February 7, 2024 • 32 mins
Join Mark and Cindy, hosts of the podcast Mercy on Display, as they delve into a dynamic discussion with Alan Ray, the founding director of Marriage Team. Listen to Alan's heartwarming journey of faith, and how his personal experiences inspired him to establish a non-profit aimed at strengthening marriages.
Alan and his wife, Autumn, turned their challenging marital journey into an empowering service dedicated to empowering couples and bettering their relationships. Catch an intimate glimpse of their life and the inception of Marriage Team, a non-profit that uses a team-based approach to encourage improved communication and mutual respect among couples.
Explore the unique process followed at Marriage Team, aimed at equipping couples with fundamental skills necessary for a successful marriage. Alan brings insights into their programs focusing on negotiation, mutual accountability, and effective communication, extending their reach not just to married couples, but also those preparing for marriage.
This episode delves deeper into discussions about the crucial aspects of clear communication, roles, responsibilities, and the power of prayer in marital relationships. Alan shares profound observations and experiences, underlining how effective communication forms the foundation for a thriving marriage.
As the conversation unfolds, listen to the critical role of counseling and 'selflessness' in a marriage. Evoking an understanding of the concept of God's mercy in marriage, the episode provides inspiring examples of faith's instrumental role in revitalizing relationships and creating harmonious familial environments.
A must-listen for anyone seeking to enhance their relationship or simply intrigued by the concepts discussed. Navigate the complexities of marriage and relationships with this insightful episode of Mercy on Display.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello i'm mark and i'm cindy and
we're the hosts of mercy on display a storytelling podcast about god's mercy
in people's lives from dating to marriage parenting to careers and everything
in between we hope you'll be inspired encouraged and grounded in god's purpose.
Music.
For your own life we're glad you're here thanks for joining us,
(00:44):
today we are speaking with alan ray from marriage team alan and his wife autumn
have been married since 1970 and are the founding directors of marriage team
a non-profit dedicated to empowering couples for winning marriages.
Marriage Team trains Christian coach couples and places premarital and married
couples with coaches for six to 12 weeks of skill building and coaching.
(01:09):
Alan has a Master of Science in Counseling and Human Development,
and Autumn has a Bachelor of Science in Social Work.
Alan retired from the Air Force and is the full-time Executive Director for Marriage Team.
Autumn was the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice Volunteer Manager
and retired in July 2012.
(01:31):
They are a certified marriage enrichment leader couple, seminar directors for
Prepare, Enrich, and skilled trainers.
Alan and Autumn have two children and two grandchildren and live in Camas, Washington.
All right. Hello, everyone. We have Al with us here.
So welcome to the show, Al. Well, thank you very much, Cindy.
It's wonderful to be here with you. We're really happy to have you here.
(01:54):
We are actually really big fans of Marriage Team. We've heard a lot about you.
We had a little bit of a chance to talk to some of your staff,
and they've just been wonderful.
So we are looking forward to learning more about you today and hearing a little
bit of the backstory about you and about Marriage Team.
So I guess our first question is, can you please share a bit about your background? Where are you from?
(02:19):
Did you grow up in a Christian household? Are you married and do you have children? Sure.
Well, I was born in Boston, lived there until I was in...
Junior high, moved to Michigan, went through high school in Michigan and college
at Michigan Tech in the Upper Peninsula.
Went in the Air Force, spent 27 years in the Air Force. Between college and
(02:39):
the Air Force, I met my wife, Autumn.
We met at school and got married before my first real assignment in the Air Force.
So we've been together now for 53 years, going on 54.
Wow. And if Autumn was telling the story, she would say that some of them were happy. Oh.
(02:59):
I was sort of a workaholic Air Force kind of guy, and I thought most of them
were happy, but therein lay the problem that we didn't see things the same.
And she felt like I wasn't paying enough attention, and I wasn't.
I was really focused on a career.
Oh, wow. Have you always been a Bible-believing Christian?
(03:22):
Absolutely not. Oh. and neither one of us were Christians when we got married.
So we came to faith about 10 years into the marriage, and Autumn grew up thinking she was a Christian.
She went to a Lutheran church, but she didn't really have a personal relationship.
She was a Lutheran, but she didn't have that personal relationship.
(03:46):
So I grew up in a home where we didn't go to church, and I knew I wasn't a Christian,
but it's very interesting.
We went to a seminar on parenting, and it was in San Antonio,
Texas, 1978 or 79. I don't remember the exact year.
And the speaker asked if people would stand up if they were Christians,
(04:10):
if they were a committed Christian.
And the word committed caused Autumn to question.
I mean, I mean, I knew I wasn't a committed Christian, but she didn't quite
understand how to handle that.
So that put her on a path to sort of explore what being a committed Christian was.
That speaker was James Thompson, and he recorded the very first Focus on the
(04:36):
Family series at that weekend.
So we were actually in the audience, and on Sunday afternoon,
you can see the video go by, and Autumn's taking notes and I was actually sort of asleep.
But anyways, it was a wonderful conference. You did a great job.
We got a lot out of it. And that's really what got us on the path to becoming Christians.
(05:00):
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that about you. Thank you.
It's good to see the beginnings of—I mean, now I look at you and I think,
wow, there's a godly man walking by, and he's been called to ministry,
but we never know where the Lord found us, and he cleaned us up,
and he set us on the right path. Yeah.
(05:23):
Well, we often say, you said he cleaned us up.
We view it as if we weren't doing it, he'd find somebody else to do it.
So the Lord uses broken people, people that are struggling to accomplish his
purpose. So it's praise the Lord.
Amen. So how did the Lord call you to this ministry marriage team?
(05:45):
Well, I sort of alluded to that as I talked about Autumn saying that some of
the years were happy years.
So we went to everything marriage was that said marriage. Our folks were both in lifelong marriages.
So divorce was not part of our playbook, so to speak. Right.
And when I say playbook, that's the analogy that we use in marriage coaching,
(06:06):
is that you and your spouse are born onto different teams, your family of origin,
and you develop a personality and a, quote, playbook for how you're going to navigate life.
