Welcome to INVEST Engaged
Prepare for more than a wedding
A wedding is a day. Marriage is a covenant you will keep learning to live for a lifetime. This workbook will not help you predict every challenge or finish every conversation before the wedding. It will help you slow down, tell the truth, listen well, and practice a few rhythms that can carry you into marriage.
You do not have to arrive polished. Bring your real histories, hopes, questions, strengths, and growing edges. The goal is not to prove that you are compatible enough. The goal is to become more honest, more understanding, and more willing to serve one another with the love of Christ.
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV)
What do I hope God forms in me as we prepare for marriage?
What do I hope becomes stronger between us?
Begin with the heart
Know who you are. Know who you married. Know what you are building together.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)
Before learning a tool, choose a posture: humility, curiosity, and care for the person God has entrusted to you. Ask, “How can I better understand and serve you?” Let that question guide the way you listen and the next step you take.
Our Story - The Hideaway Cabin
Ten years into our marriage, we were tired, disconnected, and easily irritated. Parenting four young children had consumed our energy, and we had quietly neglected the relationship beneath our family.
We escaped to a secluded cabin hoping the setting would fix what felt distant. The cabin was not the turning point. The turning point came when we checked our hearts, confessed honestly, asked better questions, listened, prayed, and remembered the marriage God was inviting us to build. INVEST grew from that weekend.
You have an opportunity we did not take before our wedding: to begin these conversations now. You can name patterns before they harden, practice repair before resentment grows, and build rhythms before life becomes crowded.
Watch - Why INVEST?
As you watch, listen for the posture behind INVEST: check your own heart, stay curious about the person in front of you, and take one faithful next step.
- IIntrigue - Keep noticing, appreciating, and enjoying one another.
- NNo - Protect your best yeses with wise boundaries.
- VVenture Out - Build a shared future with purpose and courage.
- EExamine - Learn to communicate with grace and repair well.
- SSafeguard - Prepare for covenant intimacy and protect trust.
- TTeachable Spirit - Keep growing with God and one another.
Begin With GRACE
Your communication report is a starting point
Complete the GRACE communication assessment individually in the INVEST app. Then read your own report before comparing results. Notice your lead style, supporting styles, strengths, stress responses, blind spots, and the words or conditions that help you hear.
GRACE is not a label, excuse, compatibility score, or way to win an argument. It gives you language for patterns you may already feel but have struggled to explain. Your report will become most useful in Session Four, where Understand 2 Serve helps you use what you learn in communication and love.
One strength I recognize in how I communicate
When I feel pressure, I tend to...
One thing that helps me stay open and connected
Our Starting Snapshot
Rate each statement from 1 (rarely true) to 5 (consistently true). Complete it quietly on your own, then share without debating the score. You will revisit these statements in Session Six.
1. We can talk honestly without punishing one another for the truth.
2. We understand how each of us prefers to communicate and receive love.
3. We have named important expectations about family, time, money, and roles.
4. We share clear physical boundaries that honor God and protect trust.
5. We are building spiritual and relational rhythms we can carry into marriage.
- Which statement feels strongest for us right now?
- Which one deserves patient attention before the wedding?
- What would help this workbook feel safe, useful, and honest for both of us?
A Simple Covenant for These Conversations
- We will answer for ourselves rather than diagnose each other.
- We will listen to understand before we explain or defend.
- We will not use something vulnerable as a weapon later.
- We may pause a conversation, but we will name when we will return.
- We will invite wise help when a topic is larger than we can carry alone.
Lord, search our hearts. Give us courage to tell the truth, humility to listen, and wisdom for the marriage we are preparing to build. Teach us to love one another as You have loved us. Amen.