Outline of a Weekly Meeting for Couples

Life, marriage, and ministry can take its toll on a couple’s intimacy. It’s not difficult to become spiritually isolated from one another. Cathy and I have struggled with this in the past. In recent years, we’ve taken some intentional steps to move back towards spiritual intimacy and better communication. One of the key steps we’ve put into practice is what we call our “weekly meeting.” A successful meeting could take 5-10 minutes or much longer. Here’s the outline that we follow for our meeting time…

1. Review your recent quiet-times and devotional life. Share with each other what you’ve been doing in regard to your personal times with the Lord and what you’ve been learning and experiencing.

2. Share your greatest joy of the week. Sometimes life gets so hectic—with your spouse and family going in what seems like a million different directions—that you may not have had the opportunity to share your greatest joy with your spouse. This meeting provides a time where your spouse can catch up with the joys you have experienced.

 3. Share your greatest struggle of the week. Here’s the flip side of the coin, if you will. Still, sharing your struggles with your spouse is equally important as sharing your joys. Hang in there though, because sometimes, as I have learned, the greatest struggle your spouse has experienced can be you.

4. Share an affirmation of your spouse. I believe strongly that affirming your spouse (and receiving affirmation) is tremendously important in developing spiritual intimacy with one another!

 5. Share a wish or a hope for yourself or your family. This helps you to focus on your spouse’s needs and desires. Often, I’ve found that I can be part of the process that allows Cathy to realize her wish or hope.

 6. Share physical goals for yourself. Cathy and I try not to neglect the physical issues when it comes to having a balanced life. Sharing our physical goals with one another helps provide an avenue of accountability.

 7. Pray Together. Once you’ve shared on all of the above topics, you’ll be ready to pray – and you’ll have some very specific issues to pray about.