[0:00]
Look, we've been obviously charged to help you think about marriage in the big picture and your marriage in particular. So we did a little bit of that yesterday because we were talked about the way building that strong marriage that you, that you made promises to each other about. And then working out just a little nitty-gritty stuff. So we're going to go on to partners and lovers. But Scotty, first I wanted to show that big picture video of

[0:30]
marriage because I think in the particular situation where we are now culturally marriage is obviously changing. It's a big debate. Some of you may have seen this video before but if not great that you get to see it for the first time and secondly if you've already seen it, I want you to think about it in the way it affects how you think about marriage. Institutionally about you. And also how you may help your people in your church and

[1:00]
understand what marriage is as the same sex marriage debate continues. How can I say this? When I was talking about what is marriage yesterday or dain by God, it's in your book, the very beginning, sexually exclusive, all the rest of it. I did talk about how we've changed a little bit, life's changed a bit. And on the back of your book, if you turn to that. This is the sketching of the book.

[1:30]
We're trying to understand the two different views of marriage and how we can understand that for ourselves and for our communities. Let's go with it. We're here today to discuss marriage, trying to understand and make sense of marriage and also place it in the wider discussions about same sex marriage. Firstly, I'll be sharing some of the very basic facts about the human experience that have made sense to most people to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.

[2:01]
Second thing, I'm going to point out a few obstacles and difficulties that people have who argue in favor of same sex marriage, they often face when they make their case. I am like most of you, a relatively young-ish person, just trying to think my way through this issue and grapple with it myself. I'm going to say that majority of people think that when it comes to this particular issue, they think like this. Marriage is a great thing. We all agree with that. The only difference is who we should let get married.

[2:32]
So another way of saying that is everyone should think, yeah, marriage is great. We're all on the same page about that. It's just some people have got issues with gay people and therefore they have issues with gay marriage. Or some people don't have issues with gay people and therefore they're okay with gay marriage. So that's the main sort of divide, how people think or feel towards gay people. But I think there's one really obvious fact why that's the wrong way of understanding this issue. And that's because there actually are quite a few gay people and also kids of gay parents who love their parents dearly who don't think gay marriage is a good thing.

[3:07]
So that wouldn't fit that narrative before. That would seem just very confusing. Gay people against gay marriage had as that sort of work. So what's the alternative way of understanding this issue? Well, I think that it's actually the other way around. It's not what you think or feel about gay people that reflects what you stand on this issue. It's what you think marriage is that reflects where you stand on the issue of gay marriage. And contrary to popular presentation, I think there are actually two very different views, conceptions, pictures or understandings of what marriage is.

[3:38]
And the first few has been around for a very long time, pretty much since the start of recorded history. It basically thinks that there's something pretty special about men and women. Their bodies don't really make sense just on their own. And that when men and women come together and fall in love and fall into bed together and make babies and make a family, but it's generally a good thing trying to keep this bundle of things together. So under this view, the quote unquote traditional view of marriage, things like husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, it's connection to family life, the importance of it being a permanent relationship, till death to us part type thing.

[4:16]
As well as faithful to you and to you alone, a sort of what makes sense of the whole point of why marriage is around. Now as you'll know, there's nothing particularly religious about that particular view, but that's existed alongside a much more recent view of marriage. It's gained a lot of traction in the last 30 or 40 years or so. And this particular understanding of marriage places much more emphasis on the intimacy of the couple, their emotional fulfillment, their happiness as a couple. It's popular represented in pop culture, TV, radio, film. Under this view, family life, or having kids is completely optional. It's just up to each couple if they want. There's no sort of inherent connection to it. It's just an option. If they want it, that's great. If they don't, not a problem.