It's about expectations. It's about what's right and wrong, how you handle conflict,
all that stuff that we take for granted.
You get married, you create a new team, and you bring your individual playbook,
(06:28):
and you don't share it very effectively.
So over time, because of all of these different expectations and everything
that causes problems in the marriage,
so what coaches do is they help couples create a common playbook so that they
can work together to achieve their common goals about raising kids or financial security, whatever.
(06:49):
That was sort of a backtrack on that question.
But we struggled, and we found that we'd go to all of these events,
and Monday morning the book was on the shelf, and we were operating out of our old playbook.
And our relationship really hadn't changed.
(07:10):
And in early 2000, we went to a conference about a marriage mentoring program,
and it talked about how you set up a program.
It didn't really talk about what you do when you're working with a couple.
So we had some marriage enrichment material that we had picked up over the years,
and we sat down with the couples who
(07:32):
went with us to the training and just effectively said, so what do we do?
And we said, well, I guess we talked to him about communications,
and we talked to him about anger and forgiveness and those things.
And that was the start of Marriage Team was pulling that together.
So over the years, we just documented what worked, discarded what didn't work,
(07:56):
and the Lord revealed in a very progressive kind of fashion things that worked.
And it was probably a few years in when we came up with the analogy and couples resonated with it.
We started to reframe thinking about you're on the same team,
you're winning and losing together and now people are more motivated to work
together and view each other as teammates as opposed to enemies or competing spouses.
(08:23):
So it was just a gradual process how.
It occurred, but it occurred because we were always committed to the marriage.
We just weren't very good at it.
And it was in the process of helping others that we got better at our own marriage
and developed the program that we now call Marriage Team. Wow.
(08:45):
Well, thank you for sharing that. I honestly have wondered how it all started.
And to hear that you didn't have a plan Because I think most people think you
start a nonprofit by intentionally being called or you see a need and brokenness and you just start it,
you know, and not that you can just start with your neighbors,
(09:06):
like your community, and then you can expand it little by little.
So that's actually the first example of that that I've seen.
Well, it's interesting because we had a church program and we were sort of leading
the quote mentoring program at the church. And we had trained couples in other
churches, but they weren't being used because there was no program.
(09:27):
There was nobody to assign couples to them. It wasn't being managed.
So Autumn is very practical, and she said, I don't want to waste my time equipping
people and not have them used. So she suggested forming a nonprofit,
and then people could be equipped by the nonprofit.
We could do the screening. We could assign people, and we could monitor the results.
(09:52):
And that way, we could offer that service not only to churches,
but also to the community.
So with that, at that time, we were both working other jobs,
and we put together the paperwork for the 501c3.
We had no idea what we were getting into, so it just sort of started to grow.
(10:12):
Six months into it, I left my job to become the full-time executive director,
and at that time, there was one person running the ministry.
We got a couple of grants from the Murdoch Foundation, enabled us to hire a
couple of people, and we grew from there.
Wow. What a story. Yeah.
(10:34):
That's an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing that.
And what then, you already, I feel like you touched the surface of this,
but what types of services do you provide for the community or what approach do you take?
I know you've mentioned that you take the approach of offering marriage seeing
to churches and also the community as well. Yeah.
(10:56):
So the services that we offer, we offer marriage coaching, which is different
than mentoring and is different than counseling.
Everybody that's struggling with their marriage is not a good candidate for
coaching. There are issues that are uncoachable issues.
Abuse, addictions, I mean all forms of addictions, mental health issues that
(11:16):
are untreated, depression untreated, and ongoing affairs where one of the spouses
is not willing to work on the relationship. relationship.
Those things do not respond to coaching because coaching is all about making
and keeping agreements.
And if your behavior is being driven by an addiction or by an abusive nature
(11:38):
or by a mental health issue, you don't have the ability to make and keep agreements.
Coaching can do, though, is it teaches skills, and then the coaches help the
couples apply the skills so they get the results they want.
So the coaches will teach communications, but then they will help the couple
(11:59):
use the communication skills.
So it might look something like this. We would start talking and say,
Mark, you and Cindy were having an issue.
And Cindy's speaking first and Cindy starts to explain the issue in an I statement,
which we've taught her to do.
And you're quick to say, but honey, you know that that wasn't quite how it happened.
(12:22):
And the coaches would say, wait a second, Mark, because you're the listener.
What did you understand Cindy to say? half the time
the husband would pause and think
and say oh i don't know
would you repeat it because he wasn't listening to understand he
was listening to refute or he'd heard it before and he wanted to clarify or
(12:44):
whatever so the job of the listener is to make sure that the speaker feels understood
and that's the sole job so the coaches are going to keep them the listener in
the listening mode until the speaker feels understood.
And when the listener says, is there more? There is no more because the communication
process is like peeling back an onion.
(13:06):
So, you know, you say the first part, but there's almost always more to the conversation.
And when you ask and you think about it, you say, well, yeah,
it wasn't just that time. It's happened repeatedly.
And it's, you know, and you go on and you elaborate.
So the coach is going to make sure you understand. understand.
When the speaker, when Cindy in this case feels understood, then the roles switch
(13:29):
and you get to share your side of it. And Cindy has to listen to understand.
And in that process, you should come to a common understanding of the issue
because you didn't want Cindy to feel that way.
She didn't want you to feel that way because it isn't working. So then it.
Comes to the approach of the coaches will say, so what are your options?
(13:53):
What could you do differently?
You explore those options. You decide what you're going to do.
You make an agreement and then you follow through.
So that's the coaching process and that's how it plays out.
But it's skills-based because you're applying the skills, but it's application-oriented.
So the coaches are making sure it gets applied because simply head knowledge
(14:13):
of active listening is not going to result in a new behavior and agreement for most folks.
Wow. That sounds like a very effective way of learning and being able to carry
on that into your marriage for life.
