Don’t just plan for your wedding — plan for your marriage


Counselor offers practical advice for couples
on putting Christ at the center of their marriage

Advised by both tellers of fairy tales and harbingers of doom, many engaged couples don’t know what to expect from marriage. They may believe God created the institution, but many of the unions around them exhibit frustration or end in heartache. Other couples focus their energies on planning the perfect wedding day instead of preparing a relational foundation on which their lives together can be built.

Rob Green, a pastor and veteran pre-marital counselor, provides young couples with a blueprint to follow in his new book, Tying the Knot: A Premarital Guide to a Strong and Lasting Marriage (New Growth Press/February 1, 2016/ISBN: 978-1942572596/ $17.99). Green assures couples the joy, fun and love they hope for is not wishful, romantic thinking; it’s God’s plan for marriage. It’s also within reach for every couple willing to do the work needed to center their relationship on Jesus intentionally.

For Green, a person’s walk with the Lord and their marriage are inseparable. “There are many moments in marriage where our commitment to Christ is challenged,” he shares. “What happens when one spouse wants to be intimate and the other doesn’t? When one spouse says something mean to the other? Tens of thousands of these scenarios will occur in 50 years of a relationship. How one responds to them will be rooted in the strength of their walk with Christ.”

Tying the Knot offers soon-to-be-married couples a practical vision of what a Christ-centered marriage looks like, with advice that is realistic, hopeful and actionable. The nine-session study guides couples through issues such as conflict, expectations, communication, finances and intimacy, showing how every challenge can be resolved successfully through making Christ the priority in their life and relationship. “I tell couples you were not created to be each other’s savior,” Green reveals. “You were designed to be a spouse because the job of savior has already been filled. When couples live for Jesus, they will live obediently to the Word, focused on prayer, dedicated to service and willing to give of themselves for the betterment of others.”

Knowing the stresses and needs of a couple during their season of engagement, Green has designed the study to require a manageable 60-90 minutes of at-home work per session, with questions and exercises to build communication and intimacy at the end of each chapter. Tying the Knot also includes an appendix for mentors, making it easy for a seasoned married couple, lay leader or counselor to lead an engaged couple through the book.  

Green hopes Tying the Knot will put couples on the path to becoming the godly examples young people need to cut through the cynicism in our culture toward marriage. Readers of the book will find the resources they need to reorient their life and relationship, making it possible for them to experience all the blessings of this institution as God designed it.

Learn more about Tying the Knot and Rob Green at www.newgrowthpress.com


Advance Praise

“From now on, this is the book I will recommend for premarital and marital counseling.”
            ~ Bob Kellemen, author of Gospel-Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations

Tying the Knot is a great book for those considering marriage. The topics are highly relevant and the homework will help any counselor or couple to put these crucial lessons into practice.”
            ~ Garrett Higbee, Executive Director of Biblical Soul Care and the Biblical Counseling Coalition


About the author

Rob Green has been the pastor of counseling and seminary ministries at Faith Church in Lafayette, Ind., since 2005. His responsibilities there include oversight of the Faith Biblical Counseling Ministry and teaching New Testament at the Faith Bible Seminary. Green wasn’t always a pastor; he has a B.S. in engineering physics from Ohio State University and after college wrote computer programs to process credit cards. After feeling a call to the ministry he entered seminary, eventually earning a M.Div. and a Ph.D. from Baptist Bible Seminary.

Green also serves on the council board of the Biblical Counseling Coalition and has authored a number of counseling mini books. He and his wife, Stephanie, have three children: Joseph, Samuel and Mackenzie. The family makes their home in Indiana.


Learn more about Rob Green’s ministry work at blogs.faithlafayette.org/counseling

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