Season 2 | Episode 72 | Special Guest, Associate Pastor of Marriage Ministries, David Ake

All right, your hair looks great.

Coming right in with, with that, with the hair. Episode 72, RT Dialog Podcast. Lance, what's up?

Rhett, my man. What's the life? What's the crack? As they say in Ireland.

Well, since I've been telling stories all year about my dropping my daughter at college and being a complete mess, we are leaving town this week and I'm going to move her out of college.

She's done. It didn't last.

Freshman year almost in the books. We're gonna hang out in the Pacific Northwest a little bit, Glacier National Park, and then drive to Seattle because she is going to Zambia, Africa for a month as part of a leadership program she's in with the school. So As one does. Yeah, so moving her out and just hanging out, and then I'm coming home. And so that's what I'm doing right now. What's up with you, dude?

I, uh, just got to watch this amazing musical on, uh, this weekend. My daughter performed in, uh, The Wizard of Oz. Uh, she played the role of Toto. And, uh, I'm gonna say, you know, her performance was a little rough, um, in the realm of like, you know, dogs rough.

Yeah, I got you.

Okay, I didn't know people would get that on, you know, Toto and rough, but yeah, yeah, she did great. I was really proud of her. She was hilarious. So just chip off the old block.

Yeah, Lance is our theater drama guy. Which is helpful in therapy often. Um, okay, a couple announcements. Just Summit at Pepperdine in March. It will be Thursday, March 4th, all day. Yeah, Friday, March 5th, all day, right? Um, and we will have something on Wednesday night, not official, but people will be in town, so we will put together probably some loose hangout time.

Yes.

And then all day again, Thursday and Friday training. Website will be up pretty shortly for registration, early bird. Yeah. Have some great speakers. It's a good time for our community to gather together also. And this year, obviously it's in Malibu, so people can hang out after the summit all weekend in beautiful California weather. So stay tuned for that. Lance, what else do you have?

Man, I got some information coming up, guys. An information meeting for Asher Graduate School. Uh, there'll be a little link here. Um, actually, I imagine if you're watching the screen right now, you probably see a slide that RO is putting up about this informational meeting on May 26th, 2026. Um, make sure you come in. That's in a few weeks from today. So, um, very excited about Asher Graduate School offering a Doctorate of Ministry, um, that is going to incorporate restoration therapy, um, into the dynamics. So, um, all you people— and we have a good person on today who's a pastor, so, uh, if you're a faith, faith person, uh, this is going to be an episode for you today.

Um, but yeah. Well, and we just, for reference, we have, we interviewed Nancy Freegard and Michael Pachuco. Yeah, several episodes ago and other times as well. Nancy runs a center, an awesome counseling center in Phoenix area, and Michael as well, he's on staff of another counseling center there.

Which one would you say is awesomer?

They're both, they're both great, and I'm not gonna pick them. I love them both. And They have really— their story of getting a graduate school program up and running and meeting with Congress and all kinds of crazy stories to get that up and going is awesome, and it's going to be probably a pretty significant hub for restoration therapy in the country, um, especially the integration theological piece. So anyways, we'll put a link to that episode with him.

And yeah, 20 grand and you get a really good cohort and everything.

Yeah, it's gonna be great. All right, we'll stop rambling. I'm gonna introduce our guest.

Um, wait, what episode are we on?

72.

We're on 72.

Episode 72.

Wow.

So our guest, we started exchanging emails about 3 years ago. Um, he'll tell you a little more in a second, his journey to how we connected, but, uh, David, and he'll, you know, I always get your last name. I always say Aki, but you're going to correct me.

So my dad was Mayan, so if you say it correctly, it's Ake. It sounds a little bit like Mayan. Exactly. There's an accent on the E. Translated, it means like green plain, like a green field. So Years ago, years ago, I heard a city in Latin America, it was called Ake Yucatan. And so we thought, okay, my Mayan roots, maybe we were royalty, maybe there's a plot of land that still belongs to us. No, it turns out that it was like the library city for the Mayan culture. And so I told my kids, like, we were nerds 2,000+ years ago and we're still nerds today. So that's awesome. So, well, let David—

you know, he, he is the marriage minister, and along with his wife Jamie, at Stonebriar Community Church. If Stonebriar sounds familiar, uh, that is the church that Chuck Swindoll, um, founded and pastored up here in Frisco, Texas. Oh, um, yeah, the cool— what? Come on, Lance. The cool thing is, uh They run a marriage program. They use some curriculum called CORE, which he'll share with, and he was interested in Restoration Therapy as well, and that's how we met. So David, that was a long intro to you. Welcome to our podcast.

Yeah, so in fact, to even go further back from that, my parents were missionaries. I was, I was kind of, uh, interestingly enough, I was pastor's kid, missionary kid, and the second child in the birth order. So if there was something to be burned, mischievous, or crazy about. Like, that was, that was me growing up. So, uh, but, uh, yeah, I went to Dallas Seminary back at, uh, in the end of the '90s, beginning of the 2000s. Met my wife here in Dallas and did junior high youth ministry for 20 years. And through a really interesting series of events, ended up in pastoral care here at Stobriar. And, uh, they were looking to start a formal marriage ministry. They had marriage programs But they were all a classic church model. There were 3 different programs under 3 different departments in the church. And so part of that was just bringing it all together and kind of creating a uniform strategy for what we were going to do in the community and with our congregation. And so one of the things that we were doing was just a great marriage enrichment program called Marriage Core. It was written by Chip Dickens, who was for a long time the head of the counseling department over at Dallas Seminary. Okay. We have enjoyed it. I mean, it's been, in fact, it's kind of loosely connected to some other marriage enrichment programs like Reengage that Watermark does, where it's kind of a more longer-focused developing some scriptural identity and some accountability through self-work and group work, as well as kind of behavioral steps within that. But one of the challenges that we kept going or hitting as we came in with fresh eyes back in '19 was that crisis couples would come in and they were just outside of the bell curve of, hey, enrichment is what you need, you've got some real issues, or you keep having these kind of struggles emotionally. And so we just started looking like what's out there that would help us do something that provides kind of a side ramp for couples to get some real help, to be able to jump back in and enjoy their group experience through Marriage Corps and different things like that. So yeah, that journey ended up, bumping me into Rhett, and Rhett was kind enough to—

The man.