[5:05]
Now I think what is clear from understanding those two particular views is there's nothing particularly very homosexual about either of them. There's nothing particularly gay about them. There's also nothing particularly or uniquely religious about them as well. So I think if you just understand that, why is it the case then that some people think that there are these strange people who would be against same sex marriage? Well, I think that's the case if, like most people believe, that there's only one view of marriage. It's that new or sort of sexier, soulmate version of marriage. The idea of marrying your BFF, your best friend forever. This is your number one relationship.

[5:42]
If you think that everyone believes that view of marriage, then you're going to be baffled why some people would be against gay people being married. Because if gay people and lesbians can form those sorts of deep committed relationships just like heterosexuals can, then why would some people be against that? So now you know that it's not because someone's homophobic or bigoted that they don't think that's the right way to go. It's because they have an alternate, a different conception of marriage.

[6:12]
But it's not the case that it has to be motivated out of fear or hatred or animus in any sense to gay people. Nothing of what I've said about either of those two views proves that either one is right. I've just sort of laid them out there in front so you can see. So that's even before you get to the same sex bit. You can just sort of realize that there's two different views about marriage. What it shows in this current debate is it's not about how we think or feel towards gay people that's the real issue. It's much more about what particular idea of marriage we have.

[6:44]
Now some people might say, okay well that second view of marriage, the sort of romantic soulmate one, that's the view of marriage that I think is right. It sounds really good. And let's be honest, there's many parts about it that are obviously true and are obviously very important. Things like intimacy and love and importance of commitment. So many people say, okay well if that's the case and that's what marriage is, why don't we allow gay people to get married? Well your concerns I've always had with that particular idea of what marriage is, the idea of emotional, deep emotional fulfillment.

[7:18]
Here are some obstacles I think. The first one is it becomes really unclear why it should be just between two people. When you think about it, many of us could be in loving and committed relationships with more than one person. In fact in the US and many parts of the world, many different polyamorous or polygamous groupings of people of multiple number who say they're all in loving committed relationships with people. So why under this particular view of marriage being just about love and commitment is it limited just to two people?

[7:48]
I'm not sure. The other thing is also why vows or that sort of understanding of marriage should see it as something full life, something till death to his part, permanent. Because if under that idea of marriage marriage is all about the emotional fulfillment and the happiness of the couple, well then why shouldn't the couple just be free to break it off when the love doesn't last? What's the point of committing to having permanently good feelings about the other person when we always know that they go up and down?

[8:19]
So not that vision of marriage makes it really unclear why it should be something full life. And then the other concern I've had with it is under that particular one, I really don't know what role the government, law, public policy have to do with regulating or being involved in marriage. And essentially sort of putting state approval on friendships essentially just sort of deeply committed friendships. So it's unclear to me that that vision of marriage is able to provide a strong framework for some of the things that I think people on both sides of the marriage debate think are important things like that it's full life and that it's between two.

[8:58]
And that there's a reason why the government's sometimes always been involved in it in some way. Some super basic facts about the human condition that have generally made it the case that lend good support for it to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. Now the first of these, most of you all know, it's a fact that most of us are pretty powerfully attracted to engaging in acts of love that often bring about new life. And then the second truth is that when you use flash, sex between men and women can make babies. But you didn't arrive here by stalk.

[9:31]
So that's number one, sex makes babies. The second truth is that while you and I can individually, you know, um, and are about whether one day we want to settle down, have a family, and bring kids into the world. If a society collectively, ums and ahs too long, basically they don't exist. They cease to exist. The second truth is that society needs babies. And then the third truth that marriage rests is the idea that kids ideally, ideally ought to be growing up with their own mother and father.

[10:05]
That mothering and fathering, being a mom, being a dad, it just as one day many of you will know, it's just very different experiences and different ways of loving a child into the world and them growing up. So sex makes babies, society needs babies, and babies need a mom and a dad. So what should be clear from just that particular vision of marriage is that there's nothing homophobic about it or an anti-gay, nothing even inherently religious about the particular view. So what's become known throughout many parts of the world as the debate about same sex marriage, the debate about gay marriage, is less about whom should we let marry and what we think or feel about gay people.

