hello Dale Partridge here you're listening to an episode from the real Christianity archive Veronica and I originally began this podcast under the name ultimate marriage as a resource for online marriage Mentor program found at ultimate marriage.com program is still a critical part of her Ministry after about 30 episodes we decided to change the name of this podcast to real Christianity as a way to widen the scope of our Biblical content that said these are some of our most popular episodes so please enjoy and stay with us on the journey to bring the church back to the Bible
 welcome to the ultimate marriage podcast has the very first episode where super excited my name is Dale Partridge and we have been married now for coming up on 9 year did together almost 10 years here and so excited for that we want to set your expectations about what the podcast is about so a couple things one is it if you're listening to this on audio that there's actually a video of it so we have these are available for you to watch on YouTube or an ultimate marriage.com if you're watching it on video the know that it's also a podcast that you can download and listen to in a while you're driving so before we get started I just want to again just set the expectations about what these episodes are about what we're here to accomplish and a little bit of our story as well as just you know what we what our mission is here I don't want marriage and how we hope this podcast will actually serve you well
 so a couple things this to start off and I promise I'll let Veronica speak because I'm the guy that it will definitely speak too much but we have a dilemma here the main reason we started this whole movement is that we want you to have a normal Christian marriage now just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal see it's very common to have a divorce it's very common to have a a angry husband is very common to have a workaholic husband it's very common to have a disrespectful wife it's not normal and the Bible is what tells us what is normal
 for the Christian family for the Christian marriage and we want you guys to have a normal Christian marriage we have not invented some crazy revolutionary philosophy on marriage this is what we've done is we've just looked at with the words says and apply that to our lives a normal Christian marriage is filled with two people who love God more than they love each other and that is kind of what we tried to create her now we know this her experience because there was a time in our marriage that we had a very common marriage but we didn't have a normal Christian marriage and maybe you can just tell what Ronica what was it like
 8 years ago for a marriage
 so when we got married we're so excited to enter into this new season of life and within two weeks probably lose in the first month for sure it was
 so much harder than we thought it would be and I think that it was mostly just our own selfishness we were both very prideful it was kind of going into the marriage like this is who you get this is you married and we had just a really bad perspective we had no idea what the Bible actually said about marriage and yet we fought we've you know if you seen the video on our homepage we threaten divorce before in our arguments I remember times of you running out yeah yeah yeah and I'm so this is absolutely part of our story we know what it's like to have a common marriage and end our marriage now it's great it's been great for several years and we want to share on how we got there and how you can get there as well so I want to share a little bit about her story
 because I think a lot of you guys have asked us like what you do how did you guys meet and how long has been married and what does it all look like so I'm going to let Veronica just kind of start off where we kind of rekindle we knew each other earlier when we were younger but we rekindled our relationship over rock climbing and Veronica tell that story
 yeah
 1415 something like that you were 19 or 20 because he dated my sister it's a real thing we didn't see each other for 56 years or so and then we ran into each other about five or six years later and Dales first comments to me were Veronica your old and hot now this is a real story Google what do you say to that you're old and hot now by old she was 19 but it wasn't yours
 I had it ran into him that day because it's so crazy I'm running into you cuz I was just talking about you a few days ago and saying hi Miss rock climbing and when you and my sister were dating are you still past years ago and I would go rock climbing with you guys and for some reason it just popped in my head I was talking to somebody about hi mr. Climbing and then you said oh well that's funny that you bring that up because I actually just open up my own rock climbing gym I'd love for you to come check it out and I was like oh that's awesome and so I think two or three days later I went rock climbing there and then got a membership and was just kind of a regular climber and we became friends and became friends and then we we've realized that I'd become a Christian should become a Christian since we had last seen each other and we talked about starting a Bible study at the Rock Climbing Gym on Sunday nights and we actually started this