It really is because part of the coaching is to create the mutual accountability
(14:34):
for following through on agreements.
And when couples can be mutually accountable for reminding each other when they're
not doing good listening or they're not following through who are in agreements,
they are working together as a team.
So coaching is about reframing thinking that, you know, you're not independent, you're a team.
If one person has a problem, the team has a problem.
(14:55):
And in helping people to see that if they apply the good relationship skills,
they can get different results.
And that encourages them on their own, applying those same relationship skills
so they continue to get better results.
I actually had a question. So I know that you have coaching,
(15:16):
and you recently saw this on your website, for couples who are not married yet.
How is that different, I guess, from the other services?
Yeah. So we do premarital and we do married.
If a couple has been previously married or divorced, they go through the married
program Because we feel it focuses on the relationship skills and bitterness
(15:40):
and forgiveness in a much stronger way.
For what we call traditional premarital, which is couples that are not cohabitating
and have never been married before, it is focused on teaching the communication skills.
Skills, but then it's focused on expectations, you know, roles,
who's going to do finances and what happens when you say, I'll clean up the
(16:04):
kitchen. What does that mean?
Does that mean that the husband puts all the stuff on the side of the sink and
the wife has to do the dishes?
Or does that mean he's going to do the dishes and the wife's going to put the
food away? Or does it mean he's going to do the dishes and put the food away? Whatever. Right.
You know, people that have never lived together, they say things and they don't
(16:26):
understand the ramifications and the issues that can be associated with it.
So the traditional premarital helps people to explore so they can get clarity
around roles, responsibilities, you know, and how they're going to do life together.
I see. Well, I think some of it reminds me of our first year of marriage.
(16:46):
We definitely had to learn communication with both very extroverted people.
So we appreciate verbally talking, but when we're upset, both of us had an avoidance
of not talking about something.
And eventually over time, it was honestly prayer and the Lord who helped us
(17:09):
create an environment where we can create a safe space for each other and be able to communicate.
Literally, there are moments where maybe the third year, second year of marriage,
where we decided that if we didn't agree on something, we were just going to take a pause and pray.
That was honestly the beginning of our communication becoming a lot better. Yeah.
(17:33):
Here we are almost, well, now six years, and we're into our seventh year of marriage.
See, you guys were quick learners. You developed a play that worked for you early on.
You didn't need to go through coaching to develop it, and it's been working.
So that was the thing that we weren't able to do.
We didn't have the conceptual framework for doing that, and we weren't fortunate
(17:57):
enough to stumble on a play like that early in our relationship.
Yeah, we actually did take a pre-married counseling from a church with a pastor.
It was Timothy Keller's book on the meaning of marriage.
And so this book talked about serving each other. And that really, really helped us.
I think a single person, you think about yourself and how to survive in the
(18:20):
world, honestly, especially as young adults, you're adulting nowadays, right?
Like learning things on your own, especially as immigrants. We live with our
families and we stay with our families until we're married off.
And so you don't really know the responsibilities that come with running your own household.
And that was something that we had to realize that it could not be selfish,
(18:43):
but it had to be selfless.
And that means putting your spouse, well, putting the Lord first and putting your spouse second.
So it was honestly the Lord helping us. I know that some couples now in our
lives that have come in as friends have struggled with that.
And we honestly pray for those friends. And I hope that as people are listening
(19:06):
to this podcast, that they will contact you and they will be inspired to say,
I know I love my spouse and I want to work it out.
So let's sign up. Yeah.
The statistics on the effectiveness of coaching, we asked couples,
were they considering divorce when they came to coaching? And of those couples
that were considering divorce, 89% decide not to divorce after coaching.
(19:30):
So it is a very practical approach that gets good results.
And I might add that we have been approved as a ministry, expansion ministry, alongside Family Life.
So we participate in some of their weekends to remember to just be there to
provide follow-on coaching for couples that want to continue to work on their relationships.
(19:53):
But that process came about because they reviewed the material,
and the material was practical, it was Christ-centered, and it moved people towards Christ.
So yeah, we were blessed to partner with Family Life. Now, I want to ask a question.
The couples that come to you, are they Christian only, what does the couples
(20:15):
or the audience look like?
We do coach all couples. couples we
coach heterosexual couples we believe
in traditional marriage that's part of the the faith-based
program but couples can you
know be a faith or not we believe in
meeting people where they are so that they will know that the coach is a christian
(20:38):
we're not hiding anything but we meet people where they are to help them develop
the faith that the lord is leading them to so through Through the course of
the coaching, the couples just get to share,
the coaches get to share what's going on in their life and, you know,
answer any questions that the couple might have.
And the Lord takes it from there. The Holy Spirit works to soften hearts and change lives.
(21:04):
That's wonderful. So I know some of your coaching services, there is a fee.
But there are some couples I've met who are not able to pay it.
And I think I've inquired about any type of scholarship or reduced price.
Do you offer that? And how does that work for those who might be thinking,
I need that, but I can't afford that right now? Right.
(21:26):
Yet we never deny services for financial reasons. I mean, we will refer people
that aren't good candidates for coaching to better resources.
But finances isn't a reason for not coaching someone.
So we do have some very limited scholarships. Having said that,
we also break down the payment into monthly payments, so we work with people.
(21:49):
If someone can't afford the payment, we will ask them what they can afford and we'll work with them.
Finances should never be a reason why somebody doesn't call for help.
But what we find is that early on, we would give full scholarships and people
didn't take it seriously. They didn't value it.
So they would miss meetings. They wouldn't do homework.
(22:12):
They weren't committed to working on their relationship, which was frustrating
for them because they were expecting to see results. And it was frustrating
for the coaches because they weren't seeing results.
The fees that we charge are a fraction of what it would cost for an equivalent amount of counseling.
It's part of helping the couple to get real value out of their experience.
(22:33):
That's wonderful. The other thing that I might add about that,
we do have a money-back guarantee that says, if you believe you didn't get your
money's worth from your coaching experience.