Probably a lot of silly questions at first, like, what is this and how does this work? And so I really appreciate that.

Yeah, you sent me an email because you had come across a book, right? The 5 Days to a New Marriage.

Yeah, yeah, we ended up buying that program and had tried to utilize it, but realized, man, there's a lot more to this than we realized. And, and it actually came about now as I'm kind of thinking back, because I've slept a little bit since then, is that we were looking at marriage intensives as well. And oh yeah, Hideaway, the Hideaway, uh, yeah, that was out in Lubbock and around that area. And so it was, it was so great to just try to, try to tie back to, okay, what material, have they written anything, who's it tied to? And, and, uh, when I finally just Googled restoration therapy or researching on that, Rhett, your practice came up. And so fired off that email and yes, Rhett brought me in, got a chance to see his office, which is super cool by the way. Your office is really, really nice.

It is pretty cool. It looks out at a golf course, Stonebriar Golf Course. Not the church, doesn't have a golf course though, but the same area. And, uh, it's not as pretty as Lance's, who looks out, kind of walks down near the ocean eventually.

But oh nice.

You know, yeah, I remember us getting together and talking and then you inviting me in to do— I don't know if it's like a training, but some introduction of like the Pain and Peace Cycle with some couples. And, you know, even thinking back 3 years ago, you know, I would do it completely different even because there's so much I feel like I'm still learning every year about the Pain and Peace Cycle and how to like work it in my own life and how to communicate it more effectively to people. And that's what I love. I love that our founders, Terry and Sharon, I feel like they really create a model that invites you into continually working in your own life.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's so many nuances and you just learn so many things. So all that being said, 3 years later, there's just so much I think that's been happening. And so I'm glad that you invited me. I'm glad you're doing awesome marriage work. You know, and on occasion, I'll be able to interact with some of the same couples in my therapy practice that you work with at the church and stuff. And so I can see that crossover of the pain and peace cycle work, which is super helpful.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, it's interesting. Our leaders still share sometimes to encourage each other and sometimes in their time with their groups. You had shared, I think the morning that you came in and did session with us, you and your wife, she had very gently said, hey, I think you're in your pain cycle. And you said how it just created this dialogue between the two of y'all. And they said, well, you know, Rhett said that his wife told him he was in his pain cycle. So I can share that with you. And it's neat to hear that repeated 3 years later. I'll hear them on Off on Their Own. Hey, remember when Rhett said that? So yeah.

It was probably very lovingly. I'll give her that credit.

Rhett, are you in your pain cycle right now?

Yeah.

I, you know, Lance and I and our spouses and a few other couples, and I don't know when that was, February maybe, we were in Sedona. Yeah. And with the Sharon and Terry, and it was kind of a training, it was like 5, 5 of us couples. And, um, but we got into our personal work too with our couples, our spouses, and it was cool because all of us have been in the theory for 16, 17, 18, 19 years training under Terry, and we're all still like novices in some way.

Oh yeah.

And then experts in other ways, but it's just, you never quite— yeah, you're always having to work it, which is— I love, I love that.

That was great. That was great. I, I enjoyed that. So I have a few questions, David.

Yeah, go for it.

So tell me Well, one is, one of the big things we're about is intergenerational work. And to be a, uh, junior high pastor for 20 years, like, I imagine for you, you probably saw not only— like, did you actually make the bridge to like having somebody's kid's kid's kid? Did that actually happen?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, so getting to do a lot of weddings now. In fact, here's probably my first junior high class. I still keep in touch with some of those folks. Like, their kids are hitting middle school age now. And so I was just having lunch with one of them a few months ago where we're talking about, hey, what were the things that were emotionally helpful for you but also emotionally challenging for you or even like little t trauma type things for you as you went through adolescence that, that, that you're gonna— that you're seeing either in your, in your own child, or you're like, I'm not— I don't want to do this this way, etc. And, uh, it's funny how just in my own life— and part of it is just being passionate about the process.

Yeah.

But, but the other side of it is, um, finally having something, a framework to be able to just draw on a napkin real quick and go, hey, consider this. Like, these are the 3 conversations you're always having with yourself, with the Lord, and with your kids, like your vital relationships. It's like, who am I? And like, how am I seeing the world? And why am I reacting to the world the way I am? And it's been really great to see time after time, whether we're talking marriage, whether we're talking individual discipleship, whether we're talking just friend to friend or even spouse, to have a common language with my spouse to go, Man, you know what? I'm just— this is how I'm seeing it. And not to get judged by that or to be supported or to them not feel like they're to blame for it. Just, yeah, it creates lots of fun conversations, uh, that are super helpful. But, but yeah, a long turn to say it is kind of weird knowing that those kids are, are coming up. In fact, you're gonna laugh, we just had a session last night with a, with a couple. They're engaged, they're getting married in June. I'm flying up to Ohio to do the wedding, and we held her in the hospital like the day after she was born with some of our best friends. And when we hit Communication and Conflict, I go, hey, by the way, let me show you this diagram. And we had a chance to talk with them through that. And so just great. It's crossed so many different sectors of our life to be able to look at things that way.

