157 “I see you”: Creating Community for Brown & Black Blended Families

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Blended^®

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Season 7, Episode 157: “I see you”: Creating Community for Brown & Black Blended Families

Guests:          Cheryl Shumake and Clifton Howard

Air Date:        February 10, 2025

Cheryl:           You have something that somebody is going to hold onto and be able to apply in their lives and realize a change in their family. We are a body fitly joined together. We’ve got to lock arms together, black, white, and we have to win this world for Christ. You have a whole community of people out there with broken families that if you reach them with the resources and the opportunity to come and get help, that is an inroad to introduce them to Jesus Christ. It’s an opportunity for outreach and discipleship as well.

Ron:                Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. And why in the world do we do that? Because we believe there’s great joy in loving God and loving others, and it makes the world a better place.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Hopefully you’re getting some time with the one you love. By the way, the FamilyLife^® marriage cruise is a great way of getting time together. It happens every year around Valentine’s Day. We charter the entire ship. We plan all the workshops, the Christian music artists, times of worship, comedians, concerts. It’s all available to you just for being on the cruise. This year’s ship has already sailed. Sorry about that. But you can join Nan and I next year, February 2026. We’d love to sit in a lounge chair and have a conversation with you.

So think about it, look it up.

But coming up much, much sooner than that is our next Blended and Blessed^® worldwide livestream for blended family couples. That’s going to be Saturday, April 5th, 2025, 2025; the cruise next one will be 2026. We’re going to be, for Blended and Blessed, live in Franklin, Tennessee. If you’ve never been to this event, it’s a livestream. You can view it from anywhere in the world, or of course you can be a part of our live audience. If you’re anywhere near Central Tennessee, come join us in Franklin. We’d love to have you just sitting right there.

But your church can also host the event for couples in your church, in your community. The content is different every year, so put it on the calendar. We’d love for you to join us for the next one, April 5th, 2025. Look in the show notes for a link about the cruise and about Blended and Blessed.

Speaking of Blended and Blessed, one of my guests today has spoken twice at that event in previous years. She’s a crowd favorite. She’s also been on this podcast a number of times. Cheryl Shumake is a certified master life coach, stepfamily educator and founder and director of Stepmom Sanity. She’s also a leader of a new ministry that we’re going to be talking about today. She’s the author of four books, including Waiting to Be Wanted: A Stepmom’s Guide to Loving Before Being Loved. Cheryl’s a biological mom of one, a bonus mom of three. She’s been married since 2008 to her husband, Jonathan, who is just a cool dude himself. They live in Michigan. Hey, Cheryl, so great to have you back with me.

Cheryl:           It’s so great to be with you, Ron. You’re one of my favorite people, you and Nan, I tell you. I started calling you my brother from another mother.

Ron:                That’s right. I’ll take that.

Cheryl:           Absolutely. You’ll take that. That’s great. I’m glad you will.

Ron:                I’ll take that. And Nan absolutely loves you personally and spending time with you but just loves what you have to share from the stage and in conversations like this. You’ve brought a friend with you today and I’m wondering if you would introduce him to our audience.

Cheryl:           I absolutely will be thrilled to. I have brought with us someone who sits on the board of Sawubona Blended Families and who is a friend, a brother, a pastor of mine, Clifton Howard. Clifton is dad to three, bonus dad to one. He is the wife of Ernestine. They’ve been married now for what, 22 years is it, Clifton?

Clifton:            Twenty-one.

Cheryl:           Twenty-one years, coming up on twenty-two years. So he’s in a blended family as well. He’s a widower. His first wife, who was a dear friend of mine, passed away 20-some-odd years ago, and he’s been married to another dear friend of mine now for 21 years. And I’m so happy to introduce everyone to Pastor Clifton Howard.

Ron:                Pastor, thank you for being with us today.

Clifton:            Thank you for having me, Ron and Cheryl.

Ron:                I think what I just heard, Cliff, from Cheryl is that she’s got dirt on you. She’s known you a long time. Do I have that right?

Clifton:            Well, you have that exactly right, Ron, but I hope it’s not bad dirt. I just hope we got a little dusty or something.

Ron:                That’s right; that’s right. Well listen, what I know is that you’re her boss because you’re on her board, so that makes you pretty big too.