Let us know and we'll refund everything but the hard costs of the materials,
the inventory, the mailing, you know, that. that.
So that's about $85 out of the fees that don't get refunded.
(22:57):
But we have very few people that request a refund because they realize that
they're getting good value.
We don't guarantee results because the results are up to the couple.
If the couple can't, for one reason or another, apply the skills and the principles
(23:18):
that are being shared in the coaching process, they won't get the results.
So we don't guarantee results, but we do guarantee a satisfaction that they enjoyed the process.
Our next question for you is, how do you see God's mercy in your own life and
those your team helps through your organization?
(23:39):
You know, the Lord is so good about blessing couples that come to the coaching process.
We see couples, like I said, that have divorce papers in hand that rip up their
divorce papers because the coaches create an environment where the Holy Spirit can soften hearts,
and And they provide a reframing of thinking that helps couples to see their
(24:03):
relationship in a different way.
Coaches get the blessing of seeing lives changed in their very own,
you know, dining room table or on the screen if they're doing remote coaching video-wise.
And they see how the Lord's working through them. So they get a huge blessing with that.
And the couple gets the the blessing of having a restored relationship that
(24:27):
improves their family, their relationship with their kids,
and effectively can give them a legacy that can pass on for generations so that
broken marriages are not being passed on to children who grow up thinking it's okay to,
you know, if you don't feel good, it's okay to get a divorce.
It really does create a legacy. So, I mean, I think the Lord's mercy is in all of that.
(24:51):
You know, we're all sinful people, and we're all going to focus on ourself.
And the Lord works with broken people in ministry to achieve his purposes.
I love that. I think also for those who may not know and maybe you are in a
good place in your relationship and you want to give back to the community,
(25:15):
I think it would be wonderful for them to know that you also provide the opportunity
to volunteer, correct? correct? Correct.
So Cindy, that's really a great point. We do offer coach training for free because
couples are being equipped to be volunteers with marriage team.
So we have material and we teach couples in the training how to use the material
(25:38):
to achieve the breakthroughs that I was talking about.
So the training is 24 hours. It's over two weekends.
Couples will practice the the coaching skills with another couple five different times.
So by the time they finish the training, they will have coached another couple
for about two and a half, three hours and receive feedback from the couple they
(26:01):
coached and another coach that's in the room, in the breakout room with them.
That's the thing that people really say about the training. The best part of
the training is the practice coaching.
Coaching is a little bit like riding a bike. You can see somebody doing it you say, oh, that's easy.
And then you get on it and you realize it isn't quite as easy as it looks.
(26:23):
Being in the moment, being able to ask questions, have a mentality about asking
questions that are questions that are going to help the couple move forward
in their relationship, not to satisfy your curiosity.
Questions that are going to help them move forward. They're going to get them
to think and reframe their thinking and explore new ways of doing things. That's a skill.
(26:47):
It's not a difficult skill. We can teach an average lay couple to be a good coach in that 24 hours.
The other thing about the program and the reason why we don't train couples
to be freelance is that even experienced coaches will run into situations where they get stuck,
(27:08):
where there's a dynamic or something that they're not quite sure what's going on.
So they can call the office and we will talk to them and we will coach the coaches.
So we'll ask the coaches, what are you seeing? What are you observing?
What do you think's going on? And then the real powerful question is,
what have you told the couple?
And many times the The coaches have a feeling, they think they know what's going
(27:32):
on, but they haven't said it because they don't want to offend the couple or,
you know, break the relationship or whatever.
Part of the training is we equip coaches to be lovingly confrontational and lovingly offending.
So, I mean, it can be as simple as, you know, I don't know quite how to say
(27:54):
this and I don't want to hurt your feelings.
Things it just seems like you really aren't committed
to the marriage you've made agreements and
you haven't kept them and i'm just wondering what's behind that you
know that's a pretty tough message to deliver but
if you deliver it right with compassion and the coaches and the couple being
(28:15):
coached knows that you care about them you're volunteers you're not getting
paid for spending time with them and you really want to see them be successful
they can receive that and and they receive it well.
It takes sometimes coaching the coaches to get them to realize that that's part
of the job, is to be able to share those kind of tough messages,
(28:37):
which creates the breakthroughs that couples need.
Often they don't see their relationship the same way a coach would see it.
So we tell coaches, you're the mirror that's reflecting the relationship back
to the couple for their assessment and for them to consider what they want to do about it.
That is wonderful. I am happy to hear that they are receiving,
(29:00):
as a coach, excuse me, you are receiving the support, you are receiving the
training that you need to do
this. But when you run into that tough situation, you can get that help.
I know Mark and I are looking forward to volunteering and doing this.
So if you're listening to this, I hope that you will consider it.
It is something that our community needs greatly, especially as we are going
(29:23):
to have a diverse community in our area.
I know that we're going to have a lot of Slavic families and,
God willing, some Hispanic families listening to this.
And that is also a great need. So it would be wonderful to have coaches and
those who have more seasoned and well-nourished marriages to give back to the community.
We actually have the materials in Spanish, but we don't have many Spanish-speaking coaches.
(29:47):
So Spanish-speaking coaches would be wonderful. Yeah. Well, you got one here.
Awesome. You know, there might be some couples that are listening and they're
thinking to themselves, what are some action steps that I can take today? day?
Well, first of all, obviously, call marriage team and we could help.
But that aside, the key is communication.
(30:10):
Experts say that 70% or more of the divorces and marital problems are caused
because of communication issues.
You both alluded to that in your early marriage that you were avoiders and you
didn't communicate well and that caused problems.
So communication is the issue. virtually, it's underlying the issue all the time.
(30:34):
We have a coach that says the issue is never the issue.
So there's a presenting issue, but what's underneath it is hurt feelings,
feeling of abandonment, feeling of being disrespected, whatever.
There's some underlying issue that's going on and the presenting issue is just a symptom.
But having said that, if a person can can suspend their judgment and their quick
(31:02):
response to listen to understand.