That's awesome. I love that.

One of the things that, yeah, that came up a long time ago is we used to talk about, at least specifically in middle school, Eric Ehle used to tell guys that were starting out in youth ministry, like, don't be afraid to teach to emotions, because that's almost their entire world as middle schoolers. And sometimes our hard-pressed theologian guys were like, no, we just gotta give them— like, hang on, like, let's— that's how they're going to process what you're teaching them about God and their relationship with him and themselves and others. And, and, uh, so that's always been kind of a highlight that emotions matter, and how you frame up the world matters, and how you interact with the world matters. And you can do that through an emotional lens. It's not a— it's not something to just be sidelined. I know we have the traditional, you know, what is it, facts, faith, and feelings, uh, train that they talk about apologetics and things like that. You're like, no, man, emotions are through the whole thing. Let's not be afraid of them.

Okay, yeah, it reminds me of I don't know if David's listened to it yet, but a couple episodes ago we had, um, Dr. David Taylor from Fuller Seminary on, and he's been teaching, um, teaches for Fuller, but he's been working and doing a class for adolescents, um, and helping them really access their emotions through the Psalms and using the Psalms as like the vehicle to help adolescents access emotions. And I was like, that's so It's such a good integration there. I love it, you know. And this guy's a super smart guy, intellectual, and, and he gets it. Like, we are, we are emotional beings as well as intellectual.

So yeah, he's got a very strong name too.

That's right.

Oh yeah, very strong name.

David having a strong— yeah, there you go.

All the good ones are—

the Davids hang out together. That— I mean, I think about that though with, um, for me as a therapist, like one of the big questions I ask people is, you know, who are those— like, first off, like, what were those really difficult times for you? And I would say, like, 9 times out of 10, like, junior high is so difficult, right? So, like, a lot of those pain points that people experienced were right in middle school. So it's such a very important part of time in people's lives. And the other big question I ask them are, like, you know, who are your mentors, like, that you think of when you look back on your life? And I will tell you that probably, um, I'd say at least 2 out of 5 of my clients will name a pastor, like their junior high pastor. Um, so that's awesome that you're one of those people that would get mentioned. Um, yeah, it's such a— that job is huge. Like, it's so formative and directional for kids.

So yeah, yeah.

Um, I, you know, you know, thinking about ministry and stuff as well, I was wondering, because there are people listening who, who I think are in a position like you in trying to help equip leaders, um, equip parents, right, to navigate parenting stuff, or to equip leaders to navigate marriage stuff. And you, over the last several years, have had leaders go out to Pepperdine and do training in the Relate Strong model. Is that correct?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Can you share that a little bit about why you like that journey and why I thought that was important and how you feel like that's going, equipping leaders with Relate Strong?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, the first thing was we found this as we were perusing their website.

Oh, nice.

Still available. But yeah, I think I wrote on anxiety and depression in that one.

That's old school. Yeah, definitely.

