Spiritual Formation in Marriage
What if your spouse was your best companion on your journey with Christ?
Ever since I (Bryan) began following the Lord wholeheartedly, I have been enraptured by the reality that we are invited to pursue the infinite riches of intimacy with Jesus. This prayer from Paul and quote from A.W. Tozer grabbed my attention and have defined my pursuit of God and have shaped my vocational path:
…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17–19 NIV11)
“[Our regeneration] is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end” (The Pursuit of God, p. 14).
For several years that pursuit was primarily individual, but as I grew in maturity, I recognized the communal nature of seeking the fullness of God. Further, it became the defining thing I looked for in a potential spouse. Maybe you remember having a list of things you wanted in a future wife or husband. Over time mine got whittled down to someone who sought the Lord wholeheartedly. That became my primary thing I was looking for because that is what I wanted for myself, and I longed for a companion that could encourage me in that pursuit.
After Rachel and I became friends and had some classes together in seminary, I discovered that she had the same Ephesians passage and Tozer quote on her Facebook wall. (Remember the good ol’ days of Facebook?) Those quotes played a role in revealing Rachel’s heart and even confirming to me that she was the one I wanted to spend my life alongside, pursuing God together. (Cheesy, I know, but it’s true.)
Once we got married, we quickly realized that there was a lot more to marriage than pursuing God together. We would sit down together on Sunday evenings to pray, as this was something I had practiced with my roommates before I got married, and now I was excited to do it with my new and permanent roommate! Praying together was good, but it felt…different. It was usually easier to just enter into prayer alongside my former roommates, whereas in marriage, Rachel and I couldn’t help but bring all of our other marital dynamics with us into prayer. Like learning how to live with one another, or how to navigate conflict with each other.
And because of those dynamics, spiritual vulnerability was sometimes more challenging. We desired to honor the time of prayer, but occasionally showed up angry with one another, and rather than praying, we spent the time working through conflict. Scripture calls us to do this work of reconciliation (Mt. 5:23; 18:15-20; Eph 4:26), but we’ve learned that marital conflict and resolution isn’t always a straight, simple path, and nor is developing prayer rhythms together. We have experimented with different prayer practices, such as the examen, that we’ve found enriching. But we found that as we went through different seasons, our spiritual lives went back to being more individualized. We weren’t always making an effort to journey alongside one another in our faith.
Then as we entered into spiritual direction training, we were excited to see how participating in it together would shape our pursuit of God and our marriage. I enjoyed hearing Rachel share how she encountered the Lord during our larger group sharing time, but we were always separated in different small groups for varying activities, and we missed some deeper points of connection. One of the first books that we read contained a chapter about doing a form of spiritual direction with your spouse, but there wasn’t much else that encouraged this kind of accompaniment. Most of what we encountered discouraged it because spiritual direction with your spouse can just get messy.
And yet, our curiosity remained. While we appreciated the complexity of spiritually accompanying your spouse and pursuing the Lord together, we also recognized that spiritually accompaniment was one of the reasons we got married in the first place.
When we were single, wasn’t pursuing Christ with our spouse something that we looked forward to experiencing one day in marriage? We’ve often felt too inexperienced to know how to really make this possible, but we couldn’t escape this growing desire to see couples journey well together toward Christ, and to experience it ourselves. We want to encourage one another in our walks with God. We want to listen well and honor each other’s own spiritual journeys. We want to intentionally hold that desire for one another to encounter the fullness of God. So we started dreaming about what it might look like for us to not only pray for and with one another, but also to be each other’s catalyst for a deeper, richer, more abundant life in Christ.
A few years ago, we decided to invite a few other couples to experiment with spiritual formation in marriage with us. We spent some time doing spiritual practices and also read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and we experimented with group spiritual direction. We learned some things that worked well and some things didn’t seem to spark much, but we started to learn how to champion one another’s relationship with God. And along the way, we continued to have conversations with married couples that confirmed we aren’t the only ones who longed for marriage to be a relationship that deepened and enriched our spiritual lives. Perhaps you can relate to this longing, too.
As COVID hit and our family grew, we noticed that our attention to one another’s spiritual lives started to shift elsewhere. Our family life was focused on our daughter, and our ministry was focused on walking alongside pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders. We’d also decided to move back to Colorado. In trying to be attentive to those transitions, we missed the chance to be attentive to one another's spiritual lives. We are just trying to keep our head above water and survive all of the major transitions we were experiencing (like, you know, learning how to be parents).
Then a few months ago, Rachel and I took some time to pray about how the Lord was leading us as a couple and CURATE as a ministry. As we were praying, He stirred up this desire again to help couples to be each other’s greatest companion in journeying with Christ. We’d continue ministering to pastors and ministry leaders as we always had, but we felt a desire to revive this idea of spiritual formation and accompaniment in marriage. We took some time to reflect on our own journey and the ups and downs that we’ve experienced, and we began praying about how this part of CURATE might take shape.
We have two very cool opportunities in the works for how you can participate in this with us (see more below), but first, here’s a quick snapshot of our vision for spiritual formation in marriage:
OUR VISION IS TO SEE SPOUSES ACCOMPANY ONE ANOTHER WELL IN THEIR JOURNEYS WITH GOD.
I want to make an important caveat that our focus for spiritual formation in marriage is growth in Christ, not on improving marriages. There’s plenty out there on how to improve your marriage. This is about learning to accompany and champion your spouse in their life with God. (Naturally, your marriage will be deepened and enriched as you both pursue Christ together, but that’s more of a byproduct rather than the primary focus.)
If we truly are invited to spend our lives pursuing the height, depth, length, and width of God’s infinite love for us, and if we need others to experience the fullness of God, why shouldn’t our spouse be our closest companion and our biggest champion in that pursuit?
TWO OPPORTUNITIES
Over the next few months, we will be sharing different aspects, invitations, challenges, and practices of spiritual formation in marriage, but there are two things I want to invite you to consider today.
Spiritual Formation in Marriage Workshop. If you are curious to know more about how to walk alongside your spouse in their pursuit of Christ, join us for a half-day online workshop. You can find more details and register here.
The Ignatian Exercises in Marriage. Rachel and I are piloting a nine-month journey through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for married couples. In this journey, you will walk through the exercises together, receive spiritual direction from us (both as individuals and as a couple), as well as learn how to better accompany and listen to each other on the journey. This will be a powerful time of deepening your own walk with God and learning to do that together. Our hope is that you have a shared spiritually deepening experience together, and also that you learn how to listen to what God is doing in your spouse's life and become a conduit for His grace to them.We’re planning on rolling out the full program in Fall 2023, but this fall and winter we need a few couples to test drive it with us. We’re accepting one or two couples in October, with the possibility of one more couple starting in January. If you’re interested in experiencing this and helping us shape and refine this experience, we would love to chat. There’s more info here and you can reach out to us below. We’ll contact you to set up a time to discuss this a bit further.
Stay tuned for more on spiritual formation in marriage in the coming months! We can’t wait to share more with you.