Cheryl:           Yes.

Clifton:            Well, thank you. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be on her board and it’s just so wonderful the work that she’s doing, and we are able to be a part of that, so what a blessing.

Ron:                Yes. And let me just start off and say to our listener, viewer, we’re going to be talking about an important new ministry that Cheryl is heading up and her board has given her the blessing to pursue and move forward. So Cliff, I want to thank you and the other board members for that. This is near and dear to my heart. Cheryl’s already talked about it. You need to introduce this Sawubona Blended Family ministry. Cheryl, what is that? What does that word mean? And did I say it right? That’s what I…

Cheryl:           You absolutely did. You get two thumbs up for that one, man.

Ron:                Alright, I’ll take it. I’ll take it.

Cheryl:           You did great. Sawubona is a Zulu word that is used in some areas of South Africa and across the African continent, and it’s used to say hello. But instead of merely saying hello, it really means I see your worth. I see you. I see your worth. I see your value. I see your dignity. And all of that is welcomed here. And it really communicates in one word, this powerful intention that as the Lord enables me, I will participate in your wellbeing because I value who you are.

Ron:                Wow, that’s so beautiful. And the goal of this ministry is to reach black and brown families and within black and brown churches, communities with black and brown voices. Do I have that right?

Cheryl:           Absolutely. You do have that right. We very much so model our ministry along the lines of FamilyLife Blended. We love what you all are doing and so we are all about nurturing cycles of connection and breaking dysfunction and building gospel shaped blended families but just doing that within the black and brown community.

Ron:                Yeah. Oh, so very important. Cheryl, you know that going back a number of years, this has just been a longing to see something like this develop in my heart. And so when we started talking about it, how can we support you? We just want to see this go. So yes, I think of FamilyLife Blended as we’re sister organizations with a similar kingdom agenda.

Cheryl:           Absolutely.

Ron:                Pastor Cliff, I got to ask you, so you’re here representing the board in this new ministry and it’s beginning to see it get off the ground; put on your pastor hat for me for a second. What would you like to see happen within black and brown churches as it relates to blended families specifically?

Clifton:            Well, I would love to see more conversations take place because it’s one of those things that we don’t give much credence to in the sense of talking about it. And I think the information that we have should be most definitely offered to the congregations of those black and brown churches so that we can better navigate our blended families because we don’t think of the things that we need to put into place so that the blended family can be successful. At some point, maybe I can share my personal experience that I’ve had with our blended family and those things that Sawubona is offering we did not have. It would’ve been really good if we did know those things upfront.

Ron:                Yeah, go right ahead. I’d love to hear a little of your story and what you think could have been had you had some support.

Clifton:            Well, simply as Cheryl mentioned, my first wife of 26 years passed away because of cancer. And afterwards, at that time, we had three daughters together, and if you’ve ever lost a loved one, let alone a wife, it leaves you in a place of, I can’t even adequately say the pain that you feel.

I was kind of wondering what to do next. It’s interesting, my ex-wife before she passed did say, “I want you to remarry” because that was something in my mind. I didn’t want to feel as though I was betraying a love that we had that was really great. And so that remarrying piece, looking for someone and finally finding someone, but at the end of a relationship—in my case, it was due to death—you’re looking to find someone to fill a void, an emptiness in your life. What you don’t think about is the children, your children, their children. You just are so happy to find someone that can feel that empty space that is now in your heart.

So when I found this young woman—Cheryl knows the story, Ron—it was literally love at first sight. It was just magical, but spiritual. It was a God introducing me to what I call the next part of my life. But we didn’t think during the time that we were talking to one another to involve the children. How are the children feeling about this? And because we didn’t, my youngest daughter felt as though she was being replaced, even though she was 17.

My new wife had a daughter who was 12, and so the 17-year-old who had been the baby, now, all of a sudden, a new baby she felt was coming into the mix and she was going to be replaced. And I had no clue, did not understand that. And if I had had some knowledge beforehand, I could have did a better job of talking with my daughter.

Ron:                You might’ve made some different decisions and might’ve gone about it in a different way.

Clifton:            Absolutely, Ron. Absolutely.

Ron:                And Cheryl, we hear this story over and over and over again.