But that first section on marriage where they talk about just the pain-peace model and the peace side of that has been just so— it was great to be able to sit down with our leaders and go, look, just walk through this. Now, that came on the heels of, Rhett, you getting a chance to spend some time with us. What we ended up doing was, and this is where several stories intersect, We have a strategy for our marriage ministry that— a lot of ministries in the church are linear in progression, like student ministries. You know, you're moving them from 12 to 18, so you've got a clock that you're working with. You've got a limited number of experiences, but at some point you have to say, well, like, we have the relationship still, but the official part of our programming is done. One of the questions that we started asking when we moved into marriage was, just like with discipleship, What's the long-term goal here? Is it just to not have conflict, or is it something linear, or is it more like a Venn diagram, things that overlap? And so with discipleship, we were talking about, hey, the goal is maturity, and that's always going to be a multiple number of factors that are interacting with each other because we're on this constant walk towards eternity. So we have to just learn how to balance those things. With marriage, our strategy ended up being just kind of 3 areas that overlap. That we said ultimately we're looking for these factors, but this is how the church is going to contribute to those things. And so we just looked at enrich, like how do we help couples work together for their relationship. We looked at equip, where are we intentionally providing through mentors or discipleship or programs the skills of relationship. We kind of borrowed that a little bit from Gottman. And then lastly, that idea of shared meaning and purpose. The church can help provide opportunities for community or helping marriages and families to find mission. And purpose and give them opportunities to do that. Ultimately, when those three things interact, then you get some characteristics. They enjoy each other. They're putting God first. They're practicing their promise. You know, just little things that we would look at. That way we weren't tying ourselves to just a program-based ministry that said, like, we've got this program we offer. If you've been through it, well, that's our marriage ministry. We're just saying, hey, we've integrated discipleship and your pursuit of maturity in Christ alongside like what you're doing in the dynamic of your marriage and your family. So that kind of informed some of our thinking. And so it was great to be able to take— or as we started kind of digging into Relate Strong and to RT to be able to say, hey, this is really good about talking about maturity because it gives you the freedom to constantly go back. And whether it's a 10-pound block of stuff that happened in the past or it's just a little thing, if it trips up relationship, if it trips up your journey towards maturity, then you have the freedom to stop and deal with it by integrating your biblical truth and identity and your relationship with Christ, the need for others and the need to frame up and have healthy behaviors. So it's always been super effective to be able to sit down and go, hey, we're going back to the same basics. How are we growing? How are we maturing within that? And so part of that was, you know, we read through the material and we wanted to integrate So in our Equip part of the marriage ministry, which is what programs and discipleship relationships do we offer, like whether it's a coach couple, that's where a couple meets with another couple, or we're using a formal program like Marriage Core. There was first, I mentioned a little while ago, that problem that couples that were truly experiencing crisis, we would just go, "Hey, we have a 26-week, 24-week process. Get in that." But man, the pain that you're experiencing was challenging at the beginning. Don't make it. Yeah. We had this thing that we call the 6-week window, which is if we can get them past 6 weeks, they'll stick. But man, those first 6 weeks, and we would kind of mourn a little bit that, yeah, you know what, the pain was overwhelming. Like rather than blame them or go, we failed, we didn't fail, but the pain's real. Like the emotional pain is real and the things like that. So, so that's where RT really started catching our eye to be able to have dialogue about you're feeling this, it's real, it's It's self-destructive and relationship destructive or corrosive, but we don't have tools to be able to address that, and so for the first time we started looking at materials to say when something's bad, it's not the end of the world. There's ways to start to navigate through that that don't kind of sideline Scripture or sideline our identity in Christ, but rather it moves it into that, but it's got to be the right building block at the right piece for that, and so That was part of the thing. So we came up with a 3-part strategy, what we were going to do with our facilitators, at least. We had marriage care, and that's what we've called what we put RT under. And we just put like a hospital symbol on that sheet that we turned into our elders, which was, this is how we want to triage folks. We don't want to be scared of folks coming in and saying, "I'm on fire. We're on fire. What's going to do that?" That we would have couples equipped or program equipped to say, "You're in the right place." "Come sit down. Your emotions are validated. Your experience is validated. It's not that you don't believe hard enough. It's that you just don't know how to start to trust the Savior, so to speak, in the daily beyond your salvation." And so then the next part was Marriage Core, which is our enrichment program. And then lastly was what we would call Marriage Coach. And that was going to be both couples that have been through both of those programs, but also that we've had a chance just to add some additional like theology and practice and things like that. So our first batch of marriage coaches that we wanted to have trained both in Relate Strong and also Marriage Core was just kind of a plucky band of couples that we said, "Hey, we have this vision to go do that." And one of them— and you have to be careful when you get really passionate volunteers because they all signed up and said, "Jamie and I, do you want to come with?" And so they went and signed up because we were going to try to figure out how to do it long-term because you have to work with church budgets. Different things like that.

Yeah, of course.

So they were excited to go and they actually kind of drug us along within that in a very loving way. And so we got to go and enjoy and we—

Who did your training?

It was— she's the head of the department.

DeeDee Meyer.

DeeDee. Oh my gosh.

Nice.

We love DeeDee. She's so amazing and was super— I mean, she moves through that material super fast. But yeah, our first go around we took 5 couples, I think it was. And we sat through the weekend and we did both the Friday session, which is the overview, and then the Saturday kind of the more in-depth session as well.

That's great.

Then came back and, and, Rhett, this was kind of what you had walked into when you worked with us in fall, I think it was '23, which was the church gave us permission to just suspend our marriage programming for a semester and do a kind of a clean out, clean up, reformat, and that gave us the freedom to go, hey, we want to look at other things too. Oh, great. To figure things out. And so, so yeah, it was a 3-year launch, and I'm sure you guys have seen ministry experiences where they find something, they plug it in really fast, and then it falls on its face. It gave us a chance to ramp up so we can change our calendaring for the program. But now we have trained leaders, and they can sit with individual couples, they can sit and lead groups. Or as we're going to do here in the fall, launch even new programs that they can do.

That's awesome. By the way, some of the things that David's mentioning, I definitely want to note these things. I mean, these are— they're— the Boone Center for the Family offers these amazing resources for churches, and it's very wonderful because it always takes it back to the pain and peace cycle. So if you're ever asked, or if you're like in a pastoral point, place, um, I would really recommend checking out Boone Center for the Family. They have things— I'm going to name them here, um, uh, for— they, they have this thing called the Leadership Series. In, in the Leadership Series, they have all these different topics that they hit. Um, they talk about the one like just understanding your pain and peace cycle, um, anxious Christian, uh, adolescence, um, dealing with depression, uh, cultivating healthy physical intimacy. Come on, we all need a little bit of that. Dealing with addiction. They have a specific one on pornography, and then they have self-care for leaders. For leaders, the beauty of this thing is they have these— this really easy pamphlet that you can either download or you can order a bunch of. It is absolutely— I love the materials that they're creating. So there's a video if you don't feel confident talking in front of people. Um, and you can just put that video on, or you can like learn the video and then present it yourself. Uh, so I definitely recommend, you know, Relate Strong is absolutely amazing, and it's, it's, it's a wonderful piece. But if you just have like a quick weekend or something like that coming up, this is a great plug-and-play thing that you can do with a congregation.

Yeah. So, and yeah, I'll prepare you if you end up going out to one of those trainings, the view out of the building is so, so bad. It's just the beach and the mountains, you know. Nobody likes that there. It's horrible.

It's horrible.

Come to the summit. It'll be right there.

I wrote that date down. Yeah, we would definitely love to get into deeper dialogue about that.

And it's actually— when you go look and sign up, it's actually really affordable. Pepperdine and the Boone Center has made it a really affordable proposition to go do like Relate Strong training and stuff, you know. You pay for your cost for the hotels and stuff, but it's a pretty low cost in terms of getting trained in that model and stuff. So, yeah, that's awesome. I am— David, it's obvious that you have thought pretty deeply and strategically about the type of marriage ministry you're trying to shape there and what the tools and resources are you're going to use. Is that— I mean, has that evolved over the years? Did you come in pretty like, this is what I want to do and this is how I want to see it?

