I’ve talked to people who’ve gone through a divorce, who have no idea, “Why did it happen? What really caused it to take place?” It seems surprising but I understand that because truthfully we are not usually taught how to have good relationships. So when things go wrong, we are not always sure what happened. It’s unfortunate that we are so ill-equipped for something so important to life. Where do you learn about how to get along with people? You never had a class growing up in school and yet it’s the most important thing in life. Your parents may not have taught you how to have good relationships either perhaps because they did not know themselves. So they never sat you down and said, “Here are the building blocks to good relationships; and here are the things that hurt them.”
I have come to think that is an important role for the church in helping people follow Jesus. If the church does not teach people how to have good relationships, who will? In the 40 days of CONNECT we are focusing on this very need by encouraging people to strengthen their relationships with other people – especially those in the church. I hope that we can help people follow Jesus better by providing teaching, experiences and resources to help them get better connected to others.
Do you think the church does enough to teach people how to have strong relationships in their family, community and church?