Sacred Marriage Participant's Guide with DVD: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?

Excellent book and study for your marriage class

I really appreciated the wisdom in this teaching ! It is very practical and I believe very attainable, that our direction and focus would be serving Christ, serving each other to became more like Him in the process.

Gary's teaching on marriage is one of the best out there. Almost every other writer makes similar points but Gary was one of the first in our time to talk about it. I like Kellers book and Driscoll is ok. In the end, this is our go to for couples and pre-marriage. Sacred search is another great book for pre-marriage. But this is a DVD......So having a DVD series on the topic was a great idea. Now I will say Gary is not the most engaging teacher. He can be a little dry. He has some humor in it but his teaching style can be a challenge for some. If your a leader you understand that even with rest material, presentation can make or break a groups ability to engage. So just be aware your not getting a lively presenter. Just a guy, sitting in a chair in front of a window in what looks like his home. Its well filmed and produced and the content is good. Now all that being said don't get the idea its a huge bore. Just saying if your used to a guy like Jimmy Evans or even a Mark Gungor you might be disappointed

Solid advice. My wife and I have been going through this as a study with my brother and his wife. The practical examples Gary gives of him and his wife are both transparent and at times funny. I recommend purchasing/reading the book, and simultaneously watch the video and going through the study guide with another couple or small group. If you are simply looking for a biblical perspective on marriage but are not planning on going through this study with another couple or small group, than just buy the book and don’t bother with the video and study guide.

Contains good insights and revelations but the overall flavor comes off as overwhelmingly depressing and I hate to say this, but drowning in overspirituality. Perhaps this info would be better for a research paper; if you are looking for every possible parallel and connection between God, marriage, and Christianity, you got it. But if you are looking for a 6 week study that is practical and engaging, this book is just a bit much. Our second beef with using this book, along with the Participant's Guide and DVD, is that the organization of it is very confusing. You can't just read it in order from beginning to end. The author will say things like, "Before session 3, I recommend you read Chapter 11" and then before session 6, "I recommend you read Chapter 2". It ping pongs everywhere. We find it frustrating to everyone in the group. I have simplified it for our people by typing out CLIFF notes (that I made up myself) about the correct chapters we should be reading for the next week. It actually makes it much more palatable. So, although I did get a lot out of this book, I didn't care for the organization and the overly detailed and repetitive amount of super-serious, spiritual parallels. This will probably be the last time we use this to run a small group. I really wish the author would hire someone to re-organize it and edit it. That would be great.

I used this for a group study. The DVD sessions are excellent. The participant's guide is less useful. I was also using the complete book to provide more information for discussion. The book doesn't coordinate with the DVD. That was a mess. I patched together some kind of coordination. Not sure why the publisher didn't make them coordinate. I highly recommend the complete book. There was some quibbles with some of the parallels drawn in the book, but the vast majority of it was great. If you are looking for a God-centered approach to marriage that will cause you to rethink not only how you interact with your spouse but all people, this is a very good series.

What if marriage is designed to make us holy? What a concept and it helped us so much to deepen our relationship with the Lord and with my husband. We have done many marriage studies but we think this is the best one we have ever done so far!

Very informative Godly perspective on marriage presented in a causal manner by the author who is not a dynamic presenter. This guide & DVD does NOT follow the same outline as the book so information from chapters 2 and 10 may be presented in session 3 on the dvd series. It is not confusing unless you try to use both the DVD/guidebook at the same time as the book (which is not included).

A life/marriage changing experience guaranteed. It shows the essence of marriage and it's entirety from a biblical point of view. I highly recommend it for every marriage good or bad.