[10:46]
And much more about what we understand marriage to be in the importance it has. Um, I think well said, I hope you feel so too. If you want to Google it, it's just marriage facts and you can get it for yourselves. I find it helpful to watch that even more than once because I believe I have been infiltrated by the romantic view of marriage as well. And I think we all have through Hollywood and we need to be able to have a clear understanding about what marriages without going down the hate track and being called bigots and all the rest of it.

[11:19]
When it understands just what we think it is. So I believe that the plebiscite is coming up if it gets through around February 11th. And I think the wording has even been decided, which I think is good. So instead of saying something like, are you in favor of marriage equality, which makes us all go, I guess so. It's actually going to be, do you support the change in the marriage law to allow same six couples to marriage marriage. So that even that would change might help those that are umming and are ring to make that decision.

[11:55]
So I hope that we, within the refresh we're helping you to understand the high view that God has of marriage. There's a very high view for our good to reflect Christ in the church. And then we have to work at the nitty gritty of our own marriage, which is what we're going to do now. We're going to move on to partners. Here we go. So remember the stool, the stool is the strong we, the friends we did yesterday, now the partners. And then also lovers. So we're going to do both of those.

[12:28]
Partnership, it's basically how do we do life? You know, life is so daily and there's so much to do. How do we do this well together? And you know that act creation, God created man and woman and said that the woman was to be a helper to the man. There was a lot to do in the garden. There's lots of jobs to do. So we do need to have to to be good partners in what we do. And if the home is running smoothly, that helps the church run smoothly. If the church is running smoothly, that helps the home run smoothly.

[12:58]
So as church planters, I know you've got a bigger job to try and work this balance out. So we want to help you do that. But we're going to realize that we do come with different expectations of who does what around the place. And that comes from how we've grown up basically. And so we'll move on to the next one. First group talk is let's discuss the roles your parents played in working outside and inside the home and how that affected your marriage. Simply for Scott and I, I had a dad who did all the work around the place outside and a mum who did everything inside.

[13:35]
But he also, dad knew how to fix everything. If anything broke, daddy fix. So you know, we get married, things break, I go to Scott and go daddy fix. There was not a spreadsheet of the problem. But the hammer in the out, not so good. Not so good at all. And so it became a source of conflict of, you know, why can't you do this? And how am I supposed to get these things fixed? And a difference that I wasn't used to. So I had to sort of, we were watching a TV show once, weren't we, to the man of born?

[14:08]
Anybody know that to the man of born? It's one of those ABC sort of shows about, you know, the upper class and all that sort of stuff. And there was one situation where she had done, something had to be done around the house and she said, oh, I'll have to get a little man in to fix it. And Kim said, that's what I need. I need a little man. And he said, fine, I'll just work with spreadsheet to see how we can afford it. But it's worked for us really well. So my little handy Andy comes over and fixes things. So there may have been that sort of a similar thing.

[14:39]
What did you grow up with? What did you expect? And then also, how is your situation in a church plant different? And I know you know it's different. For Scott and I, he worked somewhere else, long hours. But I didn't have to be involved in that business. The way I know you have to be involved in the church business. So I'd like you to have a group discussion. I had your little groups before yesterday. So stick with them if you like. Five minutes to discuss, how did your parents do work in the home?

[15:11]
And how did that affect your expectations? And how is it different for you guys? Off you go. Okay, eyes this way, classroom, attention. I know it's great to talk. And I do think the part of refresh is the fact that you learn from each other. I think that's the good thing. You don't want to lecture every time we stand up here. You want to be able to talk to each other and learn from each other. But I do think that we understand that church planting couples have a blurry line.

[15:43]
You know that between work and home. So it's very simpler for the people in your congregation to separate, unless they're people who work at home. But it's much more simpler to separate. I think the fact that you work perhaps in your home, in an office, in your home, or that you need your wife to know, be on board with what you're doing, that you don't have a two-day weekend, you have more nights out.