Cheryl:           Over and over again. Yes, we do, all the time. And I even hear from people today that I wish my bonus mom, or my stepdad had had this information, had had something in their hands years ago, and it would’ve made the family integration process a little bit easier for me. Yeah, we do hear this often.

Ron:                Okay, so if somebody’s listening right now and they sort of ask the question no matter what their racial or cultural background is, if they just sort of reflected and said, “Well, why is it important to have black and brown voices speaking into the black and brown community about this topic?” What would you say to that?

Cheryl:           Yeah. Well, I would say we all receive truth. We all receive tools. We all receive resources through the lens of culture. It forms our perspective through the lens of our experiences, our lived experiences, and our historical context. So our family of origin, what they’ve taught us, we receive things through that. And often when you don’t have someone who speaks your language or who understands the context that you come back from something that is well-meaning, not malicious at all, can kind of fall flat for you, is not often easily received.

I think that’s why Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. That’s one of my favorite passages of scriptures, one of his encounters that I really enjoy digging in and unpacking because he just broke so many cultural regulations in order to do so. But he reached her with truth and then she took truth back to a Samaritan village, a village that would’ve rejected the disciples or the disciples actually would not have even gone to. But the gospel was received through a person who had their lived experiences, who looked like them, who sounded like them.

Same thing with Paul in Athens when he was observing what was going on there and they were talking about this unknown God, and he took the opportunity to speak to them through the context, through the lens of their own culture and was able to reach them with the truth. So that’s really what Sawubona is doing is to take what is true, two plus two is four, whether you’re in America or whether you’re in Germany, but it translates differently.

So we’re just taking truth, we’re taking resources, we’re taking tools, and we’re saying we’re going to create these culturally informed spaces where families that may not feel fully seen in other spaces can be where they can actually experience Sawubona, if you will.

Ron:                To your point, as I think about the woman at the well in John chapter four, her first objection was a cultural objection.

Cheryl:           It was a cultural objection.

Ron:                You’re a Jew. I’m a Samaritan. We’re not supposed to be having these conversations. You don’t know the rules. And so trust was lacking. There was a barrier there. And one of the things you guys are trying to do is just remove all the barriers so that trust goes up, so that you have an opportunity and have a voice with people.

And that to me is so very exciting because one of the challenges I’ve heard from black leaders that I’ve talked with in the past is that blended families are pretty common within the African American community. In fact, it might be so common that it’s hard to call attention to it. And so it’s sort of like within white communities, I think blended families stand out, and yet people don’t know what to do about it. Ministry leaders don’t necessarily have tools or equipping or know-how or understanding. That’s part of what we do here at FamilyLife Blended.

But it’s sort of the other problem sometimes within black and brown communities is it’s very common. And so it’s almost as if there’s nothing here that we need to address. And so I’ve heard some leaders say, well, bringing it up is one thing, but when we do bring it up, then all of a sudden people begin to immediately jump into the conversation and there is something very relevant for them to learn, to share, to discuss, and we just have to break through those initial barriers and ministry begins to flow. I’m curious—I’d love to hear from both of you; Cliff, maybe you first—is that your experience or is there more perspective you would bring to that?

Clifton:            No, I think that’s my experience too, especially from a cultural standpoint. I remember when Covid was at its zenith, so to speak, and we have a great health system in our area. And so they were coming out with the vaccinations, but somehow, they thought that they knew best how to reach the black and brown community, and they just missed it because they didn’t understand the cultural aspects of the community and how we needed people that knew us, were familiar with us, to talk about how this vaccination should be administered.

And so here we are talking about something very similar. How do we reach people who are culturally different? Who again, I think, Ron, you said it trust has not been developed, but now when you’re dealing with people that you know, that you trust, you are more likely to receive the information that they are trying to share with you.

Cheryl:           And I would piggyback on top of that, I think what Clifton is referring to in terms of the vaccination was like there’s this inherent distrust in the African American community. I don’t want to speak for everyone, but because of things like the Tuskegee experiment and a few other—

Clifton:            Absolutely.

Cheryl:           Yeah, there are these inherent distrusts, and so it wasn’t communicated with that in mind. And so there was this idea that if we just said that, if we just did this, then this would be received. Same thing here.

