MOVIES AND STAYING CONNECTED IN MARRIAGE => MARRIAGE MESSAGE 28

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight" (Philippians 1:19). And that is our hope for you -- that you'll continually explore new ways to increase your love connection with each other in your marriage in "knowledge and depth of insight" otherwise, you're in danger of drifting apart in your relationship.

"It's possible to be married to someone for 35 years and still not know them because you never take the time to explore the deepest recesses of their heart" (Dr David Jeremiah). Being married and living in the same house doesn't equal knowing each other deeply. You'd think it would, but life has a way of shoving us apart unless we make the intentional effort to stay connected.

Before marriage, we spent quality time with our spouse which helped us to fall in love with them in the first place. So why not keep doing what it takes to CONTINUE in your love with each other? If you don't continually do what it takes to connect with each other in meaningful ways, your relationship is in danger of becoming stagnant. And we don't mean just going somewhere together sometimes but never really talking WITH each other. Too often married couples fall into the bad habit of talking AT each other rather than WITH each other. And that's cause for trouble!

Recently, we've given you a variety of suggestions in the Marriage Messages for how to stay connected in marriage. We've given you the top ten reasons for "Dating Your Spouse", the "22 Minute Date Idea", the "10 Second Kiss Idea" (which you can find in Marriage Message #26), "Marriage Maintenance Measures" as well as other ideas. And you can find even more ideas at www.marriagemissions.com in the "Romantic Ideas" section. Plus, we have articles posted on the web site for those of you who are geographically away from your spouse.

But we'd like to give you another idea to help you connect, and that is by watching movies together and discussing different aspects of the movies. Make it a fun and informative time as well -- getting to know more about each other through this avenue of connecting. We've found a number of tools that could help you in this.

Recently, we mentioned that the movie "Fireproof" has a wonderful pro-marriage message. It's now out on DVD. There is also a book that goes along with the movie called "The Love Dare" that we believe can help your marriage. Plus, we have "Fireproof Discussion Pages" posted on our web site to use as a tool to help you connect. Even if you never see the movie (which we hope you can and will), the Discussion Pages has content that could help your marriage.

There is also a "Movie Discussion Guide" (from Smartmarriages.com) for the movie "The Story of Us" starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer. The guide provides excellent discussion questions designed to give couples deeper insights into their relationship. We must warn you though, that although the movie is very pro-marriage in its content, it has quite a bit of profanity in it. We found it difficult to get past the profanity, but we're glad we did because the message of the movie and the helpfulness of the discussion guide is truly something that could help couples. Again, you will benefit the most if you see the movie, but the Discussion Guide itself makes some great points.

We have a link to the discussion guide (that you can download for your use)posted on our web site in this Marriage Message. (If you don't have access to the internet to find and then download the guide, perhaps you can find a friend who can do it for you.)

And for those of you in the U.S. and Canada and other parts of the world that can view American Movies, you could find the following web sites helpful in guiding you so you know more about the contents of the movies you could watch to know if you want to view them on your date nights):

www.pluggedinonline.com -- Their mission as a Focus on the Family publication is to equip adults, parents, youth leaders, and ministers with essential tools that will enable them to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live.

www.christianitytoday.com/movies -- This award-winning website is devoted to film reviews, interviews and commentary, written from a biblical perspective. Their mission is to "inform and equip Christian moviegoers to make discerning choices about films through insightful reviews and interviews, educated opinion,and relevant news -- all from a biblical world-view."

www.movieguide.org -- This is a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices.

www.crosswalk.com/movies -- while this web site is not primarily dedicated to movie reviews, they are a great resource on many levels (and this part of their web site deals with movies). They are a religious corporation dedicated to bring glory to God by building up the Church.

www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/home.html -- The primary goal of this web site is to provide accurate, biblical answers on a wide variety of questions asked by Christians and non-Christians. This part of their web site deals with movies and DVD's.

http://christianity.about.com/od/christianmovies/Christian_Movies_and_Christian_MovieReviews.htm -- This is a Christian movie resource page with Christian movie reviews, interviews with Christian actors, favorite Christian movies and top Christian movie picks and more.

These web sites can help you be selective in what you view. But always keep in mind what the Bible warns: "I will set before my eyes no vile thing" (Psalm 101:3). 1 Corinthians 6 tells us to "Flee from sexual immorality." Plus, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28). In other words... stay true to each other and abstain from viewing that which brings another person visually or physically into your relationship. Connect with your spouse and not with anyone else!

We hope you will find this helpful in drawing you closer together as husband and wife.

God Bless!

By Cindy and Steve Wright

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