And that is really hard when your buttons are being pushed or emotions are,
you know, running wild or you feel an attack.
But if you can listen to be, to understand your spouse and you can really understand,
you probably don't want them to feel the way they're feeling anyways.
(31:25):
Because of your own stuff that you bring, you know, you can't see their point
of view, and therefore it's easy to respond directly.
So the key is, you know, the basic key is good listening.
And if a person can suspend their judgment and listen well, they're well on
their way to improving the relationship.
(31:48):
Well, thank you so much, Al, for those tips and coming on and being a part of the show.
For those who are interested in getting some marriage coaching help,
you'll find the links on our show notes.
And for those who would like to be coaches or would like to contribute and donate
to a marriage team, you'll find those there as well.
Thank you so much for your time, Mal. Oh, it's been a pleasure.
(32:10):
And thank you for this ministry and these podcasts. This is a wonderful outreach.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review you so we can continue to reach more people.
Also, make sure to follow us.
Music.
Hello i'm mark and i'm cindy and
we're the hosts of mercy on display a storytelling podcast about god's mercy
in people's lives from dating to marriage parenting to careers and everything
in between we hope you'll be inspired encouraged and grounded in god's purpose.
Music.
For your own life we're glad you're here thanks for joining us,
(00:44):
today we are speaking with alan ray from marriage team alan and his wife autumn
have been married since 1970 and are the founding directors of marriage team
a non-profit dedicated to empowering couples for winning marriages.
Marriage Team trains Christian coach couples and places premarital and married
couples with coaches for six to 12 weeks of skill building and coaching.
(01:09):
Alan has a Master of Science in Counseling and Human Development,
and Autumn has a Bachelor of Science in Social Work.
Alan retired from the Air Force and is the full-time Executive Director for Marriage Team.
Autumn was the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice Volunteer Manager
and retired in July 2012.
(01:31):
They are a certified marriage enrichment leader couple, seminar directors for
Prepare, Enrich, and skilled trainers.
Alan and Autumn have two children and two grandchildren and live in Camas, Washington.
All right. Hello, everyone. We have Al with us here.
So welcome to the show, Al. Well, thank you very much, Cindy.
It's wonderful to be here with you. We're really happy to have you here.
(01:54):
We are actually really big fans of Marriage Team. We've heard a lot about you.
We had a little bit of a chance to talk to some of your staff,
and they've just been wonderful.
So we are looking forward to learning more about you today and hearing a little
bit of the backstory about you and about Marriage Team.
So I guess our first question is, can you please share a bit about your background? Where are you from?
(02:19):
Did you grow up in a Christian household? Are you married and do you have children? Sure.
Well, I was born in Boston, lived there until I was in...
Junior high, moved to Michigan, went through high school in Michigan and college
at Michigan Tech in the Upper Peninsula.
Went in the Air Force, spent 27 years in the Air Force. Between college and
(02:39):
the Air Force, I met my wife, Autumn.
We met at school and got married before my first real assignment in the Air Force.
So we've been together now for 53 years, going on 54.
Wow. And if Autumn was telling the story, she would say that some of them were happy. Oh.
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I was sort of a workaholic Air Force kind of guy, and I thought most of them
were happy, but therein lay the problem that we didn't see things the same.
And she felt like I wasn't paying enough attention, and I wasn't.
I was really focused on a career.
Oh, wow. Have you always been a Bible-believing Christian?
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Absolutely not. Oh. and neither one of us were Christians when we got married.
So we came to faith about 10 years into the marriage, and Autumn grew up thinking she was a Christian.
She went to a Lutheran church, but she didn't really have a personal relationship.
She was a Lutheran, but she didn't have that personal relationship.
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So I grew up in a home where we didn't go to church, and I knew I wasn't a Christian,
but it's very interesting.
We went to a seminar on parenting, and it was in San Antonio,
Texas, 1978 or 79. I don't remember the exact year.
And the speaker asked if people would stand up if they were Christians,
(04:10):
if they were a committed Christian.
And the word committed caused Autumn to question.
I mean, I mean, I knew I wasn't a committed Christian, but she didn't quite
understand how to handle that.
So that put her on a path to sort of explore what being a committed Christian was.
That speaker was James Thompson, and he recorded the very first Focus on the
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Family series at that weekend.
So we were actually in the audience, and on Sunday afternoon,
you can see the video go by, and Autumn's taking notes and I was actually sort of asleep.
But anyways, it was a wonderful conference. You did a great job.
We got a lot out of it. And that's really what got us on the path to becoming Christians.
(05:00):
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that about you. Thank you.
It's good to see the beginnings of—I mean, now I look at you and I think,
wow, there's a godly man walking by, and he's been called to ministry,
but we never know where the Lord found us, and he cleaned us up,
and he set us on the right path. Yeah.
(05:23):
Well, we often say, you said he cleaned us up.
We view it as if we weren't doing it, he'd find somebody else to do it.
So the Lord uses broken people, people that are struggling to accomplish his
purpose. So it's praise the Lord.
Amen. So how did the Lord call you to this ministry marriage team?
(05:45):
Well, I sort of alluded to that as I talked about Autumn saying that some of
the years were happy years.
So we went to everything marriage was that said marriage. Our folks were both in lifelong marriages.
So divorce was not part of our playbook, so to speak. Right.
And when I say playbook, that's the analogy that we use in marriage coaching,
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is that you and your spouse are born onto different teams, your family of origin,
and you develop a personality and a, quote, playbook for how you're going to navigate life.
It's about expectations. It's about what's right and wrong, how you handle conflict,
all that stuff that we take for granted.
You get married, you create a new team, and you bring your individual playbook,
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and you don't share it very effectively.
So over time, because of all of these different expectations and everything
that causes problems in the marriage,
so what coaches do is they help couples create a common playbook so that they
can work together to achieve their common goals about raising kids or financial security, whatever.
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That was sort of a backtrack on that question.
But we struggled, and we found that we'd go to all of these events,
and Monday morning the book was on the shelf, and we were operating out of our old playbook.