[16:14]
All those things are different for church planting couples. There's also the benefits I heard yesterday that Chris Eakens gets for a surf in the morning. So he's not on a 6am train picking up kids from school. All that sort of stuff. So do be aware that the people in your congregations are dealing with their issues too. They're getting home very late. They're not able to take a little midday break and go and see the kids in their church in this school play. So you've got advantages as well as the things that are hard to do. And so enjoy that, enjoy that flow.

[16:46]
But I do find that for church planting couples and for older ministry couples, one of the biggest things I have trouble with is juggling the calendar. It's trying to work out all the things that go in there and who puts them in. How does it work? Who's the PA in the relationship? And I know that we've got experienced church planters at each table and we haven't really used them yet. So I'm going to use them now. Hand up the ones who are the older or a more experienced church planters at each table.

[17:20]
Come on. Before the other young ones go and do their couple talk on this, I'd like you to help them just because you've been in the game longer. And even if you're stuffing up and it's not working, they love to hear that. You've got no idea how much they want to hear that you're not doing so well. But talk about your calendar entries. Who handles them? Who puts it in the calendar? Are they smooth or chaotic? Have you made real guffs like I did coming down here a day early?

[17:52]
That's if it was a guff. How do you plan ahead? Do you have formal meetings? Do you actually say no, we always sit down on a Monday morning and work this out or Sunday night or whatever it is? And do you understand the peaks and troughs of ministry life? How do you go ahead planning for the year ahead, allowing for rest and recovery? How do you, as a mature church planting couple, work out this is the busiest time and this is what we do about it? I think it would be helpful for those under you to hear what's worked well for you

[18:25]
or what you've crashed and burned at. And then we'll get you to do a couple talk on it your own. So we'll give you a few minutes so if you can handle in and the mature person, couple, answer those questions first. And we'll call you to the couple of time in a minute. All right, please just look to the front again. It's hard if you want to keep talking. And I do think we learn from each other and you must be able to learn from those who've been in the game a bit longer than you.

[19:01]
But you don't have to be them, you don't have to copy them. Just for interests, say, for the first question, hand up those people who do sink their calendars together and be able to see all the tecco stuff now. See most of you. No, not all of you. Those who've got who said yes, would you ever go back to not doing that? No, it works really well to have sink calendars to be able to see each other. So that might be something new as a couple want to talk about.

[19:33]
I'll hand up those of the mature, or everyone actually, who actually do have formal weekly or monthly or whatever meeting to talk about. Fair few of you, not everyone. Yeah. Where we say this is it. And peaks and traps, who's crashed and burned on that one? I said who's crashed and burned? And once you've crashed and burned, then you realize you've got a plan ahead. Don't you? Now, I know that the mature couples have shared with you. It's now your turn to just share with your husband and wife.

[20:05]
And so those mature couples have already answered those questions. Can now go on to, are we doing well, or do we have to do any changes? So there's that little thing. Any changes desired. So mature couples, you concentrate on that. The rest of you, I want you to talk just with your husband and wife now. All three questions again. We'll give you five minutes for that. Right. I think that's the conversation. Obviously those questions.

[20:35]
Clashes, calendar entries. I know that things do crash and burn. I know that people turn up for dinner when you weren't expecting them. Or that someone forgets to pick up a child and they left it school. That sort of thing happens. And it's a matter of continual communication. Who's doing what? How are we doing in the planning of our time? Our calendar entries, our peaks and troughs. So that's good. All right. So yesterday we saw Chris and Sharon Eakins. Do an amazing question and answer.

[21:07]
I got a lot out of it. I think what I got from them for their strong we was how intentional they are about keeping a strong marriage going. How they're best fans of each other and speak so well of each other. But the thing I didn't get was the no conflict thing. I looked at them and went, are you from real? And I thought they are from real. Somehow they've managed to do this without conflict.

