Marriage to the Max Podcast

Welcome back to "Marriage to the Max", the marriage podcast hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. In this week's episode, we discuss "Your Communication IQ". As a married couple, how do you currently communicate together? This is an important topic that needs constant unpacking within married couples. In marriage (or in any other personal relationship), you can't take effective communication for granted. Honest conversation and frank self-evaluation can be quite beneficial for improving intimacy between husband and wife. Again, Brett was sick during the recording of this episode. Apologies! Hope you enjoy it anyway. And if you'd like to contact us, please feel free to do so at thehursts@homeencouragement.org. We'd love to hear from you! Episode 19 - Your Communication IQ by Brett & Kellie Hurst

Thanks for listening to “Marriage to the Max”, a weekly podcast about marriage hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. This week, our topic is “Realistic Expectations in Marriage”. Now, of course, we believe with God at the center of your marriage relationship, that all things are possible—we believe that marriage offers a couple one joyful opportunity after another! Yet, many folks head into marriage with skewed expectations about what is truly satisfying within a marriage relationship. We hope that this episode is helpful to encourage couples to set their sights high, but to also extend grace to one another whenever we have days that are not our best. Full disclosure: Brett was quite sick with flu-like symptoms during the recording of this episode. Hopefully, it won’t be too distracting! Thanks again to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for helping us go “live” each week. We’re also grateful to our fantastic engineer, Zach Alkire, for providing funky incidental music to each episode. Opening and closing theme by Loopsound. Episode 18 - Realistic Expectations in Marriage by Brett & Kellie Hurst

This week on “Marriage to the Max”, we bring you a rich marriage conversation with our good friends, James and Rachel Poysky. James earned an MA in Psychology, an MA in Christian Leadership, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. James is a Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy board member and Clinical Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and is in private practice. Rachel is an ordained pastor and earned her Masters degree in Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. She currently serves at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston as Children’s Ministries Director. The Poyskys have two beautiful children, Joel and Hallie. In November 2005, Joel was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Since their family received this diagnosis, the Poyskys have been on the frontlines of the fight against Muscular Dystrophy and have helped and encourage people literally around the world. In this podcast episode, they shared solid insights with us about marriage health. We knew that this conversation would benefit not only married couples with special needs children, but also all married couples. You may now subscribe to “Marriage to the Max” on iTunes for free. Thank you so much for listening and for being students of healthy marriages! Episode 17 – Interview With James And Rachel Poysky by Brett & Kellie Hurst

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, a podcast hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. This week, we return to an experiment we tried a few episodes ago. We are bringing you again some hand-selected quotes about marriage from famous people and some not-so-famous people—and then we are subjecting you to our comments about those quotes! When we tried this format a few weeks ago, we got some positive feedback from some listeners who said they enjoyed this approach, so we thought we would try it again. If you find this interesting at all, we will continue to have periodic conversations like this one again in the future. If you DON’T like this particular format, it will be banished permanently! So please let us know what you think. “Marriage to the Max” is now available on iTunes, thanks to the efforts of Grant Peterson of Southhill Communications and our engineer Zach Alkire. You may now subscribe to “Marriage to the Max” for free and receive new episodes each week directly to your electronic device of choice. And you can continue to find all the existing individual episodes here at www.marriagetothemax.org . Also, if you are an iTunes customer, please do us a favor and rate the broadcast on iTunes which will help us get the podcast out to a wider audience. Also, if you would like to contact us for any reason, feel free to do so at thehursts@homeencouragement.org. We would love to encourage you and your family in any way we can. Opening and closing themes provided by Loopsound.

This week’s episode is entitled “Introverts vs. Extroverts” and deals with the challenges and opportunities of marriages and households that incorporate the strengths and growth opportunities of both general types of temperaments. There’s a lot of truth to the old phrase “opposites attract”. It is definitely the rule, rather than the exception. And one of the most blatant examples of this is in the world of having different temperamental approaches to life. These differences are often what attract us to someone who views life through different lenses than we do. In those early years, these opposite qualities seem to add more depth and richness to the relationship. But as we begin to be married longer, if we’re not extending grace to one another, these differences can also cause quarrelsome conflict. As the old saying goes, “If the two of you were created exactly alike, one of you would be unnecessary.” In most situations, God intended us to be very different from one another so that we would add more to the collective whole of the marriage. Through tremendous understanding of our spouse’s temperament (as well as understanding our own) we can begin to embrace one another again, much like we did in our dating years. Therefore, we encourage you to become students of temperaments, how they work and how they can help you understand better to live in harmony with your spouse. Once again, thanks for listening. And we’d love your feedback! You can leave your comments here or contact us at thehursts@homeencouragement.org Episode 15 - Introverts vs. Extroverts by Brett & Kellie Hurst

