Lew's Family Happenings: February 2006

I am so excited. This article made it to the front page of the Life section of the Press.......Hard to believe but it is there. Bruce and I had decided that we were going to do this with our kids. And there are a lot people who are. Sorry it is so long but i was so excited I wanted to share it.

For devout couples, love is divine
Conservative Christian courtship highlights God's role in finding the one
By TOM HEINENtheinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 11, 2006
Oriel O'Gorman knelt on one knee and proposed to Heather Pardee atop a castle turret in Northern Ireland with votive candles flickering on the battlements and scattered, moist rose petals glistening around them.
Christian Courtship

Photo/Kristyna Wentz-Graff
Heather Pardee of Milwaukee and Oriel OGorman of Ireland will share their first kiss when they wed March 4.
"I love you," he said for the first time since meeting her.
But any resemblance between their special moment and a torrid scene from a romance novel ends there.
The two 23-year-olds won't have their first kiss until they wed March 4 at Falls Baptist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is thinking about buying Valentine's Day roses for Pardee this week, but there won't be any hand-holding.
Enthusiastic and serious about their commitment, O'Gorman and Pardee represent one of the more conservative forms of Christian courtship. Developed over two decades by Senior Pastor Wayne Van Gelderen Jr., the model they follow is now used by virtually all of the half-dozen or so couples who wed each year at their church.
"Courtship thrives in evangelical Christian communities where families are tightly knit with one another through either one church or a network of churches, and children are maintaining closeness with their parents into their young adult years," said Alex Chediak, an evangelical and editor of "5 Paths to the Love of Your Life." In the 2005 book, five writers use biblical citations to make cases for Christian courtship, betrothal and three forms of Christian dating.
Evoking images of bygone eras, the time that O'Gorman and Pardee spend together is in public, within view of family members or within earshot through an open door. Their parents did not arrange their pairing, but neither young person would have gone ahead without consultation and approval from their parents.
At the heart of this type of courtship are beliefs that God, rather than romantic feelings, should guide young people to their ideal mate with assistance from parents, who have biblically-given authority over even adult children.
Falls Baptist Church, an independent congregation at N69-W12703 Appleton Ave., Menomonee Falls, draws 750 to 800 people for Sunday services, many of them first-generation Christians, said Assistant Pastor Rick Pardee, 48, Pardee's father.
The courting process
In the church's model, the young man initiates contact by having his father go to the woman's father for permission to court her with a goal of marriage. Mother and father then confer. If permission is granted, either young person may call off the courtship at any point.
Hundreds of evangelical churches across the country, but by no means a majority, teach Christian courtship, said the Rev. S.M. Davis, 54, pastor of Park Meadows Baptist Church in Lincoln, Ill., and producer of some 80 videotapes on family issues, including courtship. Many parents who home-school their children also use it, added Davis, who said he speaks at church and home-school conferences nationwide and in 20 foreign countries.
"Churches all over have seen the destructiveness of the boyfriend-girlfriend philosophy - extraordinary divorce and impurity rates - and a growing number are following Christian courtship, which is not 'arranged' marriage," Davis said.
Christian approaches to dating and courtship have been hot topics since Joshua Harris ignited debate among evangelicals in 1997 with his best-selling book, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," which hit the 1 million mark in sales last year. Kissing before or after engagement, time alone together, the role of fathers and mothers in decision-making, the evils and benefits of casual dating, the advisability of even serious dating if marriage is not intended and other issues continue to be discussed and debated.
Neither Harris nor Chediak knows whether the practice of Christian courtship is growing, but interest in the general topic remains high.
"In the publishing world, there's a huge interest, some of it by people disagreeing with some of the stands that I've taken," said Harris, 31, who is now married and is senior pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md. "In the past 10 years, there have been dozens and dozens of books."
" . . . I think it is good for men and women to have friendships," Harris added. "What I am saying is you don't have to try people out romantically, you don't have to have this dependent, one-on-one, emotional relationship to get to know someone's character."
Finding their path
Pardee saw the impact of breakups among college students while attending grade school at a church in Indiana that also ran a college.
"They made me feel uncomfortable, just the heartbreak of breaking up," she said. I told my parents when I was in seventh or eighth grade, 'I only want to date one guy.' That was my heart. . . . I knew that God would clearly lead in this big decision, through their guidance."
She and O'Gorman hold a belief taught at Falls Baptist Church and common among Christian courtship advocates: that dating, with its breakups and emotional scars, is a better preparation for guardedness and divorce than for marriage. They emphasize maintaining physical and emotional purity.
O'Gorman, whose father is the pastor of a Baptist church in Dublin, Ireland, first encountered the courtship teachings as a freshman at Baptist College of Ministry & Theological Seminary, at Falls Baptist Church. Pardee was a year ahead at the unaccredited college, which opened in 1999 and has about 70 students.
"I noticed Heather, that she was a sweet girl and had love for God, but it wasn't until May of 2005 that I began to think more seriously about her being a potential mate," said O'Gorman, who is a Bible graduate student at the church's seminary and plans to be a pastor in Ireland.
He prayed and consulted the church's senior pastor, and his thoughts returned to her. She was teaching third grade at the church's elementary school. Their families had had contact through church and college activities. He had noticed her deep faith and that she did not try to attract attention from men.
"In prayer, I said, 'Lord, would you just show me if she's the right one.' And the Lord drew my attention to a verse, Proverbs 31:30. It says 'Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised.'
"I began to think, 'I'm not attracted to Heather because she's physically beautiful, though she is. But my primary attraction to her is that she has a relationship to God, she reverences God.' God used that to show me that it wasn't just a passing attraction."
Pardee, in turn, had been praying with her mother, Janie, 46, for God to send her a husband who loved the Lord. She had wanted to be a missionary ever since she was a little girl but was wondering if she would need to give up that dream. Saying they should not try to figure out who it might be, her mother randomly picked the name George, and they prayed to be led to "George."
Last spring, Pastor Van Gelderen told Pardee's father that an unidentified young man wanted to ask for permission to court his daughter and would do so with his own father after graduation. Her parents thought they knew who it was, but were not certain. As the family sat at the college's graduation ceremony last May 15, Pardee's mother gasped when the reader came to O'Gorman's name and said, "Oriel George O'Gorman."
They all took that as a sign. Pardee also had seen his faith, how respectful he was to his sister and mother, and how well he worked with teenagers at the church.
The four parents met for dinner the next day, shared food and tears of joy, and the courtship began two days later, with both families and siblings spending a day together. Six weeks later, the couple got engaged during a Bible conference at Castlewellan Castle in Northern Ireland.
"I tried to be very careful not to fall in love with him until we had gotten engaged," Heather Pardee said.
And did she?
"I do love him deeply, but it's not for what he looks like. It's for who he is . . . but he is good-looking," she added with a laugh. "He does have a great smile, and he's got the Irish red hair

How exciting is that. I wish that we knew about this stuff when I was a teen ager. It would have saved a lot of heart break. How special is it that everything even a kiss and hand holding is saved for the one God wants you to be with. You have no memories to think of or anything of another person. I so want this for my kids.
Roni