[21:38]
I understand that for a lot of you you might have been like me sitting there going, well if we could clone Sharon, none of us would have conflict. No, I figured that wasn't it. We agree completely with you Chris. But like I'm laughing about it but I don't want to laugh about it in a way because we said right at the beginning of refresh you are unique. Your relationship is very unique and if you do have conflict, you're very normal.

[22:11]
You're not the weird one to bump up against each other. And I actually think it's really good for you to have a bit of grunt going on. Makes the things feel alive. One thing it does, it helps you remember you're married to a sinner and that you are a sinner. Conflict will remind you of that which is a good thing to know. Conflict will also help you to work out how you can serve each other better and be less selfish. So that's a good thing too.

[22:42]
And the final thing you might not have realised how the thing that conflict is good is, if you are raising issues with each other, if you are bumping against each other, then you are still engaged in the marriage. I would much rather see a couple doing that in my counselling room than someone who's already checked out. So apathy is worse. Compliance, giving up, nothing works. I'm not going to raise any issues. I'm never going to ask for change.

[23:14]
That's not so good. You need to be able to ask for change when you need change and you need to hear it. And you need to be sort of go, yes, when there's a bit of conflict because it's showing up something, showing up something that's good to look at. So don't be discouraged if you're in a marriage where there is conflict. Be discouraged if you're in a marriage that's apathetic and doesn't care. And you don't even want to raise anything anymore because you've given up.

[23:44]
That's what you need to worry about. So we've done a lot of pillow talks over these last few years in Refresh. Have them we done? Yeah. And it's how we ask for change. How do we get an ask for change of each other? And we've done a fair bit of this stuff and up who's been around and seen one of our pillow talks before. Yeah, quite a few because they keep coming up to us and saying, did you resolve the birthday issue? Have you moved house yet? So that's what that stuff keeps coming up.

[24:14]
We're going to do a bit of a version too. And we've never done this before. So be gentle with us too. Because every time we do pillow talk, everyone comes up and goes, but the other person didn't get to say anything. Oh, yeah, yeah, no. I got to listen. Well, in this one, we're going to try something where one of us talks and the other one has to listen. But the other one also gets a chance to talk. So it's a little bit different. So what I'm going to bring up as an issue. He loves this. And we're just going to see how it goes.

[24:45]
So it's written in your couple talk because you get a chance to do this too. So watch carefully. And the rules are that I'm going to choose a challenge of working together. And I'm going to send my message to Scott. He's going to receive it. We don't have a pillow, so we're going to use this book. I'm going to say something. What I see happening, Scott is. What I'd prefer. Will you do it? He's going to say, yes, in which case that's easy. We're done. Or he's going to say, I find that difficult. And then I'm going to say, well, what makes it difficult for you?

[25:18]
I'm going to listen and reflect that back. And he's going to say, well, what makes it important to you? We're still not solving that issue. We're just learning how to listen a little bit better to each other. Okay, so don't get stressed that we don't solve these things. We hear each other out. We did do this in a similar way at one of the marriage ones, and we did the issue I have with Scott is that he's always bringing his phone to the dinner table. It just drives me nuts. And it's just there and he keeps, even the kids, he keeps picking it up to sort of Google something

[25:48]
that we're talking about. And I was like, just let it go. And I prefer to do it with facts rather than… Well, I think this and I think that. But anyway, it was an easy one because I just said, look, can you just not bring it to the table? And he went, yeah, fair enough. Done. Easy. But this one might be not so easy. So we'll see how it goes. You want someone to hold your hands up? He's used to it. Okay, so having not done this before, let's me start with the thing.

[26:19]
So what I see happening is… I see you ramping up seriously in a lot of areas of work. I see your mind never stops. You're planning masses of things. It's getting further into the future. And I feel that you're really going to be stretched to the limit next year in particular. And what I prefer is that you stop and slow down a little bit.

