5 WAY S T O

I N S TA N T LY L E V E L U P Y O U R
1
D AY

Marriage & Family

CHALLENGE

J E F F & A LY S S A B E T H K E
CHALLENGE DAY 1
SET A VISION FOR YOUR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

What is a vision for your marriage?

It’s the one thing almost every corporation does well and almost all marriages don’t. It’s
your ‘north star’ for your relationship that gives everything else meaning, and provides
a framework to be able to make healthy decisions in the mission God has given you.

This is the oxygen of a healthy relationship. Every person, group, or family has to have a
place it’s headed, a direction, or finish line in mind. You can’t set your life in a particular
direction if you don’t know where you want to take it or your family and marriage.

The way Alyssa and I like to think about it is our vision for our family is also our ‘filter’
for everything else. Meaning, once we set a particular vision, and actually wrote it down
it made it easier to make all the millions of decisions (big and small) a marriage has to
make because now we have something we can pass it through--our vision.

So what is ours?

The Bethke vision is: We exist primarily to fulfill Jesus’ words by living out ‘your
kingdom come, your will be done, on Maui as it is in Heaven’ in our family, our
neighborhood, our relationships, our vocation, and all that we do. We see ourselves
fulfilling this call primarily through these eight pillars as the highest values of our
family--apprenticeship to Jesus, family as a team, the table, generosity, creativity,
rhythms, being multi-generational, and health.

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So for us it’s a few sentences. But when we thought about it, and started focusing it, it
changed our entire family and marriage. Why? Because now when a really cool or good
opportunity comes up, we don’t sweat about saying yes or no. We have a framework
that can help us decide. Does it align with where God is taking us right now?

So today’s challenge is to start down this road today. You might already have a mission
and vision statement for your marriage, or you might not. And if you don’t I’m sure you
won’t be able to whip one up in a day. But spend just 15-30 minutes chatting with your
spouse and family (if you have older kids, including them in this process is awesome!)
and get the ball rolling.

And please note: there is no formula or one way to do it! I know some friends who
have distilled their vision down to one sentence. Some others who have ‘pillars’ like
us. Or even families who have a family crest (like medieval times!) where the imagery
represents their vision. So be creative, play, and have fun!

Ask each other these few questions to get the ball rolling:

1. What is different about our marriage?

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2. What other marriages do you really respect? Why?

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3. What is important to our marriage?

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4. What kind of marriage do we want to have?

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5. If others talk about our marriage, what do we want to be known for?

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Also, if you want to go a little farther or deeper into today’s
challenge we actually have a 18 page PDF you can take a look
at that gives more questions to ask, as well as shows you a
more in depth look at our own as the Bethke’s! See that here.

AFTER YOU TAKE THE CHALLENGE:

Hop in the Facebook group and let us know how today went,
your favorite part of the challenge, or cool or small or big
ways God moved!