‘Marriage Lived God’s Way’-Marriage Retreats

Marriage is something we care deeply about. After more than 40 years together, we've learned a great deal about what helps a marriage flourish—and what can cause it to struggle.

Our own experiences during the early years of marriage inspired Darrell to write Starting Out... Preparing Yourselves for Marriage: Helpful, Frank and Searching Questions to Ask Yourselves Before Saying "I Do". Designed as a practical marriage preparation resource, it helps engaged couples explore important questions before making their lifelong commitment.Those same experiences also led us, together with our friend Liz Gregg, to develop the Sozo for Couples ministry. Supporting healthy Christian marriages has become one of our greatest passions.While we take marriage seriously, we've learned not to take ourselves too seriously. In fact, one of the dangers for many couples is becoming so focused on being right, or on protecting themselves, that they lose the joy, grace and humour that help relationships thrive.So here's a question: would you agree that each of us is called to live as God intended? If that's true, doesn't it make sense that our marriage should be lived God's way too?We believe there are two equally important parts to this. The first is being who God created us to be. The second is behaving in ways that reflect His design for marriage.That's why we call our retreats Marriage Lived God's Way.Throughout our retreats, we explore two life-changing questions:

• What does being who God intended me to be look like?
• What does behaving as God intends within marriage involve?

Many Christian marriage retreats focus primarily on practical relationship skills such as communication, conflict resolution and understanding one another better. We cover these areas too, because they're important.However, our experience has shown that lasting change often comes from addressing something much deeper. The tensions and misunderstandings that surface in marriage are frequently rooted in the wounds, beliefs and emotional baggage that each person carries. When two people bring unresolved baggage into a relationship, friction is almost inevitable.This is where Marriage Lived God's Way is different.Rather than spending hours talking at you, we create opportunities for meaningful conversations between you and your spouse. We provide thought-provoking discussion points, practical exercises and a safe environment where couples can explore issues together. We're always available to guide, encourage and support whenever needed, but the real breakthroughs often happen in those honest conversations between husband and wife.The response from couples has been overwhelmingly encouraging, and we're continually humbled by the stories of renewed connection, deeper understanding and transformed relationships that emerge from these retreats.

Here's a selection of comments:

“We came to the course at a time when we had gone through quite some tension. Trust had been eroded, and there were some question marks over there being a way forward. Separation was an option at one point. Having had the precious nature of godly marriage re-emphasised to us, the picture changed a lot. We came away feeling very hopeful and determined to do all we can to correct the few things that we had neglected to keep on track.”