A few months ago I realized that I was meeting with multiple high school and college aged students every week for discipleship, and having a weekly discipleship time with my daughter, but I wasn't doing anything of the sort with my wife. I certainly spent more time with her than with anyone else. And we were having spiritual conversations throughout the week. But it seemed like the profitable encounters that come from regular, intentional, spiritual conversation were lacking in this most important relationship in which I am commanded by the Lord to lead and serve her (Eph 5:25-33).

I brought this up with my wife and proposed that we find a time to start meeting each week to help me to check in with her spiritually and lead her more attentively. We have since been meeting one morning each week at a coffee shop, without our kids, to provide a designated time for me to check in on her and find ways to better lead and serve her.

These times have been incredibly fruitful in our relationship, so I want to share what has helped us in hopes that it may spark a desire in you to do the same.

Goals

1. Engage

First and foremost I simply want to engage with her at a deeper level than we are often capable of during the week. Many weeks our conversations are interrupted by a small human asking for a snack or wanting to show off some new skill. After the kids are asleep we are able to have some quality conversations, but they usually feel a bit scattered and tired. A weekly meeting during the prime of the day and without kids provides an opportunity we simply don't get at any other time during the week.

2. Encourage

It would be easy for these times to feel intimidating or discouraging. Many of us live with an undercurrent of fear of being "found out," thinking that if only people knew how rarely we actually pray or engage with the Bible, how little we really know about the faith we profess, then they would know that we're actually just frauds. That's the last thing I want from these meetings. I want to encourage her and to remind her that her worth is found in Christ, not in some man-made performance score.

3. Equip

Finally, I want to equip her in any way I can. This might mean helping her decide what to read next in her Bible. It might mean helping her think through a plan for the week as to when she is going to read or pray. It might mean offering to answer or find answers to biblical or theological questions that she has. If I can do anything to make her time with the Lord more frequent or more productive, I want to do so.

What we do

1. Sync up on our schedules.

This is a particular way for me to care for my wife. My wife is extremely organized when it comes to her schedule. We have a shared calendar on our phones that helps us to stay in-sync, a dry-erase monthly calendar on our refrigerator, and she keeps a personal planner. If you're keeping track, you may have realized that she has not one, not two, but three copies of her calendar. I'm a fairly organized person myself, but I'm certainly not at this level when it comes to my schedule. This means I have often found myself asking, "Remind me, what do we have tonight?" Being asked this once in a while is fine. Being asked this every day is frustrating, and it makes her feel like she is solely responsible for making sure no one in the family misses anything. To better love and serve her, the first thing that we do in our weekly meeting is to go through our schedule for the week in detail. As I said, this is specific to our relationship. However, I suspect this is the case for many marriages, whether the husband or the wife is the keeper of the calendar. If your wife keeps the calendar, this may be a way that you can serve her. If you keep the calendar, this time could benefit your marriage by clearing a potential opportunity for bitterness in your own heart.

2. Check in on her spiritual health.

This is the primary purpose for our time together. I want to lead her and help her in her own walk with the Lord, and I want to be strategic during this time about how I do so. There are a few question I ask each week.

Have you spent time in the Word and in prayer?

Our union with Christ can never be shaken, but our experience of communion with him can be shaken. Through reading and meditating on Scripture, and through praying to our Father in heaven, we deepen our fellowship with Him. The Lord works through his Word. These are foundational habits for growth for all believers, so they are of primary importance to check in on.

Usually I already have a pretty good idea of her answers to this question before I ask it, because she's mentioned during the week what she's reading or how it encouraged or challenged her in some way. Still, having a weekly time to discuss this has at least three benefits. (1) It guarantees that we will have a time to talk about it. Ideally these would be regular conversations throughout our days, but some weeks this simply doesn't happen. (2) It helps to normalize these conversations, actually making them more likely to occur spontaneously throughout the week. (3) It helps to keep her accountable, since she knows that I'm going to ask her about it soon.

How can I be praying for you?

I aim to have a dedicated time every morning where I pray for myself, my wife, and each of my children for the day. These prayers are general—for joy and peace—and they are specific—for specific trials or challenges of the day. This weekly touch point helps me to know her better so that I can pray for her more faithfully. An important corollary to this: follow up on it! I have noticed in myself and in others a temptation to tell someone that you are praying for them but then not actually do so, as if the important part were simply the psychological effect it has on a person when they believe that they are being prayed for. If we truly believe that prayer is effective because God is a good father who hears and acts on our prayers, then we must actually pray.

I have two specific questions that I have come to ask each time: "What are you thankful for this week?" and "What are you anxious about this week?" In the spirit of rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep (Rom 12:15) these questions help me to pray for the very things nearest to her heart and mind each week.

3. Sync up on our discipleship of our children.

We want our home to be in accordance with Deut 6:7, an environment in which we are constantly talking about the reality of the Lord's work in our daily lives and in our world. Still it is extremely helpful to have something of a strategy session each week on how we hope to make this a reality in the week to come.

Plan family worship times

Our schedule usually allows for at most one free evening each week. Our goal in theory is to have a time of family worship every night. In reality, that doesn't happen. At the moment we usually have five nights per week where a family worship time is even possible, and often it requires very intentional planning as to when we will do it. Some nights it's right before bed. Other nights it's before we eat dinner. One of our tasks during our weekly meeting is to get our family worship times on the calendar for the week. Just being intentional together about this has helped us get back into a rhythm of family worship that we had fallen out of when schedules grew busier.

Evidence of gospel growth in each child

One of the most encouraging times of my week is having the opportunity to sit down with my wife and reflect on ways that we have seen the Lord working in the hearts of our children. For our six year old daughter this may be related to her understanding of sin and the gospel or her desire to have a daily time of private devotion. For our two year old son this often has to do with his obedience or kindness or referencing stories from family worship. In either case, in age-appropriate ways, it is a tremendous blessing to reflect together on ways that we have seen the Lord working in their lives in the past week. Reflecting on this together also allows us to recount episodes that one of us experienced and the other missed, which is always encouraging.

Sin struggles of each child

In addition to reflecting on ways that we see the Lord working in their lives, we also try to be intentional about identifying potential sin struggles of our children. These will come and go or morph as they grow older, but we want to be aware of the specific ways that our children struggle with sin and strategize with ways to help them fight it. If our two year old is struggling with anger and frustration and temper, it helps us to be on the same page with how we will address this. Do we need to give him more space? Do we need to close in sooner on discipline? As all parents know, this is always a bit of trial-and-error specific to each child (and sometimes each week!). But it is helpful to approach the week with eyes open and to be coming at it from the same place.