Sometimes as Christians we can get in our own way. We overthink things by trying to be so different from the world that we tie ourselves in knots working through things biblically.
But sometimes as Christians we can fall into the trap of not considering things enough. We step out in faith or we just follow the world and forget to put things before God, or seek guidance in his word.
Should we Get Engaged by Bill and Mindy Meier for Oaks Press falls somewhere in between – and I mean that in a good way. I’ve read a lot of books on relationships and marriage and singleness (having been single, married, divorced and now a single parent raising boys into young adults who are dating). Some of them have been very heavily Bible based with some practicalities. Others have been wishy-washy Christian-adjacent self-help books. But this book is in a category of its own.
Bill and Mindy have decades in pastoral and college campus ministry and so have earned their stripes in the thick of things with young couples considering big life choices. The 50 questions Bill and Mindy pose in the book are designed to make couples think and to start conversations about things they might never have discussed or even thought about before. The questions are split into 9 categories covering compatibility, healthy relationship, family of origin, dreams for the future, health and wellness, financial compatibility, physical intimacy, emotional intimacy and a final category for those who have been married before.
I’m a nerd. I know this. I like hefty history books and theological tomes that cause me to think and fire up my faith in emotional and intellectual ways and that are a spur to my lived out faith. So when I first got into this book I was a little disappointed that it didn’t go deeper into the “why” of the questions. I wanted to explore why there are risks in being unequally yoked, why it’s important to know each others’ love languages, why we should be willing to make sacrifices for each other, why its helpful to consider what our friends and family think of our partner.
Scripture gives us our why.
But then I realised this book is not meant to be that. This book is 150 pages (so its a blissfully easy read!) that is focused on challenging the readers to think for themselves and get into conversation with each other. It’s not meant to be a thesis on the biblical basis for marriage or an in-depth exploration of theological concepts around relationships.
It is meant to be a practical manual based on the observations of two people who have decades of experience watching young couples struggle with these particular issues. There are some incredibly helpful questions:
- Are you prepared to make a healthy separate from your parents (ie have you developed functional independence).
- How will you divide up household chores (ie discuss now your views and expectations)
- Does your partner have moods and emotions that trouble you?
- Have you told each other which personal habits irritate you?
- Can you be vulnerable with each other?
All these questions are fantastically important for a couple to consider as they get more serious in their relationship. The answers to these questions if unasked, can be the basis for so much conflict and harm in a marriage or ultimately its demise.
In some senses, this book is “secular” in that it tackles these questions head on by acknowledging that these are questions that every couple faces and every couple needs to consider where they are Christian or not.
But in so many ways this book is spiritual and Christian because it is aimed at strong marriages that are held together in mutual faith in which both are growing together.
So, I would definitely say this book is worth reading or buying for the young couples in your life. I would recommend reading other books that delve into the “why” (Tim and Kathy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage springs to mind as a good companion piece to Should we Get Engaged). But this book provides an extremely helpful guide to the subjects that couples should discuss and that will, I am sure, help with marriage preparation, and making big choices as a couple and as a new potential family unit in God.