[26:51]
And maybe not do as much and pay back what you're doing and slow down. So will you do that? You can say yes or I'd find that difficult. I would find it difficult to say yes. So I would find that difficult, yes. Can you explain how you'd find that difficult? Well, like I just said, my mind is always on the go.

[27:25]
I'm always thinking of different things. And the work that I'm doing isn't for money. It's all ministry-related work. And I'm just sort of at an age now where I don't have to work. And I've probably only got about another 15 years of intelligent work left in me. And so I want to go hard. I want to just go hard and do good stuff. And while I've got the mental agility to do it, that's what I want to do.

[27:59]
And I think it's sustainable anyway. So you're sort of indicating that it's not sustainable, but I think it is. And I'm not the sort of person that wants to go and play golf or get the caravan and drive around Australia. We have our holidays together. We cope with the level we're working at. We're just high-capacity people. I don't see why you would want to peel back from what we're already doing.

[28:29]
So I have to listen to your difficulty and say what I heard. So you agreed with me that you mind not stopping and you're always thinking of the next thing. And you'd find it difficult to pay back because you actually think there's a limited time that you'll be able to do this work. That it's ministry, it's not paid work, so you enjoy it.

[29:02]
You feel that we're coping with it. And you're not going to be the sort of person who will play golf and get the caravan and go around Australia. So you would find it difficult to stop even planning for more things because you feel we are coping with it. And that's what you want to do. You didn't actually say that, I don't think. But you've got a limited amount of time and you think, well you've got the agility, well you've got the mind.

[29:33]
Let's just go for it. Let's go hard. I think we're words. Is that right? Yep, that's right. And I think because we're both high capacity people, I think we can cope with it. I think we managed to work with our stress well, so I don't really see the point. Now I do accept that there's a lot planning for next year, including building a house. So that's going to play sex to stress on it. But I think it would be good to see how we go with it.

[30:03]
So what makes it important for you to be able to ask this question of me? Is that what's supposed to say? Yeah. What makes it important to me? I think I probably have more of a fear than you do of loading up the plate even more. I sense that I am probably more so than you at capacity and whatever you choose to do impacts what I have to do.

[30:39]
Because there's always the extra stress before or after whatever. And it makes it important to me because I don't know that I'm not as on board with you as house sustainable. It is health and just juggling everything white. So it's important for me that we actually discuss this more together and work out if there are things that can make way for all the other stuff you want to do. And that of building a house does freak me out because that's all consuming as I recall it 28 years ago.

[31:14]
So to add more to that year, it will be only a year, but it will be a very busy year. So it's important to me that we not just survive this, that we thrive through it. So it's important to me that I ask you to look at powering back something. Can you? All right. Well, we can talk about. Can you tell me what? Well, don't be mad at me. I had to have listened a lot more carefully.

[31:45]
Okay. So there's no safety net today. Yeah. So you hear what I've said and you've been concerned about the fact that maybe I'm probably off with the pixies, whether it's whether it's actually sustainable or not. And so it may or may not be particularly from a health perspective.

[32:15]
But either way, it'd probably be a good thing for us to meet together and talk about what we do have on the agenda for next year so that we can work out what could be paired back a bit. Because we have already talked about pairing back holidays, which we've already talked about before, which you weren't in favor of doing. But if we paired back some holidays, and that might be a thing that we could cope with, but maybe there's other things we need to pair back on.

[32:46]
I'd be happy if we could have that conversation of pairing back on other things. You got it. Yes. Sorry. So rules again. So you can see anybody can do this. But you've got to keep listening. It is just a way of both having a bit of a say because in normally in pillow talk, only one person gets to say it and I still think that's helpful. But in this case, you get to say what would make that difficult and what's important to you. And so we both get to hear it.

