Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you.

I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Well, welcome back to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. What do you do when your marriage isn't just

struggling? It's really just barely surviving? When the person you love the most feels more like a

stranger than a soulmate? Well, on today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, we're

continuing a powerful conversation featuring Brad and

Marilyn Rhodes, who discovered the hard way that strong faith doesn't always guarantee a thriving

marriage. On the last edition of Dr. James Dobson's family talk, they shared their surprising first-year

struggles. And on today's broadcast, you'll hear how God healed their relationship and then transformed it into a ministry that's now helping thousands of couples all across America build marriages that truly reflect the gospel.

You'll also discover why Brad and Maryland believe that the church has been missing a crucial peace in supporting marriages.

They are passionate about helping congregations move beyond crisis intervention to establishing

ongoing discipleship for couples.

Brad and Maryland Rhodes are the founders of grace marriage, and in 2024, their book

The Grace Marriage was named Book of the Year by Christianity today.

So let's rejoin Gary Bowauer's conversation with Brad and Maryland

Rhodes on today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Welcome back, everybody, to Family Talk. We're going to continue our conversation with Brad

and Marilyn Rhodes and their ministry, grace, marriage. Let's get right into it, guys. We'd love to. So we love being married. We'd work with youth for 10 years. And that's one of the couples that, well, you do our premarital instead of our pastor. And I said, why? I said, we want what you have. What you have looks fun. So we did that premarital. We did another

premarital. We started a group. I don't know why God had given his favor with marriages, but he had. We had about two-year waiting list for group. Then they ordained me, lay pastor of marriage, basically, you're doing all the marriage stuff anyway. We'll just call you pastor. And then when I was ordained pastor of marriage this is key i realized we did premarital counseling and crisis counseling

but we had nothing to do you know what we had nothing you pastor. And then when I was ordained pastor of marriage, this is key. I realized we did

premarital counseling and crisis counseling. We had nothing for the marriage. I'm like, what a

dumb, what a dumb ministry strategy. We'll get you ready for it. And if you ever hate each other

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