Yeah, I— you know, that's a great question. Not— we— I thought I was gonna get to do junior high till I died. Like my plan was to get hit by a dodgeball. I'll follow up.

You and R.O.

R.O.

should be on this. He's a junior high guy.

He's loving this.

Traumatize some kid, you know, for 20 years about I killed a youth pastor, you know, kind of thing. But one of the things that came through, and it started to kind of come up over the last year and a half especially, is how important relationships are to the Christian life. Yeah, and everybody kind of can give that lip service. I don't think you're going to find anybody unless you find just a really angry Reformed theologian that, uh, it's like, no, it's, it's just the theology. Um, and, and my own background, like, I went to Dallas Seminary. Like, we were passionate about good exposition and good exegetical work. Uh, but that, that gap that seemed to kind of happen again and again— here's what I'm feeling, here's what life is I know things about Scripture. I know things about the Bible, and I don't want to abandon those. I just don't know how to connect the two. Like for us, RT has been just a great way to connect the two. In fact, just fun internal stories here. The guy that's in the office next to me is part of our pastoral care team, and he does a lot of kind of the family counseling and different things like that. Old Air Force major, and he's the guy that everybody fact-checks their theology with, you know, on campus. And so after we got back from Pepperdine, I came and I said, look, just walk with me through this. The foundation of all relationships is love and trust. And he goes, where'd you come up with that? I said, well, we're looking at this stuff. He goes, that's Genesis 1, 2, and 3. He goes, because when that gets violated, it all falls apart. And I was like, great, okay, we're gonna chase that then. Boom, I left. Over the last 3 years, I'll pop in and he's a great guy, kind of like adopted granddad for my girls. And we'll pop in and we'll dialogue. And I've asked him in the past, find the holes in this. And it's been great to see him affirm where I come and go, hey, we want to care for this couple. We want to care for this individual or I'm meeting with this guy or I meet with this young adult that's struggling to launch. The principles are the same across the board. Healthiness of their relationships with themselves or with the Lord or with their other vital, like family or loved ones. And that influences so much. I don't want to say that it overshadows like their salvation, but the second thing right after their salvation is how are their relationships doing? I've loved how that points back to relational discipleship or relationship discipleship, that if that's not being taught, We can have fantastic theology, but we're sabotaging that without people knowing how to relate to the Lord, relate to themselves, and relate to others. And so I told a couple the other day, I said, man, most of the couples that come in to meet with us, they're not fighting doctrinally. They're fighting because they can't get out of their own pain or out of their own way. And it's—

come on—

just flopping onto their thing. Or even with young adults that come in and are struggling to launch. That's such a unique sector in today's world. And to go back to— I love it when parents are willing to come in and say, look, I know they're in their 20s, but it's obviously that we're in conflict and that's part of the struggle is to be able to sit down and just sit down with 5 Days, start going through that. And probably one of the 3 biggest things is that— and we mentioned at the front end— you need the language, you need tools, and you need process to do good work. And until you have 3 of those, you're stuck and your anger at feeling stuck isn't your parents' fault. It isn't somebody else's fault. It's not even your fault. If we haven't equipped that in your discipleship, then we haven't let you down, but that's part of the growth that needs to happen. And so it's neat to see them come back and affirm, okay, I've got words now that I can use. I've got tools that I can implement and you've taught me a process to do so. We were talking earlier in the pre-stuff, Rhett, about when we're talking with couples about deep self-regulation and walking back from those hotspots. When we do that session and both they start bringing it in after that week where we just talk about that kind of stuff, to them go, "Yeah, you know what? It wasn't that I walked out of the argument. I just realized now I need to go calm down so that I can engage well in this conversation." So yeah, it's been great to see it filter into so many so many areas of what we do.

Well, and David, you know, one of the things I was reading recently from, uh, Fuller just released this new data, um, the, the number one source for, um, kids nowadays for getting, um, uh, their, their, their past, their spiritual training, uh, now is their parents. So, um, that, that is the most trustworthy resource Um, so by you facilitating these healthy marriages, you're actually like— that is the number one pastoral character. They would rather be with their families or be home than go to a church or even to school. Um, so this is the primary place that kids are actually— it's kind of interesting, it's like it's a, it's a, it's a return, um, to home. So I feel like, you know, what you've— what you're doing now is you're training up pastors and the parents by feeding into them. So, you know, you're still doing junior high work.

I know, right? It's funny how some of that comes back up again and again and again with their workers. In fact, this is unique to our setting, but the guy that's our new junior high minister, I had as a student years ago.

That's awesome.

And like, man, what a great great opportunity to reinvest into him because he's always like, oh, I get now why we did that game, or I get why we did that trip, or I get why we did that, that experience. Uh, that's cool.

Just in case you're unaware of it, Lance and I are— we also like to proselytize too. So if you're not already bought into RT, we will make sure by the end of this conversation you will be at every training and summit that we have, right, Lance?

Yes, we are. Um, yeah, I, I feel like you're letting the cat out of the bag, Rhett. This is supposed to be a fun podcast that we're dialoguing about certain things. Um, and, and maybe we have a convert here or there.

