Let's do a marriage study together! 

Are you with us?

Now the backstory.  If you would have told Ryan and I that we would be leading a Marriage study 5, 10 years ago we would laughed out loud.  The reality is that our marriage has had its fair share of hardships.  We really loved hard, and fought hard.  We were usually the ones sitting in Bible study asking for prayer for our marriage because we were in another hard spell where we could barely look at each other.  I remember even one Sunday we went to church and sat in separate rows because there was that much tension.  So we are the first to say that we DO NOT have it all together.  The "come as you are" phrase has never rang truer and we want you to know that we are imperfect people who have a desire to grow with you and together. 

If you haven't read the story of how we met it truly is a God story and you can find it HERE.  Knowing that God brought us together we never were tempted to throw in the towel, but we also had walls up that were majorly interfering with the depth of security and intimacy we knew the Lord had desired for us.  And it wasn't until Ryan quit his full time job at 3M that we really realized we had to face the issue head on.  There was no more hiding stuff under the rug because the rug was being flipped over.  It was either deal with it or it will ruin you.  Last year Ryan heard very clearly from the Lord that it was his year to work on himself.  That it would be the hardest year of his life but that it would be worth it.  I am so grateful for a leader that is in tune with the Holy Spirit and took that challenge upon himself.  He was truly transformed in so many areas of his life.  And this past year as we were sitting in our sauna he said, "Do you want to hear my New Years Resolutions?"  I was a little taken aback because we really never have done "resolutions" before, and said, "sure!"  

It was then that he said, "Well, I ordered a marriage book off of Focus on the Family and my resolution is to work on our marriage this year.  Last year it was all about me, this year I want it to be about us!"  I was quite shocked that he did that all on his own.  At first I was a little taken aback actually, which sounds so crazy.  But I'm like if your resolution is "our" resolution don't you need to talk to me about it?  lol! So my reaction even in that wasn't the best, and later I thought to myself, how many wives would LOVE if their husbands brought home a marriage book and said they wanted to make their marriage better! What was I thinking?  So we started to read the book, "Cherish" that he had ordered, and it was so good!

Gary Thomas wasn't a new author to me, he had written a book my Mother in Law gifted us for our wedding called "Sacred Marriage" that was an amazing read of how our marriage really isn't about us, but rather about a holy covenant we took before the Lord and our relationship with Him.  And although that book is AMAZING, it is pretty deep, and when we started reading Cherish we realized it was so PRACTICAL!  It seemed so achievable with small little acts we can do and implement in our marriage that can make it so much stronger.  So with that being said, and coming off our our marriage prayer challenge, we really felt a tug on our hearts to be intentional about walking alongside other couples and helping others to strengthen their marriage too!  We have been on the receiving end of mentoring and it helped us so much, and we realized that it was time for us to step up and out and pour into others.  So we are so very excited to not only do this course alongside all of you, but to welcome 6 couples into our home and walk through this book together!!

So what does that actually look like? 

Well that's why we are writing this blog.  We are looking for 6 couples that are local enough to Dassel, MN that can commit to a 7 week study on Sunday nights in our home where we can have real fellowship and community together!  We know what a commitment it is so we wanted to give you enough time to talk with your spouses, pray about it, and see if it's something that you would want to join us in!  Our first meeting will be on March 12th from 6:30-8:00.  Our hope is to meet every other week, going over 2 chapters each time, and making it into a 7 session course. 

How will you pick 6 couples?

Well first off we hope we peak 6 couples interest:)  We have already been praying over the couples that respond and trusting that God sends the ones that need it our way!  I will be sending out an email invite on February 26th, giving enough time for you to discuss and see if it's a good fit! And the first 6 couples that can commit to coming and respond to our email will be our first small group:)  If there are more than 6 couples we will start a waiting list because our hope is to do this again!  And...the best part is if you are not local or can't commit to coming in person, Ryan and I are going to create videos for each meeting where we discuss the chapters, talk about what stood out to us, and hopefully open up dialogue for you and your spouse as well!  Since we will be pre-recording these videos, I have re-vamped my YouTube channel that I never use and will be uploading them there for you to watch.  So feel free to subscribe to that and be on the lookout for our first welcome video in a week or so! 

Our heart behind this...

We have felt the tug on our hearts to invest in other couples for a while now and we just never put a date on the calendar.  We truly want to raise up disciples and know that in order for that to happen, we need to be intentional!  This is us finally saying YES GOD!  And through this small group we hope to:

*strengthen marriages

*create community

*invest in people

*create disciples

*change families

Isn't that exciting?!?  We know God is going to do amazing things through this in-person and online study.  But we have one more challenge for you! 

The challenge for you!

We truly wish we could invite 1000 couples into our homes, but we want to steward the ones God brings in a big way so we have limited the number.  But, our challenge is that if God is laying this on your hearts as well, and you've had a nudging to walk alongside others, that you would JOIN US by opening up YOUR house to couples in your community! Because while online studies are great and I love how technology can unite us, I believe we are entering in to a time where we need to start investing in real physical community and grow tangible relationships!  We are hoping to make it easier for you by doing it ALONGSIDE you! You can even share our videos we create if you want or do it all on your own! We want to encourage you to step out in faith to "go and make disciples" and we truly believe that starts in the home.  If you accept this challenge and decide to open up your homes, EMAIL US AT [email protected] and we will send you a free Cherish book to cheer you on!  (Limited to the first 100 responders) We will also send you our schedule and each week we will email out the video links for you to use if you want to!  We want to make this as easy and doable for you as possible, it's basically opening up your home and reaching out to your community to love on and invest in people.  EEk! I'm so excited to see how God will grow this and use this to further His kingdom!!!!

Will you join us?