ALL THIS MONTH CELEBRATING LOVE!
Are you in love? Check out a rebroadcast of a show on relationships & love with a wonderful mix of music and wisdom featuring Pastor Patrick E. Winfield Jr. at the Potters House Fort Worth, Dallas. Also check out the article written by our Dallas correspondent Carol...ENJOY!
Family Does Matter
Are you in love? Check out a rebroadcast of a show on relationships & love with a wonderful mix of music and wisdom featuring Pastor Patrick E. Winfield Jr. at the Potters House Fort Worth, Dallas. Also check out the article written by our Dallas correspondent Carol...ENJOY!
Family Does Matter
By Carol Price-Williams
There's a cynical saying that most of us would agree with; you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. But Pastor Patrick E. Winfield Jr. has an optimistic answer to that observation - there's hope.
T.D. Jakes, pastor of the 30,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas launched its Fort Worth campus three years ago. January 13, 2013 was the grand opening. Pastor Winfield said the goal of the Ft. Worth campus is to revitalize the Woodhaven area, which is afflicted with high crime rates, by being an active part of the community and contributing solutions.
Through his twenty-one years of experience in ministry and education, Pastor Winfield recognized a significant need for the church to actively engage in supplying and supporting useful tools and skills to access, develop and maintain a healthy "modern" family dynamic.
Pastor Winfield led the Potter's House of Ft. Worth in hosting a Family Enrichment Conference - The 'Christian' Modern Family (Oct. 18 - 20, 2013) with the goal of strengthening and reclaiming one of our nations’ most fragile institutions—families. But, this was not your 1950's Father Knows
Best or Leave it to Beaver kinda family conference. Participants gained practical tools needed to survive and thrive in our modern complex society. From conversations with married couples, singles and youth, the conference addressed subjects including sex and blended families all from a faith-based yet realistic and transparent perspective.
For example, I was fortunate to sit and listen to Sarah Jakes' session for singles ,Colliding With Destiny (also the title of her book which is to be released April 1, 2014...more about that in Part 2). I was surprised how open and honest she was about her journey from shame and isolation as a fourteen year old pregnant daughter of a prominent minister to becoming a confident self-loving independent young lady. Sarah got her inspiration from Ruth… but again I'll write about this more in part 2, but I just want to say...I was inspired.
I asked Pastor Winfield what he wanted the general audience to take away from this conference and he said, "I want the participants to have a deeper and greater understanding of the definition and purpose of the family and why it exits. There is a purpose in God bringing families together. The first institution God ever created was not the church but the family. From strong families come stronger communities, stronger school systems and stronger societies. If one cornerstone is broken, if the family is broken..., so are all the other institutions".
Pastor Winfield believes that we are called to be and to show the image of God's expression of love, relationships, duty, commitment and covenant in the earth. He categorizes these images as being a wife, a husband, a man, a woman, single, married and as a child/youth. Everyone has a purpose and responsibility to live up to that purpose according to the will and grace of God.
Photo of Pastor Patrick E. Winfield Jr. and family from http://tphfw.org/our-pastor/
Photo of Sarah Jakes from http://exhale.aspire.tv/content/sarah-jakes