Yeah, David's close, you know, his office and my office are probably, I think, miles, a couple miles. Couple miles away. And Lance and I had an author on a couple months ago. In, in his new book, he talks about the importance of— you find a commu— if you want to do good work, you find a community to do that work in. Oh yeah, there it is, The Way of Excellence by Brad Smith. And you go deep with that work for 10 years at least, right? Yeah. And, and one of the things like I'm excited about up here in this area And I know you use other tools besides Relate Strong, is that I would like to— I would like North Texas, you know, to be an area where there's pastors and coaches and therapists and educators that are using RT, Relate Strong, that they're using that language. I like what you said, that they're using that language, that they have those tools and they have that process.

So great.

You know.

Because I feel like it gets pretty lonely up here pastoring and doing counseling when you're on an island.

Yeah. Oh yeah, you know, and that's something that, that I don't know if it's unintentional because there's, there's a skeptical side of me as a pastor that, that's always kind of evaluating, uh, you know, hey, is this, is it biblical? Is it, you know, missional? Is it gospel? This is one of the great things that we've come across, we've been able to say that the conversation scripturally happens in parallel to the process or to the approach. Um, and say that again, that the, the conversation biblically, like I can sit down with my Bible and walk through all three dimensions of pain cycle or peace cycle and not have to worry about, okay, let's ignore scripture for just a minute so that I can pass on this, this therapy nugget. It, it has integrated very seamlessly, and I'm sure there are other approaches, but this was— this is really great because not only could I— could I use this in the confines of my office, I can use the same language with my leaders as a lay leader to sit down with a guy that they're meeting with over lunch or a couple that they're going to have for dinner, uh, and that is so valuable because it's so empowering to them. Like, they walked out of that that training at Pepperdine with a renewed sense of passion, that the curriculum is not holding out on them, or that they don't know enough to really do it, that they need that pastoral thing. Now, they'll still kick stuff over to us and things like that, but more and more we go, "Hey, you've got this. You can sit down with this couple and go through that. I'll check in with you, or we'll help unpack some of these things." But I'm learning it and it happened that practically I'm learning it just alongside them because they've had the same kind of measurable amount of exposure to the material that I have other than I get to sit in my office and study through it or reach out to other experts. But it has been so wonderful to see them incorporate those three things of language, tools, and process and implement it where they're meeting with. So for example, we use Prepare for our pre-marriage assessment and I hear that language as they're debriefing with us. "Hey, we met with our couple and we're talking about this and we got to this issue or this thing and I realized, oh, we've got to either deregulate or, sorry, or reregulate our emotions or we have to—" This is where their family of origin is popping in and we can talk about the perspective and the pain cycle. So it's been neat to see how that empowers our leaders to go do fruitful discipleship ministry without having to ask them to to put their Bible on a shelf or to put good science, you know, or good therapy or good discipleship-based therapeutic approach on the shelf. They're getting to use both, and that's super empowering for leaders, especially as we want to move away from it or not just continually reinforce a structure to them that's the pastor's got the keys on everything. Like, I may have access to more resources, but Ultimately, we want to empower you guys to do fruitful ministry. Like, that discipleship is not limited to just us on the pastoral staff.

Yes. Yeah. And I can competently, like, go up to— which I've done— and speak to all the counselors in the Frisco ISD to do a workshop. And I'll use Pain and Peace cycle language in the model without ever mentioning anything biblically or theologically. And the neuroscience and the psychological principles are, are, are all there, and they love it, you know. And so that, that's what I love, is that I can move in different settings and integrate where it's appropriate and needed and speak different language. But at the core, the truth is the truth, right? And, um, yeah, I remember the early church theologian, um, I think it was Justin Martyr, right, in first century, said all, you know, wherever you find truth, like all truth is God's truth, wherever truth exists. Yeah. And, um, and so it sounds like you— I, I, anyways, I, I won't ramble on more about that, but I love that you have found it super helpful, you know, to equip people and equip leaders. And it sounds like different couples who come in your your trainings or your ministry groups, you know, it resonates maybe no matter where they are. It connects with them. Yeah, and it's been really great.

In fact, that's the great thing. It continues to open up more topics, more things that we want to train on because the context of ministry is always changing. You know, we're moving away from kind of large static programs to a little bit more flexible couple-to-couple discipleship or relationships. And so, but it's neat to see it be portable, the Relate Strong RT model, to, for them to be able to have those conversations. But it also brings up, I think we talked about one in kind of the warm-up here of how do we do, how do we integrate deep conversations about forgiveness into that? Also, what, you know, what follow-up, what does this look like long term? You know, so many times in church culture You get through the program and you're like, well, what's next? And so we're having a chance to bring— how do we release the question, what happens after the 14-week process into, hey, what does that do for small groups in our church? How do we make this available to them? Do we have a specialized couple come in and do that with your small group at some point in the life cycle of your small group? Or do we just launch small groups that are— this was the launching point. And you just continue on as alumni through that particular program. So, yeah, we're wrestling with now a whole new kind of second level or second generation questions on how we continue to integrate and use the same— not the same materials, but obviously the same line of thinking as the church grows and as we launch small groups. Recently, marriage ministries in our church got moved over from pastoral care, so a lot of the footing was We're just waiting around for someone to call 911, so to speak, to adult discipleship or adult ministries. So now we're part of the conversation around small groups, we're part of the conversation around discipleship, and it's been neat, or it's been really great to be able to bring in, hey, we've got this approach that its undergirding foundation is this is a journey towards maturity in Christ or maturity as an adult. So it doesn't chase off in its own direction as we want to see people mature. They've got to get better at internal relationship, relationship with the Lord, relationship with others. And it's great to see how this is starting to walk hand in hand.

