To warm up
Session Six - Teachable Spirit
Keep choosing growth
Marriage will keep revealing things you did not know about one another and yourselves. A teachable spirit does not demand perfection. It stays humble enough to receive wisdom, honest enough to repair, and hopeful enough to try again.
Being teachable is not being voiceless. It means you can hold conviction without becoming uncorrectable. It means both people can influence the relationship, and neither person’s growth is managed by the other.
“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established.”
Proverbs 24:3-4 (NIV)
When is it easiest for me to receive feedback?
What tends to make me defensive?
Watch - Teachable Spirit
Listen for one posture you want to carry into your first year of marriage.
Four Marks of a Teachable Couple
- 1Curious - We ask before assuming.
- 2Humble - We own our part without keeping score.
- 3Responsive - We turn insight into a small action.
- 4Supported - We invite God and wise people into our growth.
The mark that feels strongest in us
The mark we want to practice more intentionally
Our First Month of 1-1-1
Small deposits, lasting returns
Insight fades when it has no rhythm. The 1-1-1 Rhythm turns what you have learned into small, repeatable practices.
The INVEST Marriage app can cue a Daily Deposit, offer a brief daily marriage tidbit, and supply a dinner or Date Night Question. Let the prompt begin the habit, then put the phone down and make the words and attention your own.
Our daily deposit - what we will try first
Our Weekly Pivot (Grace Place) - day, time, and place
Our Monthly Check-In (Proper Portions) - date, time, and place
Our Couple Covenant
Use the statements below as a starting point. Cross out what is not yours, add what is missing, and make the language sound like the two of you.
- We will keep God at the center and practice repentance and forgiveness.
- We will use GRACE to understand and serve, never to label or win.
- We will protect time for friendship, delight, and honest conversation.
- We will bring money, expectations, and boundaries into the light.
- We will honor sexual intimacy within marriage and protect trust before and after the wedding.
- We will ask for wise help before isolation becomes secrecy.
- We will keep learning the person in front of us.
Our shared 'we will' statement
One Scripture or phrase we want to anchor our marriage
Look How Far You Have Come
Repeat the starting snapshot. Compare gently. Growth may look like a higher number, a more honest number, or a clearer next step.
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.
Growth we celebrate - and one conversation we will continue with patience
A Love Letter for the Road Ahead
Write separately. Name what you cherish in your fiancé, what you have learned about them, what you are choosing as you enter covenant, and what you are praying for the marriage you are preparing to build. Then sit face-to-face and read your letters aloud. The listener receives the gift without correcting, explaining, or interrupting; simply say, “Thank you.” Let this be one way you live out 1 Thessalonians 5:11: “Encourage one another and build each other up.”
To my fiancé...
Go Deeper — optional
For couples who want to linger. Skip it if you’d rather keep things light.
- How will we know when our rhythms need to change for a new season?
- Who has permission to tell us the truth about our relationship?
- How can we keep GRACE and Grace Place active after the wedding?
Lord, build our marriage through wisdom and understanding. Keep our hearts soft, our words full of grace, and our love active. Give us humility to keep learning and courage to ask for help. Amen.