And our relationship really hadn't changed.
(07:10):
And in early 2000, we went to a conference about a marriage mentoring program,
and it talked about how you set up a program.
It didn't really talk about what you do when you're working with a couple.
So we had some marriage enrichment material that we had picked up over the years,
and we sat down with the couples who
(07:32):
went with us to the training and just effectively said, so what do we do?
And we said, well, I guess we talked to him about communications,
and we talked to him about anger and forgiveness and those things.
And that was the start of Marriage Team was pulling that together.
So over the years, we just documented what worked, discarded what didn't work,
(07:56):
and the Lord revealed in a very progressive kind of fashion things that worked.
And it was probably a few years in when we came up with the analogy and couples resonated with it.
We started to reframe thinking about you're on the same team,
you're winning and losing together and now people are more motivated to work
together and view each other as teammates as opposed to enemies or competing spouses.
(08:23):
So it was just a gradual process how.
It occurred, but it occurred because we were always committed to the marriage.
We just weren't very good at it.
And it was in the process of helping others that we got better at our own marriage
and developed the program that we now call Marriage Team. Wow.
(08:45):
Well, thank you for sharing that. I honestly have wondered how it all started.
And to hear that you didn't have a plan Because I think most people think you
start a nonprofit by intentionally being called or you see a need and brokenness and you just start it,
you know, and not that you can just start with your neighbors,
(09:06):
like your community, and then you can expand it little by little.
So that's actually the first example of that that I've seen.
Well, it's interesting because we had a church program and we were sort of leading
the quote mentoring program at the church. And we had trained couples in other
churches, but they weren't being used because there was no program.
(09:27):
There was nobody to assign couples to them. It wasn't being managed.
So Autumn is very practical, and she said, I don't want to waste my time equipping
people and not have them used. So she suggested forming a nonprofit,
and then people could be equipped by the nonprofit.
We could do the screening. We could assign people, and we could monitor the results.
(09:52):
And that way, we could offer that service not only to churches,
but also to the community.
So with that, at that time, we were both working other jobs,
and we put together the paperwork for the 501c3.
We had no idea what we were getting into, so it just sort of started to grow.
(10:12):
Six months into it, I left my job to become the full-time executive director,
and at that time, there was one person running the ministry.
We got a couple of grants from the Murdoch Foundation, enabled us to hire a
couple of people, and we grew from there.
Wow. What a story. Yeah.
(10:34):
That's an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing that.
And what then, you already, I feel like you touched the surface of this,
but what types of services do you provide for the community or what approach do you take?
I know you've mentioned that you take the approach of offering marriage seeing
to churches and also the community as well. Yeah.
(10:56):
So the services that we offer, we offer marriage coaching, which is different
than mentoring and is different than counseling.
Everybody that's struggling with their marriage is not a good candidate for
coaching. There are issues that are uncoachable issues.
Abuse, addictions, I mean all forms of addictions, mental health issues that
(11:16):
are untreated, depression untreated, and ongoing affairs where one of the spouses
is not willing to work on the relationship. relationship.
Those things do not respond to coaching because coaching is all about making
and keeping agreements.
And if your behavior is being driven by an addiction or by an abusive nature
(11:38):
or by a mental health issue, you don't have the ability to make and keep agreements.
Coaching can do, though, is it teaches skills, and then the coaches help the
couples apply the skills so they get the results they want.
So the coaches will teach communications, but then they will help the couple
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use the communication skills.
So it might look something like this. We would start talking and say,
Mark, you and Cindy were having an issue.
And Cindy's speaking first and Cindy starts to explain the issue in an I statement,
which we've taught her to do.
And you're quick to say, but honey, you know that that wasn't quite how it happened.
(12:22):
And the coaches would say, wait a second, Mark, because you're the listener.
What did you understand Cindy to say? half the time
the husband would pause and think
and say oh i don't know
would you repeat it because he wasn't listening to understand he
was listening to refute or he'd heard it before and he wanted to clarify or
(12:44):
whatever so the job of the listener is to make sure that the speaker feels understood
and that's the sole job so the coaches are going to keep them the listener in
the listening mode until the speaker feels understood.
And when the listener says, is there more? There is no more because the communication
process is like peeling back an onion.
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So, you know, you say the first part, but there's almost always more to the conversation.
And when you ask and you think about it, you say, well, yeah,
it wasn't just that time. It's happened repeatedly.
And it's, you know, and you go on and you elaborate.
So the coach is going to make sure you understand. understand.
When the speaker, when Cindy in this case feels understood, then the roles switch
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and you get to share your side of it. And Cindy has to listen to understand.
And in that process, you should come to a common understanding of the issue
because you didn't want Cindy to feel that way.
She didn't want you to feel that way because it isn't working. So then it.
Comes to the approach of the coaches will say, so what are your options?
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What could you do differently?
You explore those options. You decide what you're going to do.
You make an agreement and then you follow through.
So that's the coaching process and that's how it plays out.
But it's skills-based because you're applying the skills, but it's application-oriented.
So the coaches are making sure it gets applied because simply head knowledge
(14:13):
of active listening is not going to result in a new behavior and agreement for most folks.
Wow. That sounds like a very effective way of learning and being able to carry
on that into your marriage for life.
It really is because part of the coaching is to create the mutual accountability
(14:34):
for following through on agreements.
And when couples can be mutually accountable for reminding each other when they're
not doing good listening or they're not following through who are in agreements,
they are working together as a team.
So coaching is about reframing thinking that, you know, you're not independent, you're a team.
If one person has a problem, the team has a problem.
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And in helping people to see that if they apply the good relationship skills,
they can get different results.
And that encourages them on their own, applying those same relationship skills
so they continue to get better results.
I actually had a question. So I know that you have coaching,
(15:16):
and you recently saw this on your website, for couples who are not married yet.
How is that different, I guess, from the other services?
Yeah. So we do premarital and we do married.