But on the flip side of that, just because something has been done always doesn’t mean that it has been done correctly. I can track even in my own family, Ron, generational trauma as the result of not doing blended family well, not addressing certain dynamics, not even understanding what those dynamics mean.

It reminds me of that old story about the roasting pan and why did the grandma cut off both ends of the roasting pan, right? And then you find out it was simply because the pan wasn’t big enough. But we’ve been perpetrating this idea that we cut off both ends as if it’s factual and true. It’s the same thing. We’ve been perpetrating this idea that this is how we do blended family. Well, everybody’s just, everybody’s everything.

And that’s not true for the children involved. That’s not true even for some of the adults involved. And we are perpetrating dysfunction, again, unknowingly and often without malicious intent, but there’s a way that we can do it that honors all of the family and honors people and honors God and releases pressure in a way that the family can truly bond and not have this cultural bonding that really doesn’t go into intimacy deep in relationship.

Ron:                That is so insightful. And I know that that applies to all ethnicities and cultures; that we all have things that we pass down one generation to the next that we really haven’t thought through and it just sort of is the way it is. And it may not actually be very functional, but it’s what we know to do, and we keep doing it.

So I think I’m hearing you say part of what you hope to do with this ministry is to just stir the conversation such that people and families can take a second look at what they were handed and what they’re passing down and maybe learn some better, stronger ways of doing family life. Is that what I’m hearing?

Cheryl:           Absolutely. What would you say Clifton? I think we need to stir the pot, and I think we need to get people talking in ways that we expose pain points so then we can say, this has been here all along, it’s been unaddressed, but now that you know it’s here, let’s do something about it. We already have the remedy. We already have the tools. We already have biblical precedent. We have the word of God, we have it.

Clifton:            One of the things that we need is better communication, being able to communicate what Cheryl was talking about. Sometimes people just don’t know, like the example of the roast and the pan, this is the way it’s always been. This is the way we’ve always done it, but now we’ve got something different. So how do we something different when people are accustomed to doing something a certain way? That again goes back to we have to have the right voices communicating the things that are different, but probably more effective in how we manage our blended families.

So communications to me are key, but we need to have the right communicator communicating the information that is so sorely needed. It is very much needed.

Ron:                As we’re having this conversation thinking about culture a little bit, Cheryl, one of the things I’ve shared with you in the past is that there is an inherent strength in African American, black, brown families that I wish white blended families could adopt. And I hope that just perked the ears of somebody listening right now because unfortunately, I think sometimes people have preconceived ideas about African American families not being strong, and that is not the case at all.

And when it comes to blended families, there is a particular strength and that has to do with how people identify and define family life and who’s involved in my family; that quality, that kinship network that is common in black and brown families where they think of many people as family. My mom can certainly discipline me, but so can my auntie and so can my uncle, and so can my grandmother. That lends itself to when a stepparent comes into someone’s life, they’re used to having many people speak into their world in a way that children growing up in white families are not commonly familiar with. And so I’ve often found that, boy, if there’s something we could learn in the white community, it’s how to think about family in a broad spectrum.

Cheryl:           Yeah.

Ron:                So yeah, react to that. Cheryl, what do you think?

Cheryl:           Well, I think that we’ve had to be, African Americans have this inherent adaptability because we’ve had to adapt. We came here stripped from families and not to get anthropological or political or sociological or anything like that, but this has to be part of the conversation, right?

Ron:                It does.

Cheryl:           We came here stripped from families. We were brought to plantations, many of us and some of us were stripped from the families that we made on plantations, and so they were taken to other places. So we had to make family where we were. And this became just a very much a part of our culture. Even when you look in the seventies and there was the rise of social aid, it became necessary for women that needed aid for their children.

Well, the fathers couldn’t be in the home. There was a policy put in place that said we want to remove fathers and men from the home. And that was done in order for people to be able to get aid for their children. So big ma down the street became grandma to everybody on the block, and this uncle had to step in and be a father-like figure.

