2010 Midwinter Couples Retreat

Since I never got around to blogging about the Couples Retreat that we went to, I figured better late than never.

On Valentine's Day weekend, we headed up to Johnston, IA for our 3rd annual Couples Retreat. It's put on by a church up there and usually have nearly 100 couples in attendance, including my parents, who have been going on and off for a number of years. We first started going after being married only 6 weeks or so back in 2007.

As always, it was good just to be able to get away. The retreat is only actually Friday night through Saturday morning, but we always stay an extra night, so we were there Friday through Sunday.

The topic for this year was "5 Facts for Fantastic Marriages," and the speaker was Jim Vogel along with his wife Jeannie. Here is a rundown of the "5 facts":

Fact #1 was that "Marriage is God's Idea." I thought this was a great reminder, though obvious, marriage was God's idea, as we can see clear back in Genesis when he created Eve to be a helper/companion for Adam. It was not something created by society, or something that just happened. It was God's invention.

Fact #2-because marriage was God's idea, its important to realize that he meant it to be built on a spiritual foundation. When you try to approach marriage without a spiritual foundation, things usually don't go to well. The idea with this fact was that a "spiritual foundation" starts with a personal salvation for both the husband and wife, which leads to individual growth, which eventually leads to mutual spiritual fellowship for both partners. Some practical suggestions for developing this growth?: 1. Be sure of your own salvation AND walk with God. 2. Allow personal quiet times to fuel spiritual fellowship/activities (Note: I think its important to have achieved both 1 and 2 individually even before you enter into marriage) 3. Worship and serve together as much as possible 4. Take responsibility for encouraging your partners spiritual growth.

Why are thinking of marriage as God's idea and building your marriage so important?
1. It reduces conflict (If Christ has forgiven you, how can you not forgive your spouse?) 2. It impacts your children. 3. It builds commitment (Gods plan does not include divorce) 4. It enhances our ministry (there are people watching you) 5. It deepens intimacy in other areas (intellectual, emotional, physical).

Fact #3-Marriage is about companionship. Friendship is the foundation of marriage, even before a couple is married. What is a good friendship marked by?
-Good friends make time for one another
-Good friends talk openly-they are honest with each other, they know how to listen, and they realize the value of compassionate, encouraging words.
-Good friends overlook little offenses. They practice forgiveness.
-Good friends unconditionally accept and respect each other.
-Good friends deal with conflict and disagreements proactively.
-Good friends laugh together.

Fact #4-Marriage roles are complementary: Husbands are to be loving leaders, wives are to be respectful followers. A husbands basic need is significance, whereas a wife's basic need is security.

Fact #5-Marriage commitment is for life. When thinking of commitment, they encouraged us to think about 2 things: There's a difference between intentions and actions (willingness to act on your commitment, for better OR for worse), and its better to work out marriage problems than to walk away from them. Really, there are only 2 options if we want to follow God's plan for marriage in the "for worse" times-to stay in a bad marriage (taken out the option for a broken marriage) or to work toward a better marriage. If you take out the option of walking away, what do you have left? WORKING IT OUT!

So that's the basics of what we learned at the conference. There was also a session where the men and women split up-of course I can't speak for what the men talked about, but as for the women, we talked about "How to grow love." The basic thing that I took away from that session was this: As long as you rely on God, you can pour out love to your spouse without ever being empty.

I love the Couples Retreats because they are not only an opportunity to get away from the everyday concerns of life to enjoy some time together, but they are also an opportunity to continue to better your marriage. As they said the first day, "most marriage have challenges, some marriage have more challenges than others, but ALL marriages need improvement."