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The Significant Marriage Story |
Why We're Passionate about The Significant MarriagE
Soon after we were married, we decided that we wanted to grow our own relationship as well as encourage other couples, so we began a marriage group in our home, based upon the book, His Needs, Her Needs, by Willard Harley. For several years we met with these couples in both accountability and fellowship. This wasn’t at all what Dave had expected for our marriage, since he had assumed I would be the one “in ministry” while he supported whatever opportunities God gave me. Although I am a psychotherapist by education and experience and he is an engineer, Dave began to recognize God was calling us together to minister to couples. After a move to California, in 2001 we were trained to lead the Dynamic Marriage course from Family Dynamics Institute and later became facilitators for A New Beginning, their weekend workshop for couples in crisis. I (Mary) studied and began to pray The Prayer of Jabez for our marriage and family, asking God to “enlarge our territory” of influence and ministry. Soon after, we were privileged to study “The Purpose Driven Life” at Saddleback Church and this helped us crystallize how we believed God was calling us to serve as a couple. During this time we also created our own non-profit organization, Sunshine Kids International (SKI), to help change the lives of orphans and other at-risk children of Mumbai, India, Dave’s homeland. Working together in both marriage ministry and SKI, we came to realize how our own lives had been changed. Our marriage and our family have been enriched in ways we could have never imagined and we wanted for other couples to experience this! We also realized that after years of working with couples in crisis we needed to do something to prevent them from ever getting to that place, teaching them to be intentional about protecting their marriage.
Our MessagE
Having our own “significant marriage” became intentional, something we not only knew we wanted to pursue, in being all God created us to be as a couple, but it also became a message we want to share with as many couples as will listen….God has something extraordinary for you to do together because of who you are as a couple! He wants to take who you are together, your unique gifts, personalities and passions, and create something that makes a difference in this world.
It became a goal of ours to not only make a significant difference in the world through our own marriage, but also to challenge other couples that it is possible for them to have such a marriage, one that not only impacts their own generations to come, but intentionally makes a difference in the greater world. In the book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren says, “God wants to USE YOU to make a difference in the world. He wants to work through YOU. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.” Our message is, “As a couple you can choose to live a comfortable life or you can choose to seek a life that offers hope, brings change, heals, encourages, empowers, teaches, comforts, and more. It doesn’t matter what you do….what matters is that you are faithful to follow God’s call upon your life and make the most of the gifts and opportunities that He gives you. It is possible to blend your individual gifts and passions into a common vision for your marriage. It is our desire to help you do so by making sure your marriage is as healthy as possible and by helping you develop a plan to pursue that purpose.” John Maxwell says that “Significant leaders know the way, go the way, and show the way.” We have learned through our experience to live The Significant Marriage and it has become our greatest passion to “show the way” for other couples to do the same!
It was with this purpose that we created The Significant Marriage curriculum, to be used as a retreat, small group and coaching program. Through years of encouraging and coaching couples, we have found that, in addition to our own teachings, we have favorite resources that we believe can make a powerful difference in a marriage. We want to teach from the “best of the best” and offer as many resources as possible to foster continued growth in couples, challenging that they can and should always be striving for the best marriage possible, the one God desires them to have. We also want to challenge them to think about how God is calling them and help them develop a plan to follow through on that calling. It is our desire to multiply the outreach by training other couples who can use this curriculum.
It became a goal of ours to not only make a significant difference in the world through our own marriage, but also to challenge other couples that it is possible for them to have such a marriage, one that not only impacts their own generations to come, but intentionally makes a difference in the greater world. In the book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren says, “God wants to USE YOU to make a difference in the world. He wants to work through YOU. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.” Our message is, “As a couple you can choose to live a comfortable life or you can choose to seek a life that offers hope, brings change, heals, encourages, empowers, teaches, comforts, and more. It doesn’t matter what you do….what matters is that you are faithful to follow God’s call upon your life and make the most of the gifts and opportunities that He gives you. It is possible to blend your individual gifts and passions into a common vision for your marriage. It is our desire to help you do so by making sure your marriage is as healthy as possible and by helping you develop a plan to pursue that purpose.” John Maxwell says that “Significant leaders know the way, go the way, and show the way.” We have learned through our experience to live The Significant Marriage and it has become our greatest passion to “show the way” for other couples to do the same!
It was with this purpose that we created The Significant Marriage curriculum, to be used as a retreat, small group and coaching program. Through years of encouraging and coaching couples, we have found that, in addition to our own teachings, we have favorite resources that we believe can make a powerful difference in a marriage. We want to teach from the “best of the best” and offer as many resources as possible to foster continued growth in couples, challenging that they can and should always be striving for the best marriage possible, the one God desires them to have. We also want to challenge them to think about how God is calling them and help them develop a plan to follow through on that calling. It is our desire to multiply the outreach by training other couples who can use this curriculum.