 this is Bible study and that's kind of a relationship I kept asking her on dates over and over again and she said no no no it's not going to happen. I'm not going to go on a date with you I decided that no she's going to go on a date with me at some point so I'm just going to keep going and I actually told her that I was going to marry her before she wanted a date with me yeah and I just laughed at him if you can't even get me to go on a date with you how do you expect to marry me because I'm not going to go on a date with you he's got to be prophetic and so I was like almost ignoring him what's up I just want to know why you won't go on a date with me like why like I could just cuz you did my sister it's weird you're five years of four and a half five years older than me like just weird and
 and we finally when I said fine I'll go on a date with you but it's only to get you to stop asking me to go on a date with you
 friends and obviously that didn't work so this was our first date was ice skating and one of those places that you make your own food into cooking we dated for 8 months I asked her to marry me on a gondola ride in Newport Harbor which is a story for another time I had a ton funny moments and then we were married at one year so pretty much one year when we started dating one year later we were married and we by God's grace stayed pure we we we both came from relationships that had struggle with that in the past and so we built a testimony that we could tell our kids honestly that Mom and Dad worked hard at that and
 then we got married and it was horrible
 but it's true it was just a bad situation and we had no idea what we were doing and so around the first year we we just work try to make it up on around we were innovating we were trying to kind of invent what marriage should be we we never really seen it by by several couples modeled really well and I we've never had a healthy marriage model to work yeah yeah I'm so this was just a part of our reality so you can't create what you haven't seen and that is just a truth that is very difficult at least to create something you've never seen or experienced in and we were allowing our emotions to dictate what was right for a turn and I forgot a diamondback in the church relationships we met our good friends Aaron Jen Smith
 to get entered the we started going to a marriage Ministry on Wednesday nights better better than till your for where things really like improved and made a drastic difference and so this was this was a huge turn for us we decided actually if you guys don't know I started several companies and this is got to be difficult for a woman to be married to this because that was that was a crazy season of life I mean I'm still on an entrepreneur obviously has the podcast we started at that point life turned around I finally turned around when we met our first Christian mentored we had lots of lots of mentors it was the first time that someone really discipled us though like spiritually fathering us spiritually mothering us because I did not like the pastor that's on the stage that you get the keynote presentation every week that you've actually never gone to dinner with but you keep keep going to listen to hear and talk that wasn't the case with this
 couple the cast of the house church we were intrigued with house church and they started pouring into our lives as as almost like their children and this really changed our are like what what you think was a big change with our relationship in our life
 I think the authority that they spoke into our lives was huge and it just kind of came down to
 do you want to live your life according to what the word of God says you say that your Christian you say that you follow the Bible
 do you actually apply it to your life
 what about these areas
 hey Dale Partridge here last year I heard a disturbing statistic only eleven percent of Christians have read the entire Bible now we can't wonder why the church is being influenced by the culture more than the culture is being influenced by the church you see the vast majority of Christians don't know God's word because they've never read it we cannot live out what we do not understand Veronica and I want to challenge you right now to read the Bible in one year we put together a basic 365-day reading plan it'll take you no longer than 20 minutes per day and you can download it for free at ultimate marriage.com Bible again that's ultimate marriage.com Bible now let's dive back into the show
 yeah and we we noticed it I mean almost every church-going Christians are to go yeah yeah for the Bible like you know they're going to check that box off on the test I believe in the Bible but it didn't have any jurisdiction or authority in the way that we actually behaved and lived and that was a big shift for us that I were actually going to spend the next episode talking a lot about that about what's happening what's your relationship with the Bible because this was the word of God saved our marriage that is absolutely a true statement and so now fast-forward several years later we've been in deep relationship with these people with no actually we have three kids and so if you want to share about our kids and and what that looks like just for people that maybe are due to the podcast into our story