Happy New Year to you and your family! And thanks for listening to "Marriage to the Max", hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. We are so grateful for all the new listeners to our marriage podcast since we launched back in October 2012. We're even more surprised that most of you tell us you can't wait to hear the next one! Thanks for your feedback--it really helps us! In this MTTM episode, appropriately enough, we talk about setting new goals with your spouse. What better time to do that than at the beginning of a brand new year? People often complain a lot about New Year's resolutions, but by merely setting some long-term targets for your marriage, you'll be quite surprised what God can do within the course of a year. So, with that in mind, what kinds of things would you like to see improved in your marriage? What would you like to see change possibly within a year's time? Anything could happen! More importantly, what are YOU willing to do to see that change take place in your marriage? Are you willing to even do something drastic… like pray for the strength to change yourself? Our suggestion would be to go grab a Starbucks together, or just take some quality time today if you can, and dream again as a couple. Or at least, begin to talk honestly once again. If you've been struggling recently in your marriage, you could begin again by having an honest conversation about some new ideas that together you might want to commit to prayer. And then get started. Pray each day for the ability to make even those small degree changes so that you can re-kindle the love you once had in your marriage. We would be very interested in hearing what ideas you might be considering together to take your marriage to the next level. Feel free to share with us at thehursts@homeencouragement.org. We're ready for much more fun in 2013 with "Marriage to the Max". As always, we are so grateful to our engineer Zach Alkire. Zach has been a real cheerleader to us and has also supplied us with little music snippets for the middle breaks of the podcasts. We never know what he's going to come up with--but we do know he's very talented, brilliant, and a total joy to be around. We're also thankful always for Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications. Grant built Home Encouragement's website, is an incredible friend and encourager, and is a dedicated board member. We wouldn't have had the nerve to launch this podcast series this past year without their help. Looking to more excitement in 2013! Episode 14 - Setting Goals With Your Spouse by Brett & Kellie Hurst

Merry Christmas and welcome back to "Marriage to the Max", a marriage podcast, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. We hope you and your family are celebrating this very important day together in peace and with great thanksgiving! Our podcast today is an interview taped earlier this year with our very good friend, Deborah Kristen. Deborah is the Program Director of The Clearing, a retreat experience for married couples that is among the most powerful of its kind in the country. Deborah is the person to whom potential participants turn as they explore the idea of coming to a Marriage Intensive at The Clearing. She has answers to the many questions that couples have about marriage intensives and she is quite gifted at making folks feel comfortable! She brings to her role a heart for counseling as well as a Masters degree in Biblical Counseling from the Luther Rice University and Seminary. She is also a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (Go Horns!). The Hursts have worked with Deborah Kristen on many joint citywide projects in Houston for the purpose of raising awareness of the priority of healthy marriage for married couples. We are true partners with Deborah in ministry and it is quite an honor to bring you this conversation on "Marriage to the Max". Thank you again for listening! May your family be blessed tremendously as we honor the birth of our blessed Savior Jesus Christ. We pray for God's grace and mercies to you and your loved ones during this holiday season. Episode 13 - Interview with Deborah Kristen by Brett & Kellie Hurst

We’re so glad for your continued listening of our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. And we greatly appreciate your ongoing feedback and comments! We have entitled this week’s conversation, “A Marriage of Grace”. When we are in ongoing dialogue with struggling couples, or even couples in critical crisis, we very frequently hear the desire from so many of these couples to have more peace in their relationship. These spouses want to be free of the escalation of tension in their everyday experience. We hear these couples desperately crying out for more grace in their marriage. Fortunately, we believe that also God wants married couples to enjoy grace within marriage and that He can tremendously assist in that process. The word “grace” is a beautiful word with many historical definitions. Our favorite definition of grace is “unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification”. In other words, grace is a holy word, a holy concept. Without divine assistance with God, none of us could even know Him, let alone enjoy the blessings that He offers us. Receiving God’s blessings of love is truly the most important definition of grace. However, grace can also be defined as having a charming or attractive trait or characteristic. Going even further, grace could also be defined as having “a disposition toward an act of kindness or courtesy.” In marriage, dispositions toward acts of kindness can go a long way! But how does one get a disposition or attitude toward kindness? We believe one of the greatest roadblocks to the way of marital health and strength is our own selfishness. Right behind that reality would be our own blindness regarding that selfishness. It’s truly remarkable how we can forget how strong our wills can be. When we are reading Scripture, it doesn’t take long for us to be reminded of how quickly we can drift each day toward rationalizing our own designs, our own ways of behaving or looking at life. This wayward “drift” causes us to miss out the fullness of life that God intended and desires for us to experience….in all of our relationships. We do know that a better plan is available to couples, if they’re both willing. We hope that today’s episode will encourage each of us to look to the Lord, our Creator, for our ultimate satisfaction. This will allow us to extend grace, understanding and forgiveness to our spouses when they don’t live up to our own expectations or standards. Thank you for listening so far. We greatly appreciate it. Feel free to contact us anytime at thehursts@homeencouragement.org if we can be of assistance to your family in any way. And we are also grateful to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications as well as our engineer Zach Alkire for their invaluable assistance in getting this podcast to you. Opening and closing theme songs by Loopsound. Episode 12 - A Marriage of Grace by Brett & Kellie Hurst

