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Every Church Has a Target

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church

If you were to ask most pastors, church leaders or people who attend church, who the target of their church is, this is the answer you will most likely get, “We’re trying to reach everybody.”

This sounds nice, it sounds Christian and loving, but is impossible.

No church is trying to reach everybody. 

Here’s how I know: One, it is impossible. Two, it is impractical.

Think about it like this: the way people dress at your church, the style of preaching, the length of a sermon, the style of music, if you have small groups, MC’s or sunday school classes, the age of people on stage, the look of your building, all of these things decide who will come to your church.

One of the problems churches have is they feel like it is wrong or unloving to have a target.

Churches in the New Testament had a target based on who was there and they contextualized the gospel to their culture and target (who they felt called to).

What is incredible to me is that if you ask a company (Starbucks, Old Navy, Google) who their target is, they know. If you ask a church, the organization with the life saving, life altering truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ who their target is, they don’t know.

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5 Ways to Live When You’re Tired

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rest

It’s the week after Easter. As a pastor, you are tired. Mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally and relationally.

There’s a good chance that you have been preaching almost every week since January 1st. The summer isn’t here yet, so you know it will be a little bit longer before you get a week off of preaching.

The problem is this: you have very little left to give mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, but most of all, spiritually. 

In light of this reality, let me give you 5 ideas to finish the ministry year strong.

  1. Take care of your soul. Pastors spend so much time helping others that we often fail to help ourselves and care for ourselves. Read something soul stirring, something that challenges you and has nothing to do with leadership or your upcoming sermons. Read something just for you. Over the Easter weekend, I read John Ortberg’s new book Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You. Sometimes I read something from John Piper or  Charles Spurgeon. One of my favorite’s for this is Mondays with My Old Pastor: Sometimes All We Need Is a Reminder from Someone Who Has Walked Before Us.
  2. Take your day off. This can be hard to do after Easter. There are people to follow up with, new believers to disciple, people who need to get connected on a serving team or in community. There is a lot to do. You also have volunteers who are tired and sometimes, because you are so tired (and your spouse is tired) you are both on edge and not being at home helps to keep the peace and is easier on things. Don’t fall for that trap. Deal with the issues that come up at home, deal with the heart issues of delegating things. Know that you have all the time you need to accomplish all you want to accomplish. Notice I didn’t say, “all you need to accomplish.” You have time for your day off and accomplishing everything else, you just need to plan better.
  3. Plan your vacation well. You should be taking some time off this summer and when you do, don’t make the mistake of just showing up for vacation and hoping you relax. You need to plan it. How much relaxing are you going to do? I would challenge you to not take phone calls, look at emails, twitter, instagram or facebook. When we go on vacation I hand my phone to Katie, she changes all my passwords for email and social media and then we leave. It is great. I am able to engage with my family fully. Also, what are you going to read on vacation? I’ve said before that pastors need to read more fiction to let their brains take a break. Last year I read all of Daniel Silva’s books and this year I’m working through a series by Vince Flynn.
  4. Be prepared for your vacation. I usually try to take a retreat overnight before vacation. For this reason, I find that the first 2-3 days of vacation and my summer preaching break I am on edge, I have a hard time letting go of ministry, what has happened and engaging with my family. I try to get away for a night, spend time in silence, reading my bible, journaling through the past year, confessing sin, listening to the Holy Spirit about my heart. This is a time that is not sermon or vision focused, it is about my heart. By doing this, I am able to let go of many things that have weighed me down so I can engage with my family and truly rest in the summer.
  5. Spend time with friends or doing something you enjoy. Because of how busy the spring is for ministry, activities, and dealing with sickness, you have probably not spent a lot of time with friends or done the activities you enjoy. Maybe it has been too cold to get outside where you live and you feel it. Take some time for this. Call up those friends and make dinner plans. Set time aside for a hike, gardening, a bike ride or whatever you love that you haven’t been doing.

One of the reasons many people burn out is we don’t think through or work hard at rest and recharging. I think it takes more work to rest than it does to do anything else. We have to focus on it, engage it and let go of other things for it to happen. Rest, recharging, will not just happen. We will not just stumble into it. If you are a pastor, the fall that is coming up is too important for you to limp into it because you failed to make the most of your summer. Don’t make that mistake.