 brickheadz our daughters oldest Aria she is four and a half and then we have our son on ER who is two and a half and then we have our other son Valor who is just turned one yeah and and we hope for more work where I'm adjusting my mic so deal with me guys we hope for more we're excited for a big family that could be four or five or seven or nine or ten I don't know we don't put a number on it we just kind of go Lord what are you doing with us because of you that our hearts to that I'm it's a very scary big boy and big girl face right there and here in Central Oregon Waste we move from Southern California and now we live on a small 7 Acre Farm and sand in central or overlooking the mountains we have four seasons hear it's really great I'm studying theology a mixture between settings urology at the Oxford Centre of for Christian apologetics and also
 setting at Western Seminary doing some biblical Theology and hermeneutics there so I'm actually very much in the word I'm running and I together have planted the church at our home and we are a house searching and so I am very much pastoring and what that looks like in did you ever think that you were going to marry a pastor when you married me
 now I married you or the other guy
 crazy for that we're in Ministry be there for you and I started dating so I mean I always assumed that I would be in Ministry at some point but when I married you know because you were so into business. So yeah we have a house church and every weekend learning the word and trying to teach it and preach it and it is at a definite change in chips in our our world that we never thought of books that just came out today from success and not promoting I'm just letting you guys know about our story I'm a writer Veronica I'm just pulling her out of her shell she just like wants someone to make the decisions for her she's very indecisive she needs a coach to kind of move her along
 but when it comes to like our home I'm very yes exactly like my domain at our house is ordered like a machine because Veronica is super organized we're also debt-free that's one big thing I think it's important because it has Authority in the way that we're going to speak to you guys about money at some point and we've paid off okay
 when we got married before we became one as a single person I was dead free married into debt I had $80,000 in debt to Best Buy due to the IRS stupid stupid stuff and yeah car Veronica comes in like a couple thousand dollars in my bank account and no debit I'm like great welcome to the crowd of idiots over here and so we paid off our are all of that debt over a period of about 4 years and then we started jumping away at our cars and then we started chugging away at our mortgage and that was not easy what we we ran into some money and terms of businesses were sold and and opportunities were were were available to us and you know what the least sexiest idea to do with a bunch of money
 is the pay off your mortgage exciting thing I could buy three more rental properties with this or whatever
 No it should be off from work at Veronica the voice of reason right here the reservoir of wisdom right here
 yeah so we don't want to do it we actually just for a long time try to double our our mortgage payments and when we try to Triple our mortgage payments and there was a couple Seasons where we are doing really well and we quadrupled the payments and and then if we came back down to the lower-income Four Seasons cuz I'm an entrepreneur and that's what income looks like if you go up and down we would pay the the bare minimum and so
 the last thing that it's a really important that you guys know about us is that we watch way too much Everybody Loves Raymond okay so some people like watch friends and Seinfeld or whatever else is going on our Everybody Loves Raymond folk over here falling asleep so many times. Yeah so that it's one of those things that just plays in the background and yeah not the greatest representation of marriage moral in comparison to maybe like friends or something like that it's as much more clean that way so
 so I want to tell you guys it's about a little bit of a I think what really shifted us as a as a as a married couple is a quote that Matt Jacobson who was the guy that disciple Dawson disciple nice a person that's got it kids and married for twenty-five years lots of fruit of the tree and he told me this quote that he uses all the time it says if you believe wrong you'll never live strong and so it's worth writing that one down if you believe wrong you'll never live strong and Veronica and I might we believe the wrong about marriage and we didn't know necessarily what
 you do when you don't know what you can't believe correctly you improvise exactly what culture tells you what to believe and you do marriage doesn't need our help God doesn't need us to innovate the structure of marriage there already is a blueprint and a plan that works quite well if you just submit and yield your heart to following that and and rock and I want to just make that clear is that we are not having some revolutionary approach to marriage what that looks like for us is that we have a complementarian view of marriage mean that that she is compliments me and I compliment her I am the spiritual leader of the home that is something that that is shown in 1st Corinthians chapter 11 I was also shown and and a fusion chapter 5 and we spend a lot of time trying to walk out what those rolls look like Veronica is
