by Allen Reynolds, UrbanFaith Editor | Sep 23, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News, Relationships, Self-Empowerment |
Many believers wonder how to approach staying faithful to Christ while being single, dating, and waiting for marriage.
Dr. Clarence Shuler, an author, minister, and relationship coach shares his insights on how to pursue a godly life while being single and preparing for marriage with UrbanFaith. More on his book Single and Free to Be Me! which explores the joys and challenges of a godly single life is below.
In his book, Single and Free to Be Me, Dr. Clarence Shuler gives male and female singles of all ages practical and biblical tools on how to navigate the many phases of singlehood, from the art of flying solo and some of its struggles to learning how to deal with relationships with the opposite sex, all the way to preparing for marriage while still single.Single and Free to Be Me is a handy companion for anyone at any phase of singlehood. “Most books focus on a particular aspect of singlehood like dating or finding the One,” says Dr. Clarence Shuler. “But, singlehood has different cycles like discovering who you are, feeling lonely, healing a broken heart, dealing with the pressure to date or marry, learning how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex and for some, discerning a potential marriage partner.”Adding to the book’s research, singles’ personal accounts and biblical examples, Dr. Shuler opens up about his own struggles shared by many singles including yearning for marriage, pornography, masturbation, rejection, and other issues. His more than 30 years of counseling singles and married couples as well as his nearly 30 years of marriage provide relevant insight and principles that will help many singles find freedom from society’s and self-imposed pressures.
by Allen Reynolds, UrbanFaith Editor | Aug 15, 2022 | Books, Commentary, Faith & Work, Family, Headline News, Health, Purpose, Self-Empowerment |
Have you ever felt like you’ve been waiting for life to happen or chasing a dream that isn’t yours? Chanel Dokun, a therapist and life planner, helps women and all of us redefine our worth from the inside out instead of the outside in her book Life Starts Now: How to Create the Life You’ve Been Waiting For. UrbanFaith had the chance to chat with her has she releases this timely book with practical ways to stop waiting and start living.The full interview is above. More on the book below:
LIFE STARTS NOW:
HOW TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR
Did you think you’d finally be happy if you built a great career, found a meaningful romantic relationship, and crafted the picture-perfect life? But once you’ve gotten those things, you find yourself asking, Why isn’t this enough? Shouldn’t there be more? You’re not alone.
Chanel Dokun has walked hundreds of clients, just like you, through a similar journey of disillusionment because she’s traveled the same path herself. She spent years trying to achieve the lifestyle she thought she wanted, but with every accomplishment, Chanel found herself feeling more disappointed, disillusioned, and lost. She realized she needed to let go of society’s definition of success and become the architect of her own life.
In Life Starts Now, Chanel draws on her experience as a therapist and certified life planner to help you redefine what success really means as she offers practical strategies to help you create the life you are longing for. She shares
-an in-depth look at why society’s definitions of success and significance aren’t the answer in your search for more;
-practical action steps for unlocking your genius, finding your flair, and discovering your unique life purpose; and
-how the five postures of silence, solitude, generosity, gratitude, and play will take you from striving to thriving.
Life Starts Now will inspire you to release the search for significance and recover a redemptive view of your ordinary life so you can experience profound joy and fulfillment—and embrace your true purpose.
by Allen Reynolds, UrbanFaith Editor | Aug 6, 2022 | Commentary, Family, Headline News, Relationships, Self-Empowerment |
In our current cultural and historical moment, it is common to have blended families. Single parents form new households, people wait later in life to get married or have children, and people who have been through divorce find the courage to marry again. But blended families have been present throughout human history, and we see them prominently in Scripture and in African American history.
We think of the patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob. Abraham with children from different women, and Jacob who had a large family with multiple wives and children with each of them. We can think of Moses who was adopted, Esther who was raised by her uncle, and Ruth, whose story revolves around her second marriage to Boaz. David who had children from different relationships and caused strife, and of course we remember Joseph, the stepfather of the Savior Jesus Christ.
In many African cultures, grandparents live with their adult children, children who are orphaned are raised by the closest of kin or the closest neighbor, and fathers have children from multiple relationships. During our history as Africans in America, the extended and blended family systems were how we survived slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing attacks on Black family life.
Growing up, I knew uncles who raised their wives’ children from previous relationships, I had aunts who raised their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. We had cousins who had a different mother or father than their siblings, and cousins on their second and third marriages. My story is not unique in the Black community. But interestingly, these realities of complex blended families are almost treated as taboo in our conversation and daily lives.
I grew up with both of my biological parents married and in the same house. When I started dating the woman who became my wife, some people around us were surprised and concerned because she already had two daughters from a previous relationship. I was single with no children, a couple of prestigious degrees, and a good job, so for many people the thought of dating—let alone marrying—a woman who had children was a letdown or an offense. But it has been an incredible joy and an experience of God’s love to raise two daughters who are mine through chosen relationships and one who is mine biologically.
Don’t get me wrong, raising children is one of the greatest challenges you can ever have, most of the parents out there will agree with me. But it is also one of the most rewarding journeys a person can undertake. Raising children who do not share your blood takes a special person. But if I’m honest, I feel similar about my call to parenting all of my children as I do to being a husband. Let me break the myths: marriage is not for everyone. Raising children is not for everyone, either. But both are callings for many of us. And as Christians, we know both take the grace and power of God to do well.