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Fixing What’s Wrong with Your Church

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church

I remember when I was in my 20’s looking for a new church job after seminary and one of my professors told me, “Find a church that you would attend if you didn’t get paid to be there.” Let me ask it another way for pastors, “Would you attend your church if you didn’t get paid to be there?”

The answer for many pastors is a resounding, “No.”

You cannot fix anything at your church, you can’t make lasting change until it is clear you want to be there. 

Here’s why it matters:

  1. You aren’t bought in. If you don’t want to be there, you aren’t bought in. You may tell me you were called there or at least take a paycheck from that church, but you aren’t bought in. You will take the next higher paying job as soon as it comes along. As soon as life with the elders or staff member gets difficult, you will update the resume. If you are not bought in, the first sign of a difficult season will send you packing. I know a guy who simply quits his job whenever it gets hard or he doesn’t like someone he works with. Pastors can be the same. This environment creates little buy in from your church and team.
  2. Others know you aren’t bought in. Your church and your leaders know you aren’t bought in. It is obvious. You have no vision, no excitement for the future, you don’t invite anyone to church, you don’t talk about any conversations you have with non-Christians. You are simply showing up and people know it. Pastors think they hide it but your church is as perceptive as kids are with their parents, they don’t miss anything when they are looking. When it comes to vision and excitement, your church is looking to see what you have.
  3. Without being bought in, you will change the wrong things. If you aren’t bought in and aren’t excited, if you don’t want to be there, you will have no vision. When this happens, you will change what you just learned at a conference. You will come back and start a drama team, start using candles, do dialogue in preaching, have more songs or less songs, preach expository sermons or topical ones depending on what the latest trendy pastors said he is doing. This creates a roller coaster ride for your church. They don’t know what the win is and they get nervous when you go to a conference because of what will change afterwards.

I would say, if you wouldn’t attend the church you work at, find a new church to attend. Notice I didn’t say work at. Be bought in somewhere before working there. This is why, when someone emails Revolution about a job, we tell them to move to Tucson, start attending Revolution and we’ll see what happens. We want people who are bought into our vision and excited about where we are going, not people who want a paycheck.

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Questions Every Blogger & Writer MUST Answer

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blogger

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about why every leader and pastor should blog. If you decide to blog, here are a couple of things you need to think through:

  1. Why. Most people struggle with what to blog about, more on that in a minute. Why are you blogging? Why is it worth your time? If your goal with blogging is to build a platform to write a book, that’s a poor reason. Do you want to help people? Serve people? Get better at writing? Be famous? It is important to have a stated goal when it comes to your blog. Not everyone should blog. If you don’t have a compelling reason to start blogging, once the fad of it wears off, you will quit.
  2. What. This is the content. For me, I blog about things I find interesting and helpful. I blog about leadership, books, preaching, family, marriage, NFL, fantasy football, crossfit. Things I like. I assume that there are others out there who are interested in what I am interested in and so far, that seems to be the case. I will share things I think will be helpful to my readers and my church, things I’m learning, things I want to rant about, things about my kids and Katie. Some blogs are focused on one topic, which is great if that’s what you want to do. You should have a focus though, a grid that helps you decide what you do and don’t blog about.
  3. How often. This right here is one reason most blogs fail. They don’t blog enough. You can read about how to design a blog, what plug-ins to use, how to connect it to social media (and you should do all this). If you don’t blog on a regular basis, your blog will not get off the ground. I probably blog too much, but that’s my choice. Some blog 3 times a week or everyday. The point is, your readers need to know how often you will blog. People will tire of checking back on your blog for new information and it isn’t there, they will give up. I would say someone should start blogging when they can do it 3 times a week.

Blogging takes work, it is a job in many ways. You will spend hours writing, working on ideas, finding pictures for posts, responding to comments, looking for links to share and doing it all over again.

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5 Things I want Katie to Say about me After 50 Years

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anniversary

Sunday, Katie and I celebrated 12 years of being married. It is hard to believe that the cute girl I met on a soccer field in Toronto, Canada in 1995 is my wife. I am blessed beyond measure.

This year after preaching a lot on legacy to Revolution Church I sat down and thought through 5 things I want Katie to say about me after 50 years. One thing I am convinced of is that nothing great happens without intentionality. I’m not going to magically become a great husband or father. Our marriage isn’t going to accidentally be great.

