In preparation for Christmas, my daughter wanted help making gifts in the wood shop. She wanted to make her dad a pizza paddle out of some cherry and walnut lumber. I have to be honest, I haven’t done much woodworking in the past 5 years, but it felt good and it was super fun to work with my daughter. She kept saying, “this wood feels so good” and “this is actually really relaxing.” Sometimes we need a little help getting back to the things that feed our soul. We need community.

God

It is not unlike my relationship with God. Bible studies with friends, helps me stay in the word. When Jim and I read the bible together, sometimes he gets me moving and other times I lead the charge. Removing ourselves from community, will open the door to believe  Satan’s lies. We need community to hold us accountable, encourage us, speak the truth, and spur us on.

Marriage

We also need community in marriage – authentic, honest relationships with others. People who can listen with a soft heart but who refocus us on what God wants and what we can do different. We need friends that ask when we last went on a date, or if we are praying together in our marriage. Real people that babysit even overnight, and that we can return the favor. Community will guard our marriages and help us to keep investing the time to create great marriages. We even need people that will ask how sex is going.

Sex

Online communities provide a great entry point to work on your sex life. Writing anonymously provides a safe place to dip your feet into uncomfortable topics and start gathering resources. But we also need real people in our life that we can talk to about anything. When we share hard things they love us unconditionally and pray for our journey.

If you’ve never really gone that deep, a great way to open up conversation about sex is to take an Awaken Love class with friends. Offered for both men and women, in 6 weeks, you will go from friends that skirted around the issues, to authentic real friendships. Because when you can talk about sex, you can talk about anything.

Awaken Love

I had a moms group take Awaken Love together and it totally changed their relationship. They went from surface friendships to an amazing group of women that could talk about anything. Another woman took the class with a bunch of strangers which quickly became friends.  They continue to encourage, check in and care for each other. After 6 weeks of class you will have women whom you can talk to – even about sex.

I also had a group of men take Men’s Edition at a church recently. The pastors were shocked at how quickly the men dove into authentic conversations about their past, their struggles, and what they were learning. Men need a safe place to learn about God’s design for sex too.

We need community to help create strong marriages. Don’t buy into the lie that we should not talk about our struggles or our sex life in the church. Let’s open up real conversations and create a culture of honesty, integrity and support. Offer an Awaken Love class and open up the topic of sex today.