If a couple has been previously married or divorced, they go through the married
program Because we feel it focuses on the relationship skills and bitterness
(15:40):
and forgiveness in a much stronger way.
For what we call traditional premarital, which is couples that are not cohabitating
and have never been married before, it is focused on teaching the communication skills.
Skills, but then it's focused on expectations, you know, roles,
who's going to do finances and what happens when you say, I'll clean up the
(16:04):
kitchen. What does that mean?
Does that mean that the husband puts all the stuff on the side of the sink and
the wife has to do the dishes?
Or does that mean he's going to do the dishes and the wife's going to put the
food away? Or does it mean he's going to do the dishes and put the food away? Whatever. Right.
You know, people that have never lived together, they say things and they don't
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understand the ramifications and the issues that can be associated with it.
So the traditional premarital helps people to explore so they can get clarity
around roles, responsibilities, you know, and how they're going to do life together.
I see. Well, I think some of it reminds me of our first year of marriage.
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We definitely had to learn communication with both very extroverted people.
So we appreciate verbally talking, but when we're upset, both of us had an avoidance
of not talking about something.
And eventually over time, it was honestly prayer and the Lord who helped us
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create an environment where we can create a safe space for each other and be able to communicate.
Literally, there are moments where maybe the third year, second year of marriage,
where we decided that if we didn't agree on something, we were just going to take a pause and pray.
That was honestly the beginning of our communication becoming a lot better. Yeah.
(17:33):
Here we are almost, well, now six years, and we're into our seventh year of marriage.
See, you guys were quick learners. You developed a play that worked for you early on.
You didn't need to go through coaching to develop it, and it's been working.
So that was the thing that we weren't able to do.
We didn't have the conceptual framework for doing that, and we weren't fortunate
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enough to stumble on a play like that early in our relationship.
Yeah, we actually did take a pre-married counseling from a church with a pastor.
It was Timothy Keller's book on the meaning of marriage.
And so this book talked about serving each other. And that really, really helped us.
I think a single person, you think about yourself and how to survive in the
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world, honestly, especially as young adults, you're adulting nowadays, right?
Like learning things on your own, especially as immigrants. We live with our
families and we stay with our families until we're married off.
And so you don't really know the responsibilities that come with running your own household.
And that was something that we had to realize that it could not be selfish,
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but it had to be selfless.
And that means putting your spouse, well, putting the Lord first and putting your spouse second.
So it was honestly the Lord helping us. I know that some couples now in our
lives that have come in as friends have struggled with that.
And we honestly pray for those friends. And I hope that as people are listening
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to this podcast, that they will contact you and they will be inspired to say,
I know I love my spouse and I want to work it out.
So let's sign up. Yeah.
The statistics on the effectiveness of coaching, we asked couples,
were they considering divorce when they came to coaching? And of those couples
that were considering divorce, 89% decide not to divorce after coaching.
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So it is a very practical approach that gets good results.
And I might add that we have been approved as a ministry, expansion ministry, alongside Family Life.
So we participate in some of their weekends to remember to just be there to
provide follow-on coaching for couples that want to continue to work on their relationships.
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But that process came about because they reviewed the material,
and the material was practical, it was Christ-centered, and it moved people towards Christ.
So yeah, we were blessed to partner with Family Life. Now, I want to ask a question.
The couples that come to you, are they Christian only, what does the couples
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or the audience look like?
We do coach all couples. couples we
coach heterosexual couples we believe
in traditional marriage that's part of the the faith-based
program but couples can you
know be a faith or not we believe in
meeting people where they are so that they will know that the coach is a christian
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we're not hiding anything but we meet people where they are to help them develop
the faith that the lord is leading them to so through Through the course of
the coaching, the couples just get to share,
the coaches get to share what's going on in their life and, you know,
answer any questions that the couple might have.
And the Lord takes it from there. The Holy Spirit works to soften hearts and change lives.
(21:04):
That's wonderful. So I know some of your coaching services, there is a fee.
But there are some couples I've met who are not able to pay it.
And I think I've inquired about any type of scholarship or reduced price.
Do you offer that? And how does that work for those who might be thinking,
I need that, but I can't afford that right now? Right.
(21:26):
Yet we never deny services for financial reasons. I mean, we will refer people
that aren't good candidates for coaching to better resources.
But finances isn't a reason for not coaching someone.
So we do have some very limited scholarships. Having said that,
we also break down the payment into monthly payments, so we work with people.
(21:49):
If someone can't afford the payment, we will ask them what they can afford and we'll work with them.
Finances should never be a reason why somebody doesn't call for help.
But what we find is that early on, we would give full scholarships and people
didn't take it seriously. They didn't value it.
So they would miss meetings. They wouldn't do homework.
(22:12):
They weren't committed to working on their relationship, which was frustrating
for them because they were expecting to see results. And it was frustrating
for the coaches because they weren't seeing results.
The fees that we charge are a fraction of what it would cost for an equivalent amount of counseling.
It's part of helping the couple to get real value out of their experience.
(22:33):
That's wonderful. The other thing that I might add about that,
we do have a money-back guarantee that says, if you believe you didn't get your
money's worth from your coaching experience.
Let us know and we'll refund everything but the hard costs of the materials,
the inventory, the mailing, you know, that. that.
So that's about $85 out of the fees that don't get refunded.
(22:57):
But we have very few people that request a refund because they realize that
they're getting good value.
We don't guarantee results because the results are up to the couple.
If the couple can't, for one reason or another, apply the skills and the principles
(23:18):
that are being shared in the coaching process, they won't get the results.
So we don't guarantee results, but we do guarantee a satisfaction that they enjoyed the process.
Our next question for you is, how do you see God's mercy in your own life and
those your team helps through your organization?
(23:39):
You know, the Lord is so good about blessing couples that come to the coaching process.
We see couples, like I said, that have divorce papers in hand that rip up their
divorce papers because the coaches create an environment where the Holy Spirit can soften hearts,
and And they provide a reframing of thinking that helps couples to see their
(24:03):
relationship in a different way.