Here’s something I want to challenge you with, which is where this came from. If you make it to 50 years of marriage, you’ll probably have a big party. It is becoming so rare to make it that long. But if you do (and I hope you do), you will probably renew your vows or say something to your spouse. What will they say to you in that moment? I thought about what I would like Katie to say to me and wrote them down.

Here they are:

  1. I’m more like Jesus because of you. According to Ephesians 5, a husband is to wash his wife in the word of God, he is to pastor her, to disciple her, to give her space to grow in her relationship with Jesus and become who God has called her to be. Many women face an up hill battle because of past hurts, past relationships, possible abuse and then as they walk into marriage with their junk, they marry a man with a ton of junk of his own. It is hard to move past this and become free. One of my prayers for Katie has been that she would be freed from anything that would hinder her. This is God’s grace in action, but it also takes work on the part of both spouses. Daily I want to encourage her to spend time with Jesus. Getting out of the house on a regular basis to sit and journal and read her bible. To have space for Jesus to shape her and work on her heart.
  2. I’ve grown in my art because of you. Katie is incredibly creative, but she is also incredibly giving and will give to others at the expense of her gifts. Two years ago, we started to change this. I signed her up for a photography class, got her a camera and then this past year, upgraded all her camera and computer equipment so she could keep growing. Too many men (and I did this for years) simply take and take from their wife and never allow her to use her gifts, develop them and use her art. I love watching her art develop and use her gifts. I joke that one day she can work and I’ll retire! Seriously, it is such a joy to watch it grow and see others find value in what she does and the eye that she has for art.
  3. We really did have good times and hard times, but we made it through both. Marriage is a mix of good times and hard times. These times are sometimes short and sometimes long. We’ve had hard seasons of marriage and easy seasons. We will have hard and easy seasons ahead as well. Marriage is about lasting. It’s been said that the most important day of marriage is not your first day but your last. If we’ve made it to 50 years, that means we survived the celebrations and the pain. We’ve had joy and sorrow. We’ve laughed and cried together. But we made it together.
  4. You kept your eyes on me. Men are visual and consequently, many of the sins that entangle them stem from their eyes. I want Katie to look at me 50 years from now and say, “You kept your eyes on me. You were fascinated by me. You are entranced by me.” This is a daily choice that a husband makes. This a choice he makes as he watches a movie, gets on the internet, watches a football game when they cheerleaders come in. This is a minute by minute decision that men make. I’ve never heard a man who stayed pure, fought an addiction to porn, fought to keep his eyes for his wife, I’ve never heard that man say, “I missed out.” I’ve heard countless men who won’t fight their porn addiction, let the eyes linger on a swimsuit issue or victoria’s secret magazine say, “I have regrets. I wish I did things differently.”
  5. I’m ready for 50 more years. I hope that when we celebrate our 50th anniversary (as I’m 72 and she’s 70) that she looks at me and says, “Let’s do 50 more.” The true test of a marriage is if the couple would do it all over again. Sure they’d like to take back conversations, financial decisions, job changes or arguments, but can they look at each other and say, “I’d say yes to you all over again.” If Katie will look at me (I’m probably bald and still doing 72 year old crossfit) and say, “I’d marry you again, you oldie but goodie.” I’ll take it.
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Getting Married is Easier than Staying Married

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married

On Sunday, while Katie and I were eating dinner on our back porch for our anniversary she mentioned to me that I didn’t write an anniversary post or things I’ve learned about marriage as I’ve done in the past (see here). As we sat there, and having just heard the news about Pastor Bob Coy resigning over moral failing and being reminded that everyone (including me) is one choice away from wrecking their life. I was reminded of this one simple marital truth:

Getting married is easier than staying married. 

Every year, lots of people get married and every year sadly, lots of people end their marriages in divorce. Getting married is easy. You simply need someone to marry and a person to perform the ceremony. Staying married, lasting to year 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 takes work.

Getting married is easier than staying married.

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Someone asked me last week who knew it was our anniversary what is one piece of advice I’d give to a young couple. It is this: Staying married is the hardest thing you will do. It will require more work than you imagine, but it will be better than you can imagine if you do. 