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, a marriage podcast hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. We’re always grateful that you join us for these podcast episodes. We hope you’ll continue to make it part of your weekly routine. We will continue to shoot for releasing a new episode every Tuesday. This week’s topic is “Affair Proofing Your Marriage”. Actually, we had some debate about this title after we recorded this conversation. To be technically accurate, there is no surefire way to affair-proof your marriage. Affairs can happen to the best of couples and families can get quickly blindsided when they least expect it. Fortunately, we at Home Encouragement have seen miraculous marriage healings in many, many of these hurting situations. Because of the tendencies that all human beings have toward brokenness, weakness, and even self-centeredness, no one is completely immune from the things that might sneak in and compromise a marriage relationship. However, we believe there are practical steps that can be put in place that will greatly minimize the chances of an affair destroying a marriage. We hope to be able to provide some of those tips in this week’s episode. Make no mistake about it, an affair is usually devastating to a marriage and the recovery process is quite difficult and takes time. But there is great hope available for couples. If you are struggling in any way with an affair-related issue in your marriage, we advocate that you seek out prayer and professional help. One good recommendation is to contact The Affair Recovery Center in Austin, Texas at www.affairrecovery.com. The folks there are world-renowned in this field and may possibly have the best tools and resources available for recovering from affairs and other forms of infidelity. As always, props to Zach Alkire (engineer) and Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for helping us get this week’s MTTM episode up and running. Week in and week out, we couldn’t do it without you! And thanks to our listeners (you know who you are)! We’d love to hear from you. Either comment here or email us at thehursts@homeencouragement.org. God bless you through the Christmas season. Episode 11 - Protecting Against Affairs with Brett & Kellie Hurst

Thanks for listening again to “Marriage to the Max”, a marriage podcast hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. We hope you have been enjoying each weekly episode. We continue to release a new installment of these conversations every Tuesday. Please feel free to leave your comments regarding these episodes. Give us your feedback. It helps us to know what types of podcasts to create in the future. This week, our topic is “Conflict 101”. The subject of conflict is one that MTTM will visit and revisit throughout this podcast series. All married couples have some level of conflict—and that’s certainly okay. Not only is conflict not a bad thing, we believe that it’s even necessary for the continued growth of intimacy between spouses. In fact, one way to define having “conflict” is simply “to differ”. Since you didn’t marry someone exactly like you, conflict is certainly inevitable for your relationship together. Always remember that conflict is an opportunity for God to work in your marriage, as well as for you to take real time to examine what might be the source of those different points of view. These are chances to learn even more about yourselves and each other. But don’t be discouraged by some ongoing conflict in your marriage. If you draw closer to God and learn how He might want you to manage that conflict more effectively together, you’ll be able to see your disagreements in a completely new light. As always, we are grateful to Zach Alkire (engineer/musician) and Grant Peterson (South Hill Communications) for all that they do each week to allow to continue to release new podcasts. They make doing these so much more effective…and fun. Opening and closing theme songs by Loopsound. Episode 10 - Conflict 101 with Brett & Kellie Hurst

We’re grateful for your continued investment into our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. We enjoy bringing you this podcast with a new episode every week. During this week’s installment, we bring you our first “marriage quotes” conversation. We thought it would be a fun idea for the two of us to gather some quotes by famous and not-so-famous people about marriage….and then react spontaneously to those quotes. We’ll see if this concept works out okay. Yes, it might be one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time kind of ideas. Either way, we would love your comments. As always, if you would like to contact us about anything marriage related, that’s why we’re here. You may email us at thehursts@homeencouragement.org and we will respond as soon as we can. Our ongoing hope is to encourage as many couples as possible toward healthy marriage. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you in that process. Special thanks to our podcast engineer, Zach Alkire, who makes recording these episodes a much easier task—we also enjoy his homegrown musical tracks. We’re also always grateful to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for his ongoing assistance each week in getting our communications out into cyberworld. Opening and closing theme songs by Loopsound. Episode 9 - Marriage Quotes With Brett & Kellie Hurst