So there is that adaptability in terms of accepting people as family. There are people that I don’t know other than from Facebook that address me as Sis. It is just a very, it’s a cultural thing because we’ve had to do so. So while I do agree with you that I think I wish that all cultures had that ability to just be accepting of other people as family, that blood isn’t a necessary tie. I do want people to understand that that came about as the result of a great deal of societal harm to African Americans, by and large. So go ahead, Clifton.

Clifton:            Yes, I agree, Cheryl, what you’re saying. So this is what I want us to think about. We often say it takes a village to raise a child, not just the immediate family. However, things have changed. Things have changed. And where the neighbor down the street where we were close, a close community, African American, black and brown, we were very close community. So if you did something wrong, then Ms. Sally up the street could correct you and you didn’t go home and tell your parents that Ms. Sally had to get with you because that meant that they were going to get with you too.

Ron:                You’re going to get double.

Clifton:            However, now with it seems to be sometimes a feeling of guilt because of fathers sometimes not being in the home, we get a lot of when things don’t go like they should, now the reaction is, “Why are you picking on my child?” And not only in the community, but that goes to our institutions, especially schools, because there’s this feeling of, our children are missing something and I’m not going to allow you to hurt their feelings. And so what is happening is why we need to be having this conversation is because we need to understand. It takes all of us working together to make the best help our children to get the best outcome that is possible for them. And let’s go back to talking about parental guidance.

So when you are talking about stepparents, and we don’t call them steps, by the way. We don’t use that terminology. So when you’re talking about correcting a child that’s not your biological child, sometimes that can put you out in the weeds somewhere. And so we need to talk to, again, I’m using the word loosely, stepparents, about how do you go about disciplining children that are part of blended families? Because it is not just someone who’s going to turn the reigns over to you and say, you do what you think is best with my child. That’s not the way it goes.

And so we need to have those courageous, brave conversations with first, the parents need to talk with each other, and they need to come up with how do we best—if we’re talking about discipline, how do we best discipline our children? How do we raise these children together? And that goes back to we got to have this communication. We got to have conversations because it just doesn’t happen by osmosis.

Ron:                That’s right. And as I’m listening to you, I’m thinking there’s nuances and this is why this is such an important ministry and step forward. And at the same time, it’s helpful to have leaders and especially pastors and church leaders who are familiar with the right language or the best way to help a blended bonus parent, stepparent, however you want to say it, working with their family and their child. Cheryl, you were going to say something.

Cheryl:           Yeah, I was just going to say to Clifton’s point, again, that’s why we have to have these kinds of conversations because there are resources out there that can help people have those conversations. I mean, Ron’s team at FamilyLife Blended, they have a whole teaching around connecting before correcting.

That’s just an example of what can be offered to people if they are made aware first, that there is a need and that second, that the need needs to be addressed and it’s worth it being addressed. And third, that there are already resources available to address the needs. They don’t have to go out and reinvent the will. God has graciously provided us, as His Word says, He’s equipped us with everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. We have the tools in place and here they are.

And I think that we, for Sawubona, we certainly are offering couples help and support, but we feel our primary purpose is to talk to churches and to point pastors and ministry leaders to resources that will help the couples that are coming to them because they don’t know. They don’t have the language for having a conversation about connecting before correcting,

Ron:                I want us to turn the corner and talk to anybody who’s leading a small group or a ministry. And whether you’re white, black, whatever your racial profile is, you’re going to have people in your group from various cultures and ethnicities. And I want us to talk about that in just a second, but zero in just for a second if you guys would, on black and brown church leaders. How up to speed, what language do they need? How open are they in general to marriage and family ministry, and do you think to blended ministry specifically?

Clifton:            Probably not so open.

It’s again, the feeling of we know God, we pray the Holy Spirit will give us what needs to be said in our congregation. And as a rule, we’ve not been open to outside advice, outside advisors, outside counselors; we’ve not been open to that. But today we have to be open because there’s so much available to help us with our everyday life. We need leaders, and I’m talking about black and brown leaders. We need our minds to expand, to be open to possibilities that we didn’t know about. And again, here is where I think Sawubona really comes in because they’re dealing with church leaders and it’s going to start with the church leaders and then we can reach the families in the congregations.

Cheryl:           Yeah. Can I just tell the family business? I’m just going to talk very real. I’m going to tell church family business and then black church family business. The first thing, listen, what we’re doing isn’t working. It’s not working. The generation after generation, we are finding less and less people who name the name of Christ.