With that in mind, here are 5 ways to stay married:

  1. Grow close to Jesus. This may seem obvious, but if you stray from Jesus, stop reading your bible, feel your relationship with Jesus suffer, lots of things go wrong. Your desire to fight sin goes down. Your desire to serve your spouse goes down. Your desire to love your spouse goes down. Your desire to stay pure goes down. All because of one thing.
  2. Keep your relationship first (behind God). Your kids matter and you love them. Your kids come after your marriage. One of the fastest ways from going from a great marriage to being roommates is placing your kids above your spouse. One day, your kids will be gone and you will have only your spouse. At this point, most couples split because they no longer need to stay together for the kids and they have nothing in common. Don’t let that happen. This doesn’t mean you neglect your kids and not do anything with them, but it means they come after your marriage. Not sure where you stand on this, here are 10 ways to know you are putting your kids in front of your marriage.
  3. Know affection is the first thing to go and fight against that. Affection is what goes first. Kissing when you say goodbye, holding hands, snuggling. Life is busy, you know your spouse, you have them now, your kids are climbing all over you, you are running late, you are tired and want to sleep, you are worried if you snuggle he will want sex and you just want to go to sleep. All of these things happen to couples who couldn’t keep their hands off each other at one time. Fight this. When you kiss, kiss for 5-10 seconds. Throw some tongue in when you are just saying hello or goodbye. Gross your kids out. Hold hands in the car. Kiss at a red light. Snuggle at night. I’ve said this before and people tell me I’m wrong, but I’m not: the amount of sex you have, the amount of affection you have, is one of the best barometers for where your marriage is. Show me a couple with little affection and little sex, and I will show you a couple going in opposite directions.
  4. Religiously keep a weekly date night. Date night is one of the most important things a couple can do. Every week. Protect it with your life. When we first started doing a date night, we protected it religiously. Nothing interfered with that. Now that we are in the habit, we often move the night to fit our schedule. Here are some ideas for doing date night at home, some rules we have for date night and some help for when date night falls apart.
  5. Protect your heart, emotions, mind, eyes and body. Every week I hear about another pastor who has resigned because of committing adultery. I counsel couples all the time who are getting a divorce because he won’t stop looking at porn, she won’t stop reading romance novels and fantasizing, one of them cheated, one of them doesn’t want to fight for their marriage and work at it. All kinds of reasons, all kinds of excuses, and all of them are simply heartbreaking. Protect yourself. Your marriage, your family, your life and legacy matters too much for it to fall apart.
5 ways to stay married.

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How Many Times a Year Should a Pastor Preach

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preaching

The other day a church planter I coach asked me. “How many times a year should I preach?”

The answer to this question depends on the person, church, philosophy and what the person can handle. While most churches have one person who preaches the majority of the time (ie. 40-48 times a year), some churches have a team where people preach an equal amount of split in some fashion.

When we started Revolution Church, I preached 98 times in the first 2 years. This was partly because we didn’t have anyone else to preach, my desire to get better as a preacher, but also I felt the need to help set the tone of what our church would be like. This was tiring.

Now, the elders have set a goal for me to preach at least 40 times a year. This allows me to preach the most (which is important for the church, which I’ll talk about in a minute) and still develop other communicators. As I get older, I could see this number going down so others can be preaching and developing their gift.

I think it is important for a church to know the person who communicates regularly. This creates a normalcy to church, people know what to expect and they feel connected to a communicator.

The other question a pastor has to ask is how he will break his weeks up.

I’ve learned, my limit for preaching in a row is 10 weeks. Other guys it might be 8 or 13. Around week 10 I start to get incredibly run down mentally and spiritually and feel like my tank is low. I shoot to make sure I have a week off from preaching at least every 10 weeks. Some times I’m able to make that happen and other times because of the season of our church, I can’t.

One question a lot of young planters wrestle with is: when to take a break. 

Each year, before I put together my preaching calendar of topics, I pull out the school calendar (district in my area and the university of Arizona) and see when the breaks are. We run on a year round school system here so we get 6 weeks of summer instead of 3 months. This means we have random breaks in October and March when Tucson seems to shut down. These breaks are great times to have another person preach. The sunday after thanksgiving and the 4th of July, the Sunday of Memorial Day and Labor Day and the last Sunday of the year and the first Sunday of the year are great weeks to take off from preaching and have someone else do it (that’s 6 right there).

