#jeffbethke

So I’ve recently become addicted to podcasts and I also follow Jeff and Alyssa Bethke. I first came across Jeff Bethke when my husband showed me a video (you can find it on YouTube) where he raps about religion and how often churches can be corrupt. I digress, Jeff and his wife Alyssa do amazing posts on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube about marriage and the worship of God. I focus mainly on the marriage part because my relationship with God is not the greatest at the moment but I won’t get into that right now - maybe another post.

I’ve been listening to a podcast called Stronger Marriages and it’s amazing. The host, Melanie, has this absolutely calming voice and tone about her and they give these great tips on marriage. I was also extremely happy to hear that Jeff and Alyssa Bethke are sponsors on that podcast.

In any case, I listened to one of the episodes today and it was something that I’ve heard before from Jeff Bethke. They spoke about conflict in relationships and how to handle conflict. We all have expectations when it comes to a marriage and we expect that the other person knows what our expectations are but that’s completely retarded because we haven’t even said anything about what we expect. A mess, right?

Right. So the whole episode was about how you say how you feel in conflict. Like Melanie did, I’m going to say two sentences and you can decide which one you like best, okay? ‘Sweetheart, would you mind taking the trash out? It’s starting to smell.’ OR ‘Hey Fartface, can you take the garbage out? It smells worse than your armpits.’ See? Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point, right? 

Always be kind and rather than saying ‘you’ in an argument and directing the fight, replace it with ‘I’. For example, ‘why do you always have to put your shoes next to the bed? they don’t go there!’ when you can rather say, ‘Honey, when you put your shoes next to the bed, it often has mud on it and then I have to clean it and that makes me feel like you don’t appreciate me when I clean and look after the baby because I often trip on them trying to rush to the baby too.’ Yes, it’s longer but can you really raise your voice and get angry at that? No, it causes the other person to feel bad about the action instead of angry at your mention of the action. 

Anyway, just a little tip for anyone out there. 

jade

Was hat eine Gemeinde mit einem Hipster Coffee Shop gemein?

Mehr als du denkst! Ein wie ich finde interessanter Artikel von Jefferson Bethke auf seinem Blog klärt dich auf.

Dort erklärt er es. Und geht auf viele Gedanken ein. Obiges Zitat drückt es ganz gut aus, es geht um die Haltung. Nicht um die Form. Ein trotzdem sehr herausfordernder Gedanke, wenn man bedenkt, wie lange es unsre Gemeinden zum Teil schon gibt. Auch in meiner Prägung und Geschichte muss ich mir dir Frage stellen, wo ich weg gekommen bin von dem Weg, den Jesus gegangen ist - und wie ich auf diesen Weg zurück komme!

Was sagen deine Gedanken, deine Haltung über Gemeinde aus? Schließlich ist Gemeinde weniger das Gebäude und die Institution und mehr das, was du lebst. Gemeinde ist Alltag, Gemeinde ist Umgang mit Menschen in deiner Umgebung. Ist deine Gemeinde Hip? Oder eher das verträumte Café im Dorf?

Vollkommen egal. Solang der Kaffee.. also der Inhalt stimmt!