Our country has been culturally Christian for a long time, but when it comes to real Christ followers, less and less people. We’re under 25 percent when we’re talking about Gen Z. We are talking about so many things that honestly don’t matter and we’re missing the main thing, we’re missing our commission, we’re missing the opportunity. We’re missing really reaching into places that we need to reach into. So we’ve got to do something different. We have to do something. We don’t change the message, but we do change how we are reaching people, and we’ve got to reach people where they are. We’ve got to go to these families.

And the other thing, let me—now, that was church family business. Here’s black church family business. I can go down the city of Detroit and there’s literally a church on every single corner. There will be five people in this church, ten people in that church, four people in that church, three people in that church, and I say, why aren’t we all coming together to do this? Because everyone has their own little fiefdom that they’re trying to build, and we’re building kingdoms to men versus the kingdom of God. And we have got to stop thinking insular. The church has never been insular. It has always been reaching outward. We are called out to reach back in, and we have got to, as leaders, as pastors, as ministers understand that we don’t have all the answers.

I know in Sawubona, I know in Stepmom Sanity, the reason why, Ron, I ask you to come on and to be on the podcast and to, can I do an expert interview with you is because I don’t have all the answers. You have something that somebody is going to hold onto and be able to apply in their lives and realize a change in their family. I have something that somebody you’re trying to reach won’t be able to receive from you. They can receive it from me. Same thing with Clifton.

We are a body fitly joined together. We’ve got to lock arms together, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever we are, and we have to win this world for Christ. Even with Sawubona, our positioning with pastors is that you have a whole community of people out there with broken families that if you reach them with the resources and the opportunity to come and get help, that is an inroad to introduce them to Jesus Christ. It’s an opportunity for outreach and discipleship as well.

Ron:                No matter what color the church or what its makeup is, blended family ministry is missional in the sense that there are people around your church, there are a ton of people around your church. They may not walk in every Sunday, but they are there and they’re looking for somebody who can speak into their life, be relevant, and help them do life well in a way that brings them closer to Jesus. And so I am so thrilled about where this ministry is going. I got to ask you guys one thing.

Cheryl:           Yeah.

Ron:                I know in my world, the last 31 years or so that I’ve been doing stepfamily ministry, shame has been a big barrier for a lot of families, particularly white families that I’ve worked with very closely. We know that’s one of the biggest things that keeps people from showing up at a conference or for somebody listening right now and we’ve encouraged you many, many times to start a ministry in your church. Nobody else is, so why don’t you do it? And they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m just not that kind of person and I’m not so sure we’re the best people to do.” That’s shame talking, and it’s what keeps people from coming to a stepfamily small group or a Sunday school class or whatever the case may be. I’m curious, is that common also within black communities and if so, or if not, what are some of the barriers that keep people from showing up?

Clifton:            Ron, I’ve been thinking about that, meditating, praying, because it seems like we go through seasons. There’s a season where the door is open. We need to take advantage of that. And the black church, sometimes what happens is people don’t feel as though they are empowered through the Spirit, by the Spirit, to be able to do things that can be a help to the church, a help to the community, because they feel as though that’s the job of the pastor. That’s the job of the ministers. That’s not what I’m here to do.

We have to change that mindset because we all are to be disciples of Christ, and we are all trying to win others to Christ. So again, it is changing some mindsets. When I hear people say, “I’m not worthy,” “I am not deserving,”—now, you guys may get me for this and some of you listening, but I agree with them—no, we are not worthy and we’re not deserving, but we’ve received this thing called grace.

We have experienced the love of God, and God doesn’t look at us as being unworthy. We’ve been chosen by him. We are loved by him. He has bestowed abundant grace upon us so that we can, if we would receive what he is offering, then this thing of shame, this thing of feeling like I can’t or I don’t deserve, let’s just get that out the way. No, it’s not about what we deserve. It’s about the grace and the love of God that has been bestowed upon us that we want to share that with someone else that they might hear, “It’s not about what you’ve done.” Sometimes it’s not about what you’re doing. It’s about the love and grace of God that can bring about that change in our hearts so that we will get on board with evangelizing or missions. Cheryl,

Cheryl:           I’ll say this is not a glamorous area of the vineyard, like blended family ministry. We are in a very hard space. There is a lot of need and a lot of denial for that need. We’ll hear it individually, but it’s very difficult to then go back to the pastors and say, “Look, these are the stats, man. I promise you there are about at least 20 percent of the couples in your church are in a blended family and they are struggling.” That is not a reality that they’re acquainted with, and it’s very hard for us to communicate that and for them to catch it.