I also shoot for a 3 week break from preaching at some point in the summer. The benefits to this are enormous for you personally and your church. This is when I plan the next year of sermons, work ahead, work on my own soul and take a vacation with my family.

But what do you do on a week off?

For many pastors or people in their church, the idea of the pastor having a week off from preaching sounds like he is taking a week off from everything. This is an opportunity for you as a pastor to work ahead on sermons, think through a series coming up, meet with leaders to plan ahead or evaluate a ministry, go to a conference, take an extended spiritual retreat to be with Jesus.

If you aren’t proactive, you will waste these weeks off.

So, why do pastor’s preach too much and burnout?

For some, it is a pride issue. They don’t want to give up control of the pulpit. They think if they aren’t at church, it will cease to exist and fall apart. This gets to the heart of who is building your church, you or Jesus.

For some pastor’s, they truly don’t have anyone else who can handle it. This is a tough spot to be in. You can use a video sermon from a pastor of a large church like Craig Groeschel or Andy Stanley (we do that once a year simply to expose our church to some great speakers and authors that I think would benefit them).

The bottom line is, you get to choose this as a pastor. The choice you make though has an enormous affect on your health and the health of your church.

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Surviving a Hard Season in Your Marriage

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marriage struggles

Let’s be honest for a minute, at some point in your marriage you are going to hit a hard season. It could be caused by a busy schedule, a child is born, difficulty getting pregnant, some kind of sickness, debt or bills, health of in-laws, drama with some kind of family member or friend, loss of job, the list is endless.

But how do you know if it is a hard season and not something else?

Here are some things that are true of a hard season: lack of intimacy and sex, lack of communication, long silences between you and your spouse, constant arguing, a lot of misunderstandings or miscommunications, or just the feeling that you are ships passing through the night.

The reality is, at some point you will feel like this, you may even feel like it right now. So what do you do?

7 ways to survive a hard season in marriage.

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Here are 7 ways to not only survive a hard season, but to come out of it stronger:

  1. Identify why you are in this season. Both spouses know when they are in this season. Men would like to ignore it, bulldoze through it or just fix it to move forward. Sometimes you need to spend more time talking about something to fix it, sometimes it is so obvious that you can quickly fix it and move on.
  2. Talk through what got you to this season. Don’t just identify that life is hard, that your marriage is in a tough spot. Identify how you got there. Is it overscheduling? Do you need to cut back at work? Do you need to pick up the pace on date night? Do you need to communicate more? Do you need to have more sex in your marriage?
  3. Apologize for any sin on your part. Make things right. If you are in a hard season as a couple, both of you sinned. Almost every problem in marriage has sin from both spouses, don’t just point fingers at the other. Own your sin, apologize and make it right.
  4. Figure out the weaknesses in your marriage that need to become strengths. You may have gotten to a hard season because you aren’t organized, don’t have a plan to get out of debt or you aren’t doing well to get everything done at work so you are overworking. Find a couple, find a person who is can help. Someone who is smarter than you at your weakness and ask for help. I think when we look for coaches, we often look for someone who can help us with everything, that is foolish. If it is finances, get with someone who has no debt and is doing great with their finances and say, “help me.”
  5. Get rid of what got you to this place. Recently, Katie and I walked through a hard season that came from adding kids to our family, my job expanding and getting busier and I was saying yes to too many things. We pulled back on some activities as a family, made some changes to how we do our schedule and cut some things out. This is hard, but you have to let go of or change what got you to this season. You may need to not sign up for an activity, back out of the PTA or say no to a promotion at work. Why? Your marriage needs you to.
  6. Outlast the season. If you are in a hard season that simply means you are married. Too many couples look at a hard season and want to throw in the towel, don’t. Your marriage means too much, the ripple affects to how your marriage goes are enormous. Don’t believe me? Talk to a friend who grew up in a broken home and ask them how that has impacted their life. Fight for your marriage.
  7. Plan to not repeat this season. No one plans to have a tough season in marriage, but it happens. It often happens because we lose our bearings, we let sin enter our hearts or we don’t have a plan to protect our marriage. Have a plan to protect your marriage: how will you stay out of debt? How will you protect a weekly date night? How will you keep communication and sex a priority in your marriage? If you don’t talk through this step, you will end up repeating a hard season and they are much harder the second time around because you will feel even more defeated and helpless than you already do.
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Why Change Fails

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change

If you talk to any leader or pastor, they will tell you stories of changes, new ideas and initiatives failing. Even if, the new program would do better than the old program.

