Interview by Anna Bartlett
Written to meet perhaps one of today’s strongest felt needs, Hope for Today’s Families is the 2019 sharing book for the Seventh-day Adventist world church.
We interviewed authors Willie and Elaine Oliver, director and associate director of the Family Ministries Department at the General Conference to learn more about the book and biggest challenges facing families today.
Read our interview below:
Visitor: What do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing families today?
Olivers: There are many challenges families face, however, these are a few of the big ones we would identify.
- Quality of communication continues to be a challenge in family relationships around the world. If people don’t know to communicate effectively, it is impossible to resolve conflict to the satisfaction of the parties involved. When this happens, a lack of trust develops and relationships tend to become strained or disintegrate and die, leading to divorce. Divorce is a huge challenge facing many families, including in the church.
- How to effectively pass on values to our children and how to develop a relationship of respect and regard so they are confident and comfortable about who they are is a tall order to fill.
- The issue of abuse in the family and how to stop the cycle from moving from one generation to another is certainly among the big challenges facing families today.
- So is infidelity in marriage and how to affair-proof your marriage to go the distance and provide a healthy environment for raising children.
Visitor: What topics do you cover in Hope for Today’s Families?
Olivers: In Hope for Today’s Families we cover the family as God’s invention, marriage the way God envisioned it, parenting for success, how to build marriage and family on a strong foundation, becoming intimate allies in marriage, communicating with grace, no excuse for abuse in the family, how to prevent marital distress and divorce, and finding peace as a single person.
Visitor: What do you most want people to gain from reading this book?
Olivers: In the book we offer tangible and relatively easy skills to implement to help repair and put your relationship on a growing and upward trend. We want families to know that despite the fact that developing healthy family relationships is not a simple or easy task, it is possible through the grace and power of God. There is hope for today’s families.
Visitor: What is your goal for this 2019 sharing book?
Olivers: Our hope is that the whole world will read Hope for Today’s Families and that family relationships will be enhanced around the globe, especially among Adventist families. The Adventist world church’s sharing goal for this little book is 40-50 million copies in about 30-40 different languages around the world. We hope every church member will join this movement and share at least 10-20 books each with their neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends.
To purchase this book click here.