Journey to Surrender

I spent the last two posts (here and here) talking about the highlights of what’s been going on here in the last year. Overall it was a great year: I learned a lot, deepened relationships in the blogging community, and grew my readership by about five fold.

I feel like I've really settled into this whole blogging thing and have discovered that I love it!

Today I want to spend looking forward. I want to talk about my plans for the coming year and ask you for some help.


If you read my Hot Topics of 2011 post, you know that my relatively few posts that dealt directly with sex and with specific romantic ideas were among the most popular posts from last year.

So you can expect to see quite a bit more on both of these topics this year.


One of the things that really burns on my heart is reaching more church leaders with the message of the Bridal Paradigm and the power of Surrendered Marriage. But more than just getting more pastors and church leaders to read my blog, I want to equip them with helpful tools that make it easier for them to strengthen the marriages in their churches. Research is clear that those who place a high importance on faith have stronger, more enduring marriages than those who do not, but I want to see the marriages in the church so obviously amazing, strong, happy and successful that people flock to the church (and ultimately to God) to see what it’s all about.

The other group I want to reach more is the young married crowd. Somewhere around 70% of my readers have been married more than ten years. And while I greatly appreciate the longevity that represents and the wisdom that comes from experience, I have a heart to see more young couples embracing what the Bible says about marriage instead of what the culture says about marriage or what the culture says the Bible says about it.


In line with both of these reach-broadening goals, I am putting the finishing touches on the second edition of a 12-week marriage curriculum that I’ll be test-driving in another small group in my own church. I used the first edition last year in a small group that had couples married between about 5 and 25 years, but I'm hoping for more young-marrieds will sign up this time. My hope is to recruit heavily among the recent influx we’ve had of younger married couples. Once the small group cycle ends, I’ll be polishing off the materials over the summer for the third edition and packaging it up to provide to others. If I can possibly find the time, there may even be a companion ebook to go along with it. All very exciting stuff!!

You can probably look for some excerpts from the curriculum and/or the ebook here later this year.


In trying to get an understanding of the needs of my readers, I’ve been taking a fresh look at the results of my New Ready Survey. It’s clear that many of you are looking for some more practical, how-to advice for your marriage (82% express a strong interest). While I intend to continue my “Paradigm in Practice” feature,  I plan to also start offering a few simple, practical tips at the end of many posts.

The same percentage (also 82% strong interest) are looking for how to grow in intimacy. I think more sex and romance posts, as I mentioned above, will help to answer that need, but I also plan to address this topic more specifically. I wrote so much on intimacy in 2010 that last year I kind of backed off from the topic. This important issue probably needs more attention, along with some more practical, “what do I do to build intimacy” tips.

Help Me Out Here!

What have I missed? What topics do you feel are too often neglected by the marriage blogging community, by marriage books or by the church at large? Leave a comment with your suggestions as to what you’d like to read more of here. I welcome the feedback!!