[33:21]
So obviously we haven't solved it, but I feel like we'll get that conversation going later on. If you can think of a couple of things, I'd love you to have moved away now from each other to other parts. You've got to think of what do you see happening? Is it something as simple as the phone? Is it as simple as you're not coming to bed on time? Or is it something bigger? As in, you know, I'm not in favor of this thing that you're about to jump into or whatever it is. How a bit of a go at this, it's only a skill. You can tackle something simple if you want to.

[33:51]
But have a go at listening to each other. What will make this difficult for you? Why is this important for you? And I will give you about 10 minutes to do that. So you'll need to move your chairs away and both get a go at having an issue. Good work people. We know it's sometimes frustrating when you don't get time to solve everything. But remember the skill is to listen to really listen. And that's the main thing.

[34:25]
So before we move on to lovers, we'll do just another little thing. We've found that the pillow talk that we've done in previous years has been a lot more towards what happens when you're actually having an issue or a conflict that requires a little bit more patience. Whereas that one's just asking for a change, you see. So we'll do another one another time. But this is an example of a different way of doing it.

[34:56]
There's all this pressure. And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me. And I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head. And it's relentless. I don't know if it's going to stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most is that I don't know if it's ever going to stop. Yeah. Well, you do have a nail in your head.

[35:27]
It is not about the nail. Are you sure? Because I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there. Stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing you always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail. See, you're not even listening now. Okay, fine. I will listen. Fine. It's just sometimes it's like there's this achy.

[35:57]
I don't know what it is. And I'm not sleeping very well at all. And all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them. That sounds really hard. Thank you. Ow! Come on. If you were just don't. Try to see things my way. Now, girls, you've really got to give us some sort of credit for trying, haven't you?

[36:33]
I see that a lot and I laugh every time. All my sweaters are snagged. All of them. Yeah, but listening. Very important. And he does it well. I think he does it well, even with an eye roll. He does it well. We're going to move on to our last one now on to lovers. Because, yeah, we've talked about being good partners and sometimes we can be such good partners. All we feel like is that we're teammates. And I think in the collaborating stage especially, I just remember so much of this happening. Wasn't it like?

[37:03]
Tag team, you got the kids. I got them. You got a soccer. The hard part was that day we both thought we had the kids. At Uluru, you've got Todd. Have you got Todd? No, I haven't seen him for a while. I've got Todd. Another one of us had Todd. The classic was one day when Todd was Todd's birthday party. And we'd been out shopping for the birthday party. We came home in the car and we were all sort of, go on kids, let's get out of here. Grab the shopping and we jump out of the car and I locked the car, which did lock us.

[37:34]
We all run inside and then we're sort of running around getting things ready. And kids start turning up and there's birthday cakes going and then we say, where's Todd? He has to blow the candles out. Where is he? Where's Todd? Where was I last we saw him? In the car. We go down to the car and he's locked in the car. He was just too late getting out of the car. And of course, I did lock the car and the last person who shut the door of the car just deadlocked. And Todd was still mucking around in the car. Poor little thing crying on his birthday.

[38:05]
Fing and I was down the thing. That was scary. It was scary. At least when you were where he was. Collaborating stage, busy busy and things like that happen. I've heard of people who have left their baby bucket in the garage and gone to church. The baby is still back at the garage. Got that sort of thing. You've got so much to do and you have to be good partners and you have to be good teammates. But we're here to refresh your marriage. Fingered lovers is that third stool, leg of the stool.

[38:36]
Are we good lovers? And in collaborating stage, it is really hard to be a good lover. It's really busy. And with the way that the media is portraying how to be good lovers, we're just getting it all screwed up, I do believe. So, you know, if you were an alien who only had television and movies to understand about the mating habits, what messages would you be getting about sex? Okay. At your group table right now.

[39:07]
You've only got movies to go by. You've only got TV to go by. What's the mating habits of humans like? Go for it. We're only going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. So get in there. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it