It's so awesome. We've been doing it in San Diego, like in North County area, for about, I'd say, 15 years now. And, you know, having that common language where, you know, we can talk about things from a pain and peace cycle perspective, we can talk about old self, new self. You know, that there's, you know, not only is it just this side kind of thing that people talk about, but the pastor is able to incorporate into their sermons, um, and, you know, because it has such great grounded biblical principles throughout. So, um, I, I've, I've really seen the, like, it's like a cultural thing that's, that's kind of happened here, um, that, that has created this really neat uniting thing, not just with our church, but amongst a bunch of churches all throughout the North County area in San Diego. So it's really exciting to see, you know, the power of, you know, people that are really finding themselves like, oh yeah, like if I can have, like live by the Spirit and find self-control, there's something different that could happen. I can really— that new self has something, uh, that can, you know, instead of like being this, you know, blame, shame, you know, uh, control, escape, you know, artist person, can actually be a nurturer. I can be— have self-esteem, self-confidence. I can learn how to empower others and learn how to reliably engage. And I think that's so beautiful.

Yeah, Lance, you mentioned those four, uh, destructive behaviors. That, when that got laid out the first time, that's probably one of the things that, that sold me really quick or caught my attention. And two, to see every time we sit down with a couple or a leader to say, hey, this is ultimately what you're looking for to try to start figuring out, like, their eyes get big. Like, it's that simple? Like, really is that simple? And, uh, and it They just— it's like giving somebody like the Superman emblem on the chest. They're like, oh, okay, now that's why. Like, and so many times it's, oh, okay, that's why they're doing that, or that's what that is. It's weird. It's not turning them into these super sleuths. It's just giving them some foundational things that work again and again and again and again in conversations with people. It's been so neat. That and defining out love and trust and really teasing that out a lot of times just to finally go. We sat with one couple a while back and you're gonna laugh. So a different approach, like the counselors on staff when I moved over to pastoral care said, "Hey, never go more than 50 minutes." You know, there's a lot. They've obviously been trained. I was just a pastoral guy that loved hanging out with people. And so We'd be like 2.5 hours in, like, okay, I've learned since. But, she spoke, they were really mad and their coach couple or their facilitator couple said, "Hey, why don't you go see David and Jamie when we usually meet, kind of talk through some stuff?" And, she talked without taking a breath for an hour and 45 minutes because I was timing it. And, finally did and sat down and said, "Okay." Thank you so much for sharing your heart with us. Now that you're emotionally exhausted, I said, hey, let me just show you, like, like, Scripture defines your value in Genesis 1 and 2 as a creation. So can I just affirm that with, this is what love is, this is what trust is. I'll bet your heart is thirsting for this. And just to, like, the light of hope that comes on to go, This is what I've been looking for. I just want this from you. Like, she turns to her spouse, and it's been amazing. They have re-engaged the curriculum or the program that they're in and the discipleship relationships they're in differently for months now because they're able to affirm, this is what I'm hungry for, and I'm— I'm like, my— I'm created and loved by my Savior, not just because I was lost and he redeemed me, but, but this is what he desires for me. And that For example, that Romans 5:1, like we have peace with our Heavenly Father through faith in Christ. This is that shalom that God desires to give to you, is love and trust. You can experience it with him, and now you have what you need to start asking for it or also giving that to your spouse. And it's been so neat to see them do a 180, just having some words, right, to be able to kind of talk to each other within that. So man, I'd love to talk more afterwards. Man, you guys have been at this for a number of years. Like we wanna see that continue to grow. Within that.

It's so amazing when, when you're so young that things could still be that way. Yeah, go figure. Like, it's so amazing. I just, I'm like, so young, you know.

You know, we're all looking for like the newest tool, right? The newest program, the newest that, this, that. And you know, that ultimately distracts us from the core work, which is around this love and trust, and just becoming really good at that and working on that.

Yeah, you know, true disciples. Yeah, it's not fun.

You know, we're all just looking for the silver bullet. And that's what I love, I think, about being a part of a community is like we just get— we try to get better as much as we can. We never truly master the craft, but we get better and better at really working through this process of Love and Trust, which I love. And I love that you are offering that for couples up there. I was wondering, you know, and I got a few more minutes on our time, but what do you think— may open a whole other conversation at some point, but like, what do you think is the biggest struggle that couples are dealing with that you're seeing in ministry circles now and marriages and stuff. Is there something that you've just noticed as someone who's a practitioner in the field, the pastor in the field, you're like, wow, this seems to be a really common struggle right now?

Yeah, uh, you know, harsher penalties for parole violators is— no, I'm just kidding, that's from a movie. Uh, it's one of our funny jokes with our daughters. Wow, that's a great question. So much walks in the door. You know, it's interesting. Let me break it up into 3 parts. For our young couples, there is such an anxiety around what they perceive the older generations have done with relationships, with marriage. We track on our team secular, wedding data just to look at how is the world framing up marriage, relationships, things like that. And, uh, so in Collin Denton and Dallas County in 2025, there were just under 25,000 weddings. And, you know, you can take that and begin to apply different stats, different, different perspectives on that. But it gets us thinking, like, hey, these are all people that are going to the altar to do something. Like, they have their unique wedding ceremonies, but that is definitely something we see in young couples. Whether they're rejecting like an over-oppressive complementarianism or they're racing to embrace a loving egalitarianism or things like that, I love what my wife always tells them when they sit down with us, when they're telling us what they're not going to do in the ceremony. She's going, you know, you came to us because you sense somewhere deep inside This is something greater than just you. So, so if you, you know, there's a holy moment that's happening here, trying to lovingly engage that to go, yeah, listen, there's a reason the church matters. There's a reason that a ceremony matters. There's a reason that an officiant matters. There's a reason that premarital prep matters. We're not trying to sell you on— in fact, we usually screen when we screen facilitators who work with married couples. We're looking for couples that aren't going to tell them, this is how you do marriage. But those that will walk alongside them and say, this is what's important in marriage. And we're learning as we walk alongside you. Big difference in their approach. Because on the other, they're willing to listen versus giving you list after list after list of behaviors that you better not mess up or perspective. This is what we do. Yeah, yeah.

