Marriage Matters Manual (Study Guide): Extraordinary Change through Ordinary Moments

Can Ordinary Marriages Become Extraordinary? He snapped at her during breakfast. She brought up a past mistake. He walked out angry. She left without saying good-bye. An ordinary day in an ordinary marriage. But what if things could be different? What if the moments that seem the most ordinary moments of annoyance, conflict, pain, or cold indifference could become moments in which you're able to understand God's incredible agenda for love and begin to do something new? Winston T. Smith, drawing on his extensive experience as a marriage counselor, offers a simple yet powerful prescription for changing your marriage. He shows how examining the everyday disappointments and irritations in your marriage will help you understand yourself, your spouse, and your need for God's love. Change begins with seeing day-to-day interactions from a different perspective, taking simple steps to love one another more effectively, and then learning how to take those steps over and over again. Interactions that used to devolve into pointless annoyances and fights can become an opportunity for God's activity and love to become increasingly evident and powerful. The principles in this book will take your marriage to extraordinary places and lead you into a deeper relationship of discipleship with an extraordinary God. Don't settle for an ordinary marriage, learn to live out God's extraordinary love in your most intimate relationship.Marriage Matters Manual Study Guide and Marriage Matters Manual Facilitators Guides launch an interactive ten-week course that uses discussion questions, small group exercises, vignettes, Bible study, and relationship building activities to help couples apply and live the principles from the book together over an extended period of time.Each unit gives clear direction on how to understand, love, accept, and wisely speak the truth and ends with homework that gives couples the opportunity to put what they have learned into practice. The study guide covers a broad array of topics including communication, conflict, forgiveness, intimacy, sex, and marriage roles and is suitable for a small group study, a marriage enrichment program, and for a marriage counselor or mentor to use with individual couples. The Marriage Matters Manual Facilitator's Guide provides extra content and direction for pastors, counselors, and mentors as they work with couples in small groups and in individual counseling sessions.