 the heart of her Ministry is the home she is fulfilling the Great Commission with our children and what does it look like for you to be a Biblical wife
 a question off-the-cuff well I
 I want to honor the Lord and whatever it is that I do and it's a lord is called me as a wife to submit to my husband I consider it an honor to follow what the word of God says so I know I'm going to submit to my husband and his leadership and whatever that looks like I don't necessarily I mean now I think we've come a long way where we can talk about it and it's fine but in the beginning when I was adjusting to submitting I didn't necessarily always agree with you and it's not that we don't have those conversations if there's something that I'm struggling with we can have those conversations and talk about very openly and you get to listen to me and unloving and understanding way
 and But ultimately you have final call and I submit to whatever that is
 yeah and what is the answer there's nothing scarier for a wife then following a man who isn't following God that's a very scary thing that Del loves me I know that he has his best interest for myself and for our family and so I trust
 I trust your decisions and it took time to get there and she actually yelled it before she got there so just know that that's a really important point cuz it doesn't say how you know why it's about your husband's only if they make great decisions it that's the hard part now husband's I'm going to hit you guys so hard on this podcast that women just just know that I'm not just piling on the you guys hard here the guys have a lot of work to be doing in terms of what it means to be a Biblical man in the biblical husband for me that means I don't just
 I don't just have the independent relationship with God I actually Steward that throughout the home I help Veronica I take her along with a journey that I am going on I don't look at pornography I don't entertain thoughts of other women I respect her I have a I'd I recognize the reservoir of wisdom that sits within my wife and this but at the end of the day yeah there is I mean tell me how many companies do great with two CEOs
 none tell me how many countries do great with two presidents none okay it doesn't work anywhere the idea of an egalitarian marriage is very popular and culture today where I always say this equal value different remember that we have equal value and we have different roles and so does she have any last value before the Lord no no we have equal value in different roles and so this is our hope is just again to share what it means to take you guys on a journey whether it's things that you do talk about culture whether that's things that need to be discussed from a curriculum standpoint of walking you guys down that road
 Jimmy Evans has a great quote and then we'll transition to some stuff that I'm going to ask Veronica Jimmy Evans has a great quote he says your marriage has 100% chance of success if you do it God's way and not your own
 and that's something we've learned and so we're going to do some 20 to 30 minute episodes and do you remember what I told you about the format you want to share it
 it is in terms of 10 to 15 minutes so okay call my wife off here to 15 minutes just a lesson and then we're going to answer to this request at the how is this been helpful for people we've been asking questions for like we've answered questions for a lot of marriages on the internet so far what's been what what your kind of impulse on that back that we get him on some of the like live interviews we've done for Q and A's has been great I mean people are no I was really convicted when I heard your answer to this response so I tried walking it out in my own marriage and I'm already seeing the fruits of that me and my husband are so much more connected and so I'm just I praise God that's awesome I'm so how much need is there for your guidance
 are we get messages every day every day and it's hard stuff I mean some of the deepest darkest stuff and we want to be able to help we are geographically in relation Ali strangers to these people do you know so so all we can do is give advice on a general sense and hope that you guys get to have the application in your marriage and whatever way that seems wise. We're going to do this every Wednesday so new shows go to be dropping out every Wednesday and if you guys have questions so we're going to do 15 minutes of a lesson and then 15 minutes of 10 to 15 minutes of answering your questions if you have a question all you have to do is just go to support at ultimate marriage.com email that address and we will get your questions and we will if they fit for the show that will put him in the shower
 a couple things before we close because we're going to just try to keep his episode short is that you can you can watch these videos of these podcast on YouTube and you can just go to ultimateears.com YouTube and it'll take you to the YouTube channel and then
