A Word From Our Senior Pastor

After listening to parents and young people for over a decade I have discovered that every family had one particular character in common. The Parent, Child, or both lacked a defined plan and long term vision for themselves in their life.  This absence of planning and vision was replaced with apathy, little to no ambition, and low self esteem.  Their life and their relationships struggled as a result.  Along with low self esteem there was also a sense of victimization, laziness in appearance and in responsibilities.  Attempts at correcting the problem was often met with denial or confrontation due to the “it does really matter” or “it is my life so what is the big deal” attitude. Reasoning also failed due to the fact that people are stirred by emotion and never by reason.  While no family is perfect and without challenges the lack of proper planning and vision can only result in failure.  There is no exception to this fact.

 Almost every family I talked with had emotion but since there wasn’t a plan it place it was focused on the negativity of the situation.  There was an abundance of frustration over the fact that no matter what the situation was no amount of reasoning seemed to help.  I don’t know what else to do was the common mantra often voiced by the families.  This echoed the lack of a clear decisive plan of success by the family.  When we start working with the teen of these families and began to lead them on the path of life planning and goal setting it is wonderful to see these teens develop strong self esteem and actually show excitement about the possibilities.  Their productivity, respect for others, and over all character is validated by their plan.  It lets them know that they have worth and purpose in the everyday grind we call life.  They learn that life is nothing more than a series of choices.  They learn that by these choices they will gain or lose freedoms and responsibilities. Their overall quality of life depends on making choices that confirm their goals and plans for where it is they want to go.  Success is not an accidental thing.  Un-intentional actions will lead to failure.  Forgetting will lead to failure.  I don’t care will lead to failure.  Passion for success and the following of a well developed plan has the guarantee of success.

 It is our goal and mission to help families develop a plan that will allow them to build and nurture healthy and successful relationships both in the home and outside of it.  Great things happen when individuals of the same family come into harmony with their plans and visions and agree to support, hold accountable, and encourage the pursuit of those plans.  With this in place it is impossible to fail at the task of raising a strong and healthy family.

Pastor Larry,  Senior Pastor of ABM Ministries