So you have to swap every other Christmas. That's the secret. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or, you know, we can get into lots of, lots of stuff. Uh, all the bad, bad advice. Yes, exactly, exactly. Uh, so with younger couples, um, what I've loved about Relate Strong is that we can have conversations about their emotions, we can have conversations about their behaviors, and be lovingly guiding and challenging to some of those things. When it's not about their spouse or that they've quote unquote messed up because they don't like to hear that part. But to go, hey, is this the optimal for what you want to invest in your relationship? So we'll challenge control. We'll challenge blame. But in a way that goes, it's because we want to guide you back to love and trust, not because we're just, you're wrong or you're behaving wrong and that's what we just need to stop. So it acknowledges kind of their full person. Definitely with older couples, the fact that at the beginning of the relationship, they didn't have a way to deal with real family of origin or stressors or trauma. And so now we're 5, 10, 15 years later and they haven't agreed on parenting. They haven't agreed on spending. And the kids walk out, the kids graduate, and now they're like, why are we still doing this? That they've drifted apart. And again, they don't have language tools or process to even begin to unpack stuff that's now pushed so far back into the closet, so to speak, storage shed of their heart that, man, they're sleeping in separate bedrooms, they're living different lives. But, the great thing is as long as they keep volunteering, as long as they keep showing up to service, as long as they keep giving, there's an assumption about their spiritual health and their relational health. But they come in, they come into our area, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's something going on behind the curtain here that, uh, so come on. Yeah, it's that, man, that so many marriages have hit like older seasons and they're just like, they're— it's being held together by duct tape and dental floss. And then everybody's shocked in the community when they go, yeah, this couple's splitting up. Well, can't you guys fix them? Well, I mean, Jesus can, and here's what he offers us as a process, but they've got to be willing to do that work. But it's also helped us with survivability because, you know, as a youth pastor and you guys who have done ministry work, you care a lot about the people that you're ministering to. There was for the first few years a real guilt about, I didn't know enough, or we didn't meet with them enough, or we didn't make ourselves available enough to make a difference because we hadn't been through any formal counseling training. This has been such a great thing to be able to go, look, here's something that is real, that works, that is rooted off your identity in Christ. We pastorally want to point you back to that. And yeah, we'll help you deal and mourn and process and reassert new identity within that. That's pastoral work and that's counseling work. And we have a great, like, we have a great approach as a church to go, we want to partner with counselors rather than, well, No, or we're just going to farm you out to them. And a lot of times our pastors, because we can do counseling referrals and sometimes the church will help with that financially, to go, hey, here's how we're going to partner. Like, go do that deconstructing work with your counselor. They're going to give you the tools and the process to figure out what's holding you back. When it comes to reasserting your new identity, make sure that we insert at the right times in the right places, the truth about who you are in Christ. Notice how those two things support each other versus be antagonistic to each other within that. And so, yeah, it's interesting with young couples and older couples. Ironically, the problem is probably the same. They don't know how to deal with real issues, and so they either make that so big that it craters a relationship at the beginning, or they just ignore it and it gets so far down the road that Now you're not dealing with the snail in the tire, you're dealing with the fact that there's no rim and hubcap and axle left in that part of the car. The engine's been running on red. Exactly. No fuel, no oil.

If you want people fixed, I just put them on a plane to Lance's office in San Diego. There you go. He does all the magic.

Well, I would say, Red, I can see why you want David on here. This is— And I think there are so many couples that are struggling in our churches. Um, and if we're honest, like, sometimes we're struggling in our own marriages and we don't want to admit it. Um, and I think it's worthwhile to take the time, uh, to, to lean in and say, you know what, I need help. And I'm thankful for you, David. I'm thankful for your work, um, that You know, my hope whenever someone does marriage ministry is that you could take them back to the original purpose of what marriage is all about. And I think that's what I'm hearing from you is like, you're, instead of teaching them like how to fight it out or how to, you know, put up with one another, you're actually teaching them about the beauty of what relationship can be about. And I'm Thankful for that. And I really just pray for blessings upon your ministry and everything you're doing there. And you're lucky you got Rhett there. That guy's, you know, I'd refer to that guy.

I don't know. I have my days. I gotta give him credit. Rhett got us going.

I have my days. Well, David, we appreciate you being on. I know you're going back to work. You're in the office. I'm in the office. Lance is headed to the office. And, um, I know our paths will cross soon, sooner before we hit the summit. We'll, we'll try to connect here in the— yeah, definitely. Um, Frisco area. And then, uh, of course, when this episode goes up, all the, all the show notes will be on there, links to your ministry website, um, and any resources that we've mentioned. So thanks for taking the time to be on today. We appreciate it.

I appreciate it. In fact, just a point of celebration, we're graduating our second Relate Strong group series tonight. Tonight we're having a celebration. Awesome. Dude, that's great, man. Dinner for them and graduating them, and it's been really neat.

Well, you can tell them you're on this podcast and they can all listen as celebration later this week.

There you go.

Here, here. All right, take care, guys. Cheers. Cheers!