So on that end, I’m not going to lie, it is not the glamorous part at all. But if this is what God has called you to, he certainly will give you the grace, His ability, working in and through you to do what you can’t do on your own. And He’ll give you the heart for it as well. He’ll give you the passion for it. That’s on the ministerial side.

On the couple side who may not be showing up, I don’t know that shame is so much the issue because again, we’re talking about a dynamic that’s pretty normative to the African American community, but there may be unawareness, there may be anger, there may be pride. And when I say anger, I mean “I’m angry about the situation that I’m in. Why won’t you just do…? And we don’t need to go here. You just need to do.”

So there are couples that we have dealt with, Jonathan and I, that we have done premarital counseling with, that we have done postmarital counseling with, that we have done some speaking and coaching with the things that they’ve said and we’re like, “Are you kidding me? And just again, this, I don’t want to say ignorance, but this being unaware of the impact of their actions on the children and the relationships in their blended family and that they too aren’t so much keen on walking through a door.

I always say to the pastors that I have spoken to that people might not come in your house into your church on Sunday, but they may come to Panera Bread on Thursday night to talk about, how do I deal with all of this baby mama drama that’s going on in my household? So it really is kind of setting a safe place for people to come and talk and letting them know that it’s okay to do so as well, that you’re not a failure if you walk through the door saying, “I really need help. My grandmother did this, my mother did it. I can’t do it. I cannot do it so help me.”

Ron:                You guys. That theme keeps coming up over and over again, raising awareness, helping people to recognize that there’s something here, something to talk about. Church leaders need to know that, couples and families need to know that, and now through Sawubona, you are helping to make that happen.

I just want to say to our listeners, please, please, if and on any level, you feel like this podcast was not for you, it’s for somebody you know, but I do think it’s for you. I do think it’s for your church; it’s for your pastor. Please share it with them because we want to help raise the awareness because if we don’t walk through that door, then we don’t have the opportunity to influence them in life-changing ways, and that’s what I know you are about. Cheryl, Cliff, thank you so much for being with me today.

Clifton:            Thank you for having us.

Cheryl:           Thank you, Ron.

Ron:                Cheryl, I know I’ll have you back another time, so we look forward to that as always. Again, God bless you guys; appreciate what you’re doing.

Clifton:            Thank you.

Cheryl:           Thank you. God bless you.

Ron:                To our audience and viewers, if you want to know more about this, check the show notes. We’ve got a link to Sawubona Blended Family Ministries where you can learn a little bit more about them. And as I said, please tell a friend about it.

Just a reminder, FamilyLife Blended is a donor-supported ministry. We can’t do this without you. All gifts are tax-deductible. You can check the show notes for a link on how you can support our ministry, and anything you give we greatly appreciate, and I thank you in advance for that.

There are a few training opportunities coming up I want to let you know about. I’ve got two professional trainings for counselors coming up within the next month. One will be in Amarillo, Texas, another one in Nashville, Tennessee. Plus I’ll be doing a stepfamily seminar in Madison, Mississippi coming up in March. That’s 2025.

Blended and Blessed, as we told you, is Saturday, April 5th, 2025, and Nan and I are going to be presenting a mindful marriage conference later this spring. You can find all of that and small groups, virtual groups for parents, couples, blended families. You can find all of that on our ministry map that is now new and improved. It is far better than it has ever been. If you haven’t looked at that lately, please take a minute and go look. We’ll put a link on the show notes, or you can just simply go to FamilyLife.com/Blended.

Okay, next time we’re going to share a conversation that I had with Judy Douglas about loving a prodigal child. That’s next time on FamilyLife Blended. I’m Ron Deal, thanks for listening or watching. And thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

FamilyLife Blended is part of the FamilyLife Podcast Network. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

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