Coaches get the blessing of seeing lives changed in their very own,
you know, dining room table or on the screen if they're doing remote coaching video-wise.
And they see how the Lord's working through them. So they get a huge blessing with that.
And the couple gets the the blessing of having a restored relationship that
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improves their family, their relationship with their kids,
and effectively can give them a legacy that can pass on for generations so that
broken marriages are not being passed on to children who grow up thinking it's okay to,
you know, if you don't feel good, it's okay to get a divorce.
It really does create a legacy. So, I mean, I think the Lord's mercy is in all of that.
(24:51):
You know, we're all sinful people, and we're all going to focus on ourself.
And the Lord works with broken people in ministry to achieve his purposes.
I love that. I think also for those who may not know and maybe you are in a
good place in your relationship and you want to give back to the community,
(25:15):
I think it would be wonderful for them to know that you also provide the opportunity
to volunteer, correct? correct? Correct.
So Cindy, that's really a great point. We do offer coach training for free because
couples are being equipped to be volunteers with marriage team.
So we have material and we teach couples in the training how to use the material
(25:38):
to achieve the breakthroughs that I was talking about.
So the training is 24 hours. It's over two weekends.
Couples will practice the the coaching skills with another couple five different times.
So by the time they finish the training, they will have coached another couple
for about two and a half, three hours and receive feedback from the couple they
(26:01):
coached and another coach that's in the room, in the breakout room with them.
That's the thing that people really say about the training. The best part of
the training is the practice coaching.
Coaching is a little bit like riding a bike. You can see somebody doing it you say, oh, that's easy.
And then you get on it and you realize it isn't quite as easy as it looks.
(26:23):
Being in the moment, being able to ask questions, have a mentality about asking
questions that are questions that are going to help the couple move forward
in their relationship, not to satisfy your curiosity.
Questions that are going to help them move forward. They're going to get them
to think and reframe their thinking and explore new ways of doing things. That's a skill.
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It's not a difficult skill. We can teach an average lay couple to be a good coach in that 24 hours.
The other thing about the program and the reason why we don't train couples
to be freelance is that even experienced coaches will run into situations where they get stuck,
(27:08):
where there's a dynamic or something that they're not quite sure what's going on.
So they can call the office and we will talk to them and we will coach the coaches.
So we'll ask the coaches, what are you seeing? What are you observing?
What do you think's going on? And then the real powerful question is,
what have you told the couple?
And many times the The coaches have a feeling, they think they know what's going
(27:32):
on, but they haven't said it because they don't want to offend the couple or,
you know, break the relationship or whatever.
Part of the training is we equip coaches to be lovingly confrontational and lovingly offending.
So, I mean, it can be as simple as, you know, I don't know quite how to say
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this and I don't want to hurt your feelings.
Things it just seems like you really aren't committed
to the marriage you've made agreements and
you haven't kept them and i'm just wondering what's behind that you
know that's a pretty tough message to deliver but
if you deliver it right with compassion and the coaches and the couple being
(28:15):
coached knows that you care about them you're volunteers you're not getting
paid for spending time with them and you really want to see them be successful
they can receive that and and they receive it well.
It takes sometimes coaching the coaches to get them to realize that that's part
of the job, is to be able to share those kind of tough messages,
(28:37):
which creates the breakthroughs that couples need.
Often they don't see their relationship the same way a coach would see it.
So we tell coaches, you're the mirror that's reflecting the relationship back
to the couple for their assessment and for them to consider what they want to do about it.
That is wonderful. I am happy to hear that they are receiving,
(29:00):
as a coach, excuse me, you are receiving the support, you are receiving the
training that you need to do
this. But when you run into that tough situation, you can get that help.
I know Mark and I are looking forward to volunteering and doing this.
So if you're listening to this, I hope that you will consider it.
It is something that our community needs greatly, especially as we are going
(29:23):
to have a diverse community in our area.
I know that we're going to have a lot of Slavic families and,
God willing, some Hispanic families listening to this.
And that is also a great need. So it would be wonderful to have coaches and
those who have more seasoned and well-nourished marriages to give back to the community.
We actually have the materials in Spanish, but we don't have many Spanish-speaking coaches.
(29:47):
So Spanish-speaking coaches would be wonderful. Yeah. Well, you got one here.
Awesome. You know, there might be some couples that are listening and they're
thinking to themselves, what are some action steps that I can take today? day?
Well, first of all, obviously, call marriage team and we could help.
But that aside, the key is communication.
(30:10):
Experts say that 70% or more of the divorces and marital problems are caused
because of communication issues.
You both alluded to that in your early marriage that you were avoiders and you
didn't communicate well and that caused problems.
So communication is the issue. virtually, it's underlying the issue all the time.
(30:34):
We have a coach that says the issue is never the issue.
So there's a presenting issue, but what's underneath it is hurt feelings,
feeling of abandonment, feeling of being disrespected, whatever.
There's some underlying issue that's going on and the presenting issue is just a symptom.
But having said that, if a person can can suspend their judgment and their quick
(31:02):
response to listen to understand.
And that is really hard when your buttons are being pushed or emotions are,
you know, running wild or you feel an attack.
But if you can listen to be, to understand your spouse and you can really understand,
you probably don't want them to feel the way they're feeling anyways.
(31:25):
Because of your own stuff that you bring, you know, you can't see their point
of view, and therefore it's easy to respond directly.
So the key is, you know, the basic key is good listening.
And if a person can suspend their judgment and listen well, they're well on
their way to improving the relationship.
(31:48):
Well, thank you so much, Al, for those tips and coming on and being a part of the show.
For those who are interested in getting some marriage coaching help,
you'll find the links on our show notes.
And for those who would like to be coaches or would like to contribute and donate
to a marriage team, you'll find those there as well.
Thank you so much for your time, Mal. Oh, it's been a pleasure.
(32:10):
And thank you for this ministry and these podcasts. This is a wonderful outreach.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review you so we can continue to reach more people.
Also, make sure to follow us.
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