Churches are notorious for change failing.

Why quit having a class when no one comes? Because someone’s grandmother started that ministry 35 years ago. Why add drums or change how worship is done? Why bring in lights or projectors? Why should we change how we do discipleship since the way it is happening right now is not developing leaders or disciples? Because we’ve always done it this way. 

Going right along with this is a failure on the part of pastors and leaders to engage change well.

In his book Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds, Carmine Gallo makes this comment:

People don’t know what they want and, if they do, they have a hard time articulating what they truly desire.

The average person, when you ask them if they prefer A or B, they don’t know what they would prefer. They only know what they have experienced.

If your church only does Sunday School and you begin exploring small groups, people who have never experienced them will be resistant. Especially because pastors don’t know how to ask. They ask if “they would go to a home group?” “NO” is the resounding answer.

When a church begins exploring a second service, all people can think of is what they lose if the church goes to 2 services and how it will change their life and bring them a different experience.

Churches exploring multi-site and video preaching run into the same thing. People in your church only have one lens to look through, what they know and have experienced. 

A better way to change something is to ask:

  • Would you be open to trying a small group in a house?
  • Would you be open to going to an earlier service so we can open up seats for guests?
  • Would you be open to attending a church plant we send out?
  • Would you be open to trying a church with video preaching?

Now, when they say no and someone will, you are having a different conversation. Now you are talking about vision and buy in. Now you are talking about idols, resistance to change, what their fears are to new things. You also have an opportunity to help a person wrestle through what they don’t know and helping them see that they don’t know something. This is a great opportunity to shepherd someone into new things and help lead them.

Leaders, we need to learn how to ask better questions.

Four years into the life of Revolution Church we changed from meeting on Saturday nights in a church building to Sunday morning in a school. We had to raise $50,000 to go portable, set everything up and tear it all down and we changed days and times. There was some resistance. But we asked people if they would be open to trying it. Most everyone said they would try it. Same when we transitioned from semester small groups that met for 12 weeks to moving our church to being on mission in missional communities.

Leader, as you lead change, ask better questions to move your people and your church forward.

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A Simple Way to Build Love into Your Marriage

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love

Every marriage is different and every person is different, but every marriage has one thing in common. A desire to be closer and to be more in love. While some couples may feel distant and feel like the fun and love has worn off from their marriage, but it is never too late.

I’m always sad whenever I hear couples talk as if their marriage is as good as it can get.

So, how do you build love back into a loveless marriage? How do you rekindle love that feels like has worn out? How do you feel more fulfilled and happier on your marriage?

Honestly, it isn’t as hard as you might think.

The next time you are with your spouse ask them: What is one thing I can do to make your life more enjoyable? To make you feel more loved? To lessen the stress in your life?

The answers might be: to have coffee ready in the morning, to pick up your clothes, to pick up the kids at school, to have dinner ready by a certain time, to have a meal plan for the week, cleaning the kitchen up before going to bed, no smartphones after 8pm. It might more affection, more date nights, more time alone for mom, more sex, more talking, more face to face activities (what women enjoy) or more shoulder to shoulder activities (which men enjoy). It might be a huge request or a small one.

About 2 years ago, Katie and I were beginning to feel like we had settled into a routine in our marriage that wasn’t good, we asked each other this conversation. We began to see how we had taken the other for granted and what would begin building back into our relationship. Revisiting this conversation can be incredibly helpful for couples.

A Simple Way to Build Love into Your Marriage.

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Now a word of warning. There is a chance that what your spouse will say is something you don’t want to do or think you are already doing and they should be grateful for what you do. It can be easy to blow off what your spouse wants because you don’t want it. This response can be destructive to your marriage because your spouse will probably not mention it again and a divide will begin in your relationship.

As you move forward from this conversation, try it out for a week. See how it goes. Try it out for a month and then evaluate it. You may find it isn’t so bad. Your spouse may decide they really don’t want what they requested as much as they thought.

In the end, you are moving towards bringing love back into your marriage, and that is never a bad thing.