Being able to raise and care for children who are mine not by blood and obligation, but by relationship and choice gives me a different perspective on how God loves us as His adopted children by the Spirit. Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:14–15 (NLT), “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’”
When you raise children who are adopted into your family, you are able to share your spirit and more importantly God’s Spirit with them—even if you may not share blood. Having adopted children is different than having biological children for me. But it does not make the relationship any less important, loving, or powerful, just as when God adopted us by His Spirit. God’s love toward us as His adopted children is the same as His love toward Jesus, His only begotten Son. That is a powerful revelation and goal for our love as people in blended families: to love every member the way God loves Jesus, the way Jesus loves us, the way we are called to love one another. Although our relationships in blended families may be different, the love should not be different.
Having a blended family is not for everyone. But with intentionality, grace, and patience it can be an amazing experience of God’s love. Scripture and history show that blended families have always been part of God’s people. It is not a moral failure to bring children into a new family or marry someone with children. It should not be taboo to have a blended family. Our response as believers to blended families is clear: love them as Jesus loves us.
by Allen Reynolds, UrbanFaith Editor | Jul 21, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News, Health, Purpose, Relationships, Self-Empowerment |
Sex is a good thing. For all human history, human beings have had sex and been aware of their sexuality. It is a fundamental function of creation to reproduce that God instituted from the beginning. But sexuality is not simply about reproduction. It is about the awareness and expression of our bodies. We are spiritual beings, but we are also natural beings. God created us that way on purpose. If we were meant to be all spiritual, we would have been created like angels, but God made us from the earth on purpose. Jesus Christ came to us IN THE FLESH, not as a spiritual principle, a vision, or a disembodied being. Jesus was circumcised on the 8th day according to Jewish law, as all Jews were. This was a sexual act with spiritual meaning that is literally at the heart of the Old Covenant. Unfortunately, as New Covenant Christians we often overfocus on the spirit and miss the fact that the New Covenant is literally made because of Jesus’ BODY broken for us and blood shed for us. It is Jesus’ humanity, not spirit that is the sacrifice that reunites us with God. The conversation is different depending on your stage of life. Believers who are married with kids need to have different conversations than single believers in early adulthood, or teenagers, or those who are divorced, or single after the death of a spouse. But regardless of our age or station in life we need to do a better job having these conversations as Christians. Here are 3 major reasons why Christians need to talk about sex.
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God created us to be sexual beings
Every person was designed to be sexual, and that goes far beyond having sex. When God created Adam and Eve, they were meant to relate to one another sexually and their relationship to be closer than parent to child in future generations. They were naked and unashamed of their bodies (Genesis 2:24-35). There are any number of reasons why believers are ashamed of their sexuality today, many of them unfortunately from bad teaching in churches. But that is not the design of God. We were created to relate to one another sexually BEFORE sin entered the world.
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Christian sexuality is meant to be different
A lot of our confusion, angst, shame, sorrow, and frustration with reconciling our sexuality with our faith is because of a Biblical principle that Christian sex is meant to be different than sexuality for those who don’t follow Christ. The covenant between God and Abraham made Israelite men sexually different from their neighbors in other nations (Genesis 17). The Law of Moses set up sexual limitations and regulations that were meant to distinguish Israel from other nations. The principle always pushed toward relationship with God reflected in our sexual relationships with others. The word used in scripture is holy, but to translate that our modern culture we might say intentional, purposeful difference that honors God. Paul picks up this Jewish principle in the New Testament by articulating a vision of sexual relationships that is monogamous, mutual, caring, and loving that reflect Christ’s love. We have often been caught up on the restrictions and missed the vision in the church. We have to be responsible with our sexuality because we are accountable to God in a different way as followers of Christ. We are called to be vulnerable, loving, and intentional with our sexuality in a way that is different than the world around us.
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We should love and not fear our sexuality
1 John 4:18 reminds us that perfect love casts out all fear. The world has set false standards that promote fear, violence, and mistrust in sexual relationships. We have no need to rehearse the many ways popular culture, corporate interests, and sociopolitical forces use and abuse sexuality. Often their goals are to use sex to make money and create false intimacy. But for many believers we have been taught to fear sexuality to maintain holiness. It has caused believers to have arrested development, face shame and ridicule, leave churches, and seek unhealthy sources to define their sexuality. We rarely speak of the difficulties many newly married Christian couples face around sexual expectations, communication, and formation because of ignorance, self-rejection, and fear. We do not talk about the struggles teenagers face with loving their bodies instead of hating and fearing them. We do not deal with the choice to not have sex as young adults instead of treating sex as an uncontrollable inevitable impulse. We are afraid of the word intimate because we have been taught it is dirty. Our bodies are not beasts to be tamed. They are part of us to be loved. Paul Himself would agree with this, treating our bodies as a Temple of God means loving and tending to them with the utmost care (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Not fearing and avoiding them as we abuse them and let them be abused by others. But Jesus loves us. He loves our bodies. He wants us to love God with our bodies just as we do with our minds and hearts. And we make sexual choices that build intimacy and protection with our romantic partner. We do not discuss the why of a holistic view of Christian sexuality which sets us up for pain before and during marriage. But we should talk about sex. We should love our bodies and our sexuality. We should define what sexual holiness means as believers in terms of what we choose to do instead of what we feel we can’t do. We should honor God’s design for sexuality by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, sexuality included.
by Allen Reynolds, UrbanFaith Editor | Jun 21, 2022 | Black History, Commentary, Headline News |
Juneteenth, observed June 19 each year, has a long history of commemoration among African Americans in the United States. It commemorates the day that the last slaves in the former Confederacy received the Emancipation Proclamation, officially acknowledging their freedom on June 19, 1865 nearly 2 years after it was officially issued. But within the past few years, Juneteenth has become a national Black holiday. It has been celebrated by Black people in Galveston, Texas and the immediate surrounding area for generations. UrbanFaith sat down with Valerie Boyer, an educator, minister and Galveston native to talk about the history of Juneteenth and its meaning today as it becomes a federal holiday in the United States of America.