 we're going to give you guys a memory verse every single week now it might sound Elementary but I do try and read my Bible every day I get you know five out of seven days at least and yeah there were times I want to know scripture I want to study it but especially in the season I'm in with my reading right now is I'm just reading through the whole Bible and my goal is just to read through the whole Bible I don't have a lot of time to just study it right now I'm going to do that after I read through the whole Bible and so when I want to learn scripture especially marriage baster you know family-oriented scripture
 I just love that you know this gives me a challenge every week to to do it I do it with my kids so why not do we need for our families and for our house and some men that everyday are like house running has got like everything meticulously organized I have some kids got sticker plans to what's going on so awesome man I expect you guys to to memorize the scripture don't you can't tell your family and your wife and your children to study the word and help to memorize scripture if you haven't done it yourself we have to lead by example we have to actually be able to say to your wife and to your children and two other couples follow my example or follow our example as we follow Christ and so the memory verse this week is Proverbs 18:22 he who finds a wife finds a good thing and a bad
 favor from the Lord okay you find a good thing so if you're single person cuz I think we're going to have quite a few singles that are going to listen to this
 yeah why it's a good thing so that 3 year dating relationship needs to kind of turn the knobs and get married here pretty soon and then the last thing we talked about it we're going to do a retreat and so want to share a little bit about that
 we done last we talked about it last and how fun it was so our last the last summer we had 14 couples and was very a very intimate it was kind of living room typesetting everyone just kind of sitting around there was a teaching there was handouts questions for a couple to answer together we did a lot of stuff in groups we also did stuff where the couples went off on their own and answered questions and went through do the challenge together and we have tons of fun yeah we got the breaks we had our meals together thing but there was definitely breaks in there as well but yeah I was a lot of fun we're going to do the same thing again in October 4th or 6th and we're doing it here at Central Oregon again get a different venue
 the other one looks like 45 minutes north of Sims 4 to 5 minutes out it's beautiful this place is awesome beautiful location on the river because it'll be cozy so there could be some cuddling for you and your spouse I want to crack a joke but I'm not going to and it's 3 days and you can learn more just going to Ultimate marriage.com and then just go to the tablet just go to retreat and dab will have room for fifteen couples and you get
 now all these couples really well and I think we're friends with like all of them on social media. So we still keep in touch I do like several women had babies even since it's so it was a really fun time and all your food included all your drinks are included Your lodging we're staying in this every every couple is going to get their own feelings like a little cabin but your own tablet that has a real kitchen it's two stories Loft on fireplace yeah it's just going to be awesome so I can check it out a little bit nervous. Calm we're still just a start this journey with you guys and to share what we're doing and we haven't figured it out fully we were studying it a lot we're walking it out I would say that we can absolutely say follow our example we're on the journey with them and learn and follow the word of God and said we and I'm sure we can be in a much different place ten years from now than we are
 yeah yeah exactly at Wheeler place we are not a couple has been married for fifty years so we want to make that clear so I didn't memory verses Proverbs 18:22 get that memorize for our next episode coming out next Wednesday and again thanks for tuning in to the ultimate marriage show and we will see you guys next week
 a deal Partridge here and if you don't know but all that marriage is actually a ministry under our nonprofit organization relearn church.org our mission at relearn churches to bring the church back to the Bible exactly to relearn what it means to be the church in the world that we do this in four ways the first is we train Christians had a plant biblical house churches and we do this through in-person workshops and online media the second is helping Christian married couples have biblical marriages of this podcast are Retreats and our 12-week online program is part of that effort the third is biblical parenting and the fourth is biblical manhood as of now we only have enough budget to build out the first two initiative but our hearts are yearning to create more content more courses more programs and more event but we need your help if our ministry has been impactful in your life would you prayerfully consider supporting relearn Church financially from 5
 promoting up every little bit helps and if this interests you you can make a tax-deductible donation at relearn Church. Org forward slash donate again not to relearn Church. Org forward slash donate thank you for your consideration now let's dive back into the show