Welcome back to Marriage to the Max, the weekly podcast hosted by Brett and Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. In this week’s episode, we conclude with “Part 2” our in-depth conversation with gifted counselor Adam Mason of Houston’s First Baptist Church. We received so much from listening to Adam in these sessions together. Adam’s vast wisdom and experience offers much to all married couples. We hope you get a chance to listen to this entire interview and benefit as well from his insights. Also, we would like to wish you and your family a very blessed Thanksgiving season. As a family, the Hursts are so very grateful to God and all He has done for us. We pray that you will also experience the richest blessings imaginable from truly knowing Him and abiding in Him. Episode 08 - Interview with Adam Mason (Part II) with Brett & Kellie Hurst

Thank you for your continued listening of our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett and Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. In this new episode, we are honored to feature our very first interview guest. Adam Mason is the Minister of Counseling Services at Houston’s First Baptist Church, one of the pioneer church counseling organizations in the country. Adam is an ordained minister of Christian counseling and a licensed professional counselor and supervisor in Texas. He has a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling, a Master of Arts in Religious Education, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Social Service. Adam has specialized training in the area of Spiritual Direction, and has been working in this area for over 25 years. Adam brings a great amount of wisdom as well as tremendous insights into the spiritual foundation of marriage. We encourage you and your spouse to listen to this interview critically as could will help realign your understanding about how marriage was designed to work. Thanks again to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for his ongoing consultation as well as our talented engineer Zach Alkire. Episode 07 - Interview with Adam Mason (Part I) with Brett & Kellie Hurst

Welcome back to "Marriage to the Max", the weekly marriage podcast hosted by Brett and Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. This week, we discuss "Communication 101". This is a vital topic for most couples. Are you aware that the average amount of quality conversation per day for married couples is 3 minutes? Wow! Really? That staggers the mind, frankly. However, we're willing to bet that, with just a little bit of effort, most couples can improve dramatically on increasing that amount of conversation. You should know that communication struggles are extremely common among married couples. This is why this subject of more effective communication will be a topic that "Marriage to the Max" will visit and revisit frequently. Fortunately, effective communication skills can be learned and applied fairly easily that will typically make things smoother for couples. We hope to encourage you with helpful insights to remind spouses how important it is to pray and work consistently for better and clearer communication between one another. As always, we invite you to share your insights and further questions with us. Our hope is that these podcasts might help you enjoy your marriage experience more and more. Your feedback is always appreciated. Contact us at thehursts@homeencouragement.org and let us know how we're doing! Thanks again to Zach Alkire for his engineering prowess and musical deposits. Also, we're thankful for Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for his invaluable contributions to OUR communication! We are grateful for both of these guys, as well as their friendship and gifts. Episode 6 - Communication 101 By Brett & Kellie Hurst

This week, Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement discuss "Divine Romance" on the Marriage to the Max podcast. Is the idea of romance between a man and a woman a divine idea? Most certainly, it is! And, even more unequivocally, God is the utmost expert on a married couple's need for romance. As a matter of fact, scripturally speaking, it's crystal clear that the Lord desires married couples to experience the richness of a romantic lifestyle. There's a reason why the fullness of healthy sex and enticing romance are beyond human description. Obviously, the notion of deep, romantic expression between two lovers did not originate in Hollywood. Romance expression has been around since the beginning of time. But divine romance is more than just physical attraction. Don't get the wrong idea...external sexual attraction to your spouse can be a fantastic thing--good for any marriage! But what if couples also nurtured a deeper internal intimacy within marriage? What are we saying? We want married couples to not merely passively react to whatever turns them on in a given moment, but also to consistently initiate ongoing romance with one another...day or night. Think outside of the box. Talk and dream together about romance. Find out how to meet each other's needs. When that occurs, a more mutually satisfying relationship grows. In other words, divine love is more than just getting one's own needs met. True romance is selfless and limitless...and that's exactly what can make it totally exciting. We hope that every married couple can carve out time away from ongoing daily stressors to focus more on cultivating deep romance within lifelong marriage. It is so worth it. As always, we love hearing from you. Please feel free to share your ideas with us by contacting us at thehursts@homeencouragment.org anytime. We value your input, your suggestions, and your questions. And thanks for listening! Special gratitude to our engineer Zach Alkire who always brings good vibes and creative incidental tracks. Also, props to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications for his generous use of time in order to make our communication more effective. Opening and closing theme songs by Loopsound. Episode 5 - Divine Romance By Brett & Kellie Hurst