In honor of the most romantic month of the year, I want to discuss the dream day of every little girl who has ever lived - her wedding day. One day. 24 hours. Same amount of physical time, but each minute carries with it a weight of expectations that cannot possibly be fulfilled this side of the silver screen. For a girl, the wedding day has the same dreams attached to it as a young boy would in pitching Game 7 of the World Series. Everything must be perfect, from the hall for the reception, to the color of the pastor’s suit.

With so much pressure and weight given to the wedding day in our culture, we sometimes end up with dream weddings and nightmare marriages. Doesn’t it break your heart to be living in a country where nearly 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce? What can the church do to try to better the odds? At Woodside, we want to make your wedding day unforgettable, and you’re marriage unbreakable. Let me tell you how we plan to do this at Woodside…
“Yes! YESSSSSS!! I’ll marry you Johnny!” After several emotional kisses and strong embraces, Susie calls her mom. And her sister. And her friends. Then she logs on to Facebook and changes her relationship status to “Engaged”. He sits stunned and suddenly scared to death.

Before I go further, let me tell you my story… Angela was one of my best friends, someone I absolutely loved to be around. When I finally realized that she might be the one for me, I sputtered out a calculated line (“I’d like to pursue you romantically” was the wording) and after she recovered from my Shakespearean bombshell, she warmed to the idea. Since we had been in a healthy platonic relationship for a long time before the dating began, I already knew many things about her dreams for engagement and marriage. One important detail was that she wanted to be surprised for her engagement (of course), but she wanted her family to all be there as part of the surprise and witnesses to the moment. This made things a little bit tricky for me. Christmas was an obvious choice, but too obvious for my taste. There was one other time that she wouldn’t be expecting: homecoming at our alma mater. So the stage was set, the family in town for the big weekend of soccer games and bad buffets.

One little problem crept up 2 days before the big event was to go down – I was admitted to the hospital with the most extreme case of Mononucleosis that anyone had ever seen. It was so bad that my room became a required stop for medical school students to study my condition. This entire engagement plan that I had hatched had one big requirement – me! The doctors wanted to keep me for a week to be safe, or at least until my skin faded from the color of a yellowed bruise to at least my normal autumn pale pallor. I plead my case with every nurse that tended to my needs. I used guilt. I begged. I reasoned. I used every ounce of salesmanship that I could muster from my exhausted and depleted frame to convince them of the worthiness of my cause. With the help of some crafty nurses that couldn’t resist a good happy ending, the doctor very reluctantly discharged me just hours before the event was to happen. Now 25 pounds lighter after 3 days in the hospital, I sought to force myself to imagine eating something besides apple juice at dinner that night. After a cutesy trip up the stairs reading poetry that I composed and collecting roses, Angela walked into the living room to see her whole family there and her emaciated boyfriend attempting to get down on one knee without crumbling. She said yes! No kisses for me – lest you have forgotten my condition.

And so began our 8 month engagement… Tuxes and dresses were found – cake, invitations, reservations, down payments, travel arrangements, diets, were all waves crashing on us from this ocean of details. We had a few counseling sessions with the pastor that was to marry us, and unfortunately for us, the only thing I remember about it was a very impassioned talk on the difference between a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA.

The wedding day was memorable and beautiful, but I was soon to find out that marriage is a lot different than dating. My own selfishness and thoughtlessness which had gone before undetected was now deafening and embarrassing. How I wish we would have spent as much time preparing for our marriage as we had for our wedding! It has been nearly 8 years since our wedding day, and In spite of my own inadequacies and failings, God has blessed us with an amazing marriage. We definitely have our ups and downs, our trophies and tourniquets, but the joy that being together brings us is overwhelming.
At Woodside, we want to see our people get married, not just have a wedding.

This is the heart of what drives our Mentoring Program. We have a group of Godly couples that desire to invest many hours into our engaged couples, working through a book, sharing meals, and creating a safe space to share hopes, dreams, and fears. We want to have our couples as prepared for marriage as possible, working through important issues and unifying the couple relationally, emotionally, and spiritually.

