St Joe Community Church Announces 2018 Family Life Series, “Elephant-Free Family Life.”

Sermon series focuses on identifying “elephants in the room” that can hinder healthy family communication.

For Immediate Release
October 31, 2018
Contact: Christopher Mann, St Joe Community Church (260) 255-4484 | cmann89@gmail.com

FORT WAYNE, INDIANA – St Joe Community Church today announced its 2018 Family Life Series entitled, “Elephant-size Miscommunication: Biblical principles for achieving authentic and effective family communication.” The sermon series studies King David’s adultery with Bathsheba that introduced elephant-size barriers to honesty and authenticity between him and his family, his officers, his countrymen and, mostly importantly, his God. But the series also reveals the hope that David found in God’s forgiveness, the same mercy that is available to us today, some 30 centuries later.

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“David not only left behind a legacy to avoid, but a legacy of contrition to emulate,” says Greg Byman, senior pastor of St Joe Community Church. “Most monarchs then and today would simply retaliate against their critics, but King David left for us some key biblical insights on how we can courageously engage the elephant in the room to begin the process of recovering our relationship with God and family.”

The series includes four sermons that candidly explore the causes and consequences of a family avoiding difficult subjects -- “elephants in the room” -- and proposes biblical principles for addressing and resolving those issues in a healthy and God-honoring manner. The four-part sermon series begins November 4th and runs through November 25th. 

Nov. 4, Part 1: How to identify elephants
Has the elephant in your home become the family pet? Every family has its difficult issue(s), and while the elephant might seem docile and domesticated for now, a 12,000 pound behemoth still lingers and lumbers from room to room, generation to generation, threatening to maim and crush its roommates. For this first installment of the Elephant-free Family Life series, Pastor Greg Byman shares some principles about identifying elephants that prevent effective family communication.

Nov. 11, Part 2: Elephant-free Marriage
Is there an elephant in your marriage? Every marriage needs a process for addressing hard issues. Whether a marriage has suffered through strife with in-laws, infidelity, chemical addiction, loss of a child, or any number of heart-wrenching struggles, God promises that he is bigger than the elephants in the room that we find too painful to address and resolve. In this second installment of the Elephant-free Family Life series, Pastor Greg Byman shares some principles about how a biblically-minded husband and wife can, with God's help, lead even the scariest bull elephants out to pasture where they belong, and bring peace to a home.

Nov. 18, Part 3: Elephant-free Parenting
You swore that you'd never (ever, ever...) say that like your father and never (ever, ever, ever...) say that like your mother and, yet, look at who you've become.... Is there an elephant in your parenting? Every parent begins parenthood the same way: a naked baby with no owner’s manual. Years, laughs and tears later, mom and dad have done some things right and other things...less than right. Through it all, God promises that he is bigger than the elephants in our parenting. In this third installment of the Elephant-free Family Life series, Pastor Greg Byman shares some principles about how a biblically-minded dad and mom can, with God's help, lead even the scariest bull elephants out to pasture where they belong, and recover authentic communication the way God designed it.  

Nov. 25, Part 4: Elephant-free Generations
Is there an elephant in your scrapbook? Your journal? Your yearbook? In a sense, these can represent first drafts of our personal history, but they don’t have to be the final draft. God warns his people against generational consequences for wrong-thinking and wrong-living (sin) but promises to lavish generational blessings for right-thinking and right-living (righteousness). In this final installment of the Elephant-free Family Life series, Pastor Greg Byman shares some insights about how a relationship with God empowers us to not only identify the generational elephants that have held back authentic communication but also break the generational sin that too easily entangled our ancestors and imperils the next generation.

About St Joe Community Church 
St Joe is located at 2900 North Anthony Blvd., just a few blocks south of the campus of Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Pastor Greg Byman serves as the senior pastor and the entire St Joe church family welcomes you to join us for worship service each Sunday at 10:00 am. For more information visit www.StJoeCommunityChurch.org or call (260) 471-4704. Pastor Greg Byman is available for media interviews.

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