Cedarville Magazine Fall 2019

DISCIPLESHIP FOR COUPLES Discipleship Ministries offers two programs during the school year to support and encourage biblical, God-honoring marriages: Fit to Be Tied, which is for dating or engaged couples, and Tied and True, which builds up and strengthens newlyweds and young marriages. Think discipleship for marriage. Fit to Be Tied is comprised of five group seminars led by Cedarville faculty and staff members. Then, couples are paired up with a faculty or staff mentor couple from their local church. “They meet regularly throughout the year to discuss the group sessions and how this information plays out in marriage on a day-to-day basis,” explained Aaron Cook ’ 99 , Director of Discipleship Ministries. In addition to the group seminars, student couples also take the SYMBIS Inventory, a premarriage analysis that measures a person’s spending habits, conflict type, level of intimacy, personality, conversation style, and desires. Each Cedarville mentor couple is certified to administer SYMBIS and helps the student couple understand their test results. Tied and True consists of six different panel discussions throughout the school year that are led by faculty and staff couples. They meet in homes for the panel discussions, then meet as gender-specific small groups on a weekly basis working through This Momentary Marriage , a book by John and Noel Piper. Those groups are led by student couples. Aaron and Laurie meet with the leaders for coaching and encouragement, which adds another element of discipleship. Tied and True had almost 30 young couples last year, and Cook anticipates the program growing. “I think there’s just a lot of confusion about marriage in our culture,” Cook said. “There’s so much brokenness that there’s a bit of apprehension and fear, but students are seeing the compelling marriages of our faculty and staff. We want to help them start good conversations in an environment that will point them to biblical truth.” Cook recalled being drawn to the marriages he saw on campus when he was a student. “Dr. (Richard) Blumenstock ’ 63 was a big part of starting Fit to Be Tied, and I saw how he spoke about his wife,” he said. “I remember Paul and Marilyn Ware, seeing their relationship; Glenn ’ 82 and Nancy Knauff; and Tom ’ 80 and Amy Hutchison, and I wanted that. In like fashion, our students are seeing the same thing, and they’re asking the question, ‘How do I build a marriage like that?’” According to Cook, both programs are teaching students to be proactive navigating life and marriage in a biblical way. “We want to take away some of the misunderstandings and incorrect ideas that come from the low view of marriage that we see in society,” he said. “There’s not a single perfect marriage,” Cook added. “We get into trouble when we keep things hidden and we don’t get help. Everyone has issues. We just need to encourage an atmosphere where it’s not only OK, but it’s expected that you look for help.” cultivates happy, resilient, fruitful individuals for the good of others and the glory of God. The maturing Christian radically understands what they deserve because of sin and what they get because of Christ’s righteousness, which produces a thankful person. That person comes across as happy and is a compelling and attractive individual who earns a platform for the Gospel. We want to cultivate those kinds of people, and teach them the process of how transformation happens through beholding Christ in His Word regularly, and then developing friendships that exist to struggle alongside one another toward maturity in Christ (Col. 1:28 ). Between these redemptive, reproducing relationships and this interaction with Christ through His Word, if we can give students a taste for this and develop this sort of a direction in their lives, they will go on. The measure of our success in large part comes 10 to 15 years from now. I tell my students even in the interview process, “I want you to have a great experience here, yes, but I have tremendous expectations of you if you’re going to serve here. And we will see how successful we are in 10 to 15 years. I want to be having conversations with you about your ongoing multiplying discipleship relationships.” That’s the heartbeat of what I’m thinking about all the time. Clem Boyd is Managing Editor of Cedarville Magazine . Cedarville Magazine | 9