After the engagement happens, call your mom then call us! We will immediately check for availability on one of our three campuses and reserve the date for you. Not only are there different worship center choices, but there is also a new outdoor wedding option in a brand new gazebo at the Troy Campus which will be ready by this summer. There is no rental charge to use our buildings, Woodside is YOUR CHURCH! Our only fees are kept as low as possible for our sound and lighting professionals so that everyone can afford to have a magical wedding at Woodside. Our information packet will be sent to you that will answer all your questions about the process. A meeting with one of our pastors is then set up before you are paired with one of our mentoring couples. During this engagement time, you are encouraged to join our Young Married/Engaged Group, called Fusion, which has a Sunday morning AFG, small groups, and a social calendar.

We are committed to seeing our people enter into marriages that are as beautiful and breathtaking as the wedding itself. So if 2008 is the year that you tie the knot, please consider getting married at Woodside. It would be our honor and great delight.

Ahhhhh… New Year’s Resolutions. What a great time of year. The definition of the word Resolution that we use around this time of year is “a firm decision to do something”. I love that definition. “I’m gonna do something this year!” As opposed to the last few years in which I apparently firmly decided to do nothing. It usually involves losing weight, working out, getting that pesky degree finished, finishing that remodeling project that was started awhile back. You know, the kind of resolutions that you have already tried and failed by the second week of January.

But there is another definition of Resolution that I really like – and maybe we can think about it this way in 2008. It is also used as a musical term, to describe the movement of a note or chord from dissonant to consonant. In other words, the resolution is the moment of the music where pleasing harmony is restored. The unpleasant dissonant notes that provide tension and complexity to the song and allow for the climactic payoff that the pleasing consonant notes bring. The resolution is that moment where all that seemed chaotic and maybe even out of control is brought to a beautifully stirring and harmonic peace.

If I were to analyze my life within this framework, I would have to conclude that at the end of 2007, there are some relationships, decisions, tensions, concerns, oversights, hesitations, and so much more that are in a state of chaotic dissonance. I have allowed once treasured friendships to languish in a state of disrepair. I have pain and regrets in my family that I ignore. I have allowed laziness to dominate my physical choices. I have put my own desires before others on far too many occasions.

To take this further – everywhere I look I see things in need of beautiful resolution. I see poverty just a few miles away. I see homelessness. I see sickness and pain. I see brokenness. I see hopelessness.

In ancient Jewish thought, the Kingdom of Heaven was thought to be bringing peace (shalom) from chaos. In their minds, the ultimate expression of chaos was the seas - the forceful rapids of the Jordan River, the unpredictable storms that would rise on the Sea of Galilee. The creation account itself speaks of God forming the beautiful land and skies from the waters (chaos). Think of how Jesus brought peace from chaos. The healings, the miracles, his teachings… His reading in the synagogue, from Isaiah 61“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”(Luke 4:18-21) Peace from chaos.

This is the kind of Resolution that God wants me to make this year. Instead of breaking promises to myself about eating better and running more, maybe I can ask bigger questions this year. How can I bring these deafening dissonant notes that are being played all around us to any sort of harmony? How can I be used by God to bring this sort of peace to the chaos of this world? I feel that God is asking me to give all I have to see harmony brought to the chaos of this area. And as I attempt to do this, He will bring the peace to my own heart that seems so elusive. As I put others needs before my own – my own needs are met through the grace of God in my life. As I seek to end poverty and homelessness in my state through love and service, my own poverty of heart is healed. As I seek to heal other’s hearts, my own pain is healed by the grace that God showers down. As I seek to forgive those that aren’t sorry, the depth of my own salvation and forgiveness are made more precious.
God, please use me to help bring peace to this chaos, healing to the broken, and a beautiful harmony to this dissonant land - until the day when the most gorgeous heavenly symphony resounds to the ends of the universe.

May our lives be the Resolution in 2008.