband's authority and inclination to
follow his leadership - practical out working of affirmation`
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity
the heart of femininity requests three responses of a woman to the strength and
leadership of worthy men: affirm, receive and nurture.
Receive: to take delivery of; eat or drink (communion!); serve as a receptacle for;
respond to in a specified way; welcome formally
Mature femininity feels natural and glad to accept the strength and leadership of
worthy men.
• Glad when an upright man:
o offers strength
o provides a pattern of appropriate initiatives in their relationship
o is NOT passive
• She feels herself enhanced and honored and freed by his strength and servantleadership
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Mature Femininity
the heart of femininity requests three responses of a woman to the strength and
leadership of worthy men: affirm, receive and nurture.
Nurture: the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of
someone
A Mature Women senses a responsibility not merely to receive, but to nurture and
strengthen the resources of masculinity.
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•
•
•
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She is to be his partner and assistant
She joins in the act of strength
She shares in the process of leadership
She is "a helper suitable for him" Genesis 2:18
She brings nurturing strengths and insights that make men stronger and wiser
She makes the relationship richer by having a nurturing disposition
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Marriage and Family Ministry
Will Living According to God’s Design Really Make a Difference?
YES!
Freeing Disposition: free because it accords with the truth of God's purpose in creation. It
is the truth that frees (John 8:32). True freedom takes God's reality and God's purpose for
creation into account and seeks to fit smoothly into God's good design.
The greatest freedom is found in being so changed by God's Spirit that I can do what
I love to do and know that it conforms to the design of God and leads to life and
glory. (This looks different in each woman)
“Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is a deeply satisfying gift of grace from a loving God
who has the best interest of His creatures at heart. This is fulfilling in the deepest sense.”
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Marriage and Family Ministry
...In Ways Appropriate to a Women's Differing
Relationships...
“Mature Femininity does not express itself in the same way toward
every man. But she will affirm and receive and nurture the strength and
leadership of men in some form in all her relationships with men.
Regardless of the relationships in which a woman finds herself, mature
femininity will seek to express itself in appropriate ways.
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Marriage and Family Ministry
A Prayer for Your Marriage:
Teach me how to pray and make my prayers a true language of love. Where
love has died, create new love in me. Show me what unconditional love
really is and how to communicate it in a way that is clearly perceived. May
the God of patience and comfort grant us to be like-minded toward one
another, according to Christ Jesus (Ro. 5:5). Make us a couple, not
pursuing separate, competitive, or independent lives, but working together,
overlooking each other’s faults and weaknesses for the greater good of the
church. Help us to pursue the things, which make for peace and the things
by which one may edify another (Ro. 14:19). May we be “perfectly joined
together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1Cor. 1:10)
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