Books & Resources
Starting Out, Preparing Yourself for Marriage.
Preparing Yourselves for Marriage
Helpful, frank and searching questions to ask yourselves before saying, “I do”.
One of the biggest choices most of us will ever make is the decision to get married. Yet, apart from the frantic months of wedding preparation, many couples do surprisingly little to prepare themselves for the marriage itself.
We think that’s a mistake.
Starting Out was written specifically with marriage preparation in mind. It isn’t simply a book telling you what marriage should look like. It’s designed to get you talking to each other and, together, talking to God, involving Him in your discussion.
Think. Share. Discuss. Pray.
Starting Out is both a teaching manual and a platform for thought and conversation.
As you work through each chapter, you are encouraged to consider questions about your beliefs, experiences, expectations and the life you’ve lived so far. Then you talk about them together.
These are the Thought Stops.
At the end of each chapter come the Sozo Stops — opportunities for both of you to ask Father God, Jesus and Holy Spirit what He wants you to know.
Why ask difficult questions before you get married?
Because marriage joins two lives together, and we don’t arrive at marriage as blank sheets of paper. We bring our experiences, families, expectations, assumptions and hopes.
We also bring our disappointments and our ideas about money, sex, children, work, faith, family and relationships.
Some of those things will be obvious to us. Some won’t.
Starting Out creates a safe opportunity to begin talking about them before they become surprises inside your marriage.
You can work through it yourselves
The book can be used by couples on their own or alongside someone helping them with Marriage Preparation. It is also proving useful to married couples as a refresher and a way of starting conversations that may otherwise never happen.
And it forms the basis of our Marriage Preparation ministry
Our Marriage Preparation programme uses Starting Out as its manual and starting point. We offer a series of sessions by Zoom, tailored to the couple — typically four, six or eight sessions depending on what is appropriate.
EXPERIENCES SHARED
What people have said
“This book is an essential read for every single person. Full of practical advice and brilliant thought-provoking questions, it is very helpful to walk into a relationship with an understanding of purpose and knowing the common goal. I thoroughly recommend to every single person and anyone in any stage of relationship that is seeking and preparing for potential marriage.”
“Foundations are vitally important in any new venture. They are essential in a new marriage. “Starting Out” is a wonderful tool to help a couple start to develop those foundations. The questions are incisive and will help a couple talk about things that maybe they have not thought about. The prayer encouragements are so helpful to lead a couple out of the mire of mistakes into a new freedom. I pray that couples will use this resource and that church leaders will use it in their churches.”
“The Starting Out manual has a lot of content that helps couples to observe every area of marriage; from wholeness as individuals to merging as one. The topics were easy to digest and understand, also quite interactive. Something we can always refer back to. We found the content very useful it was full of gems and was very enlightening. There was lots of new content that we had never heard anywhere else; particularly the chapter on children, the questions were thought-provoking and one we haven’t ever discussed in personal conversations but it created the space to do so The “Thought Steps” were very helpful, they allowed us to pray and think things through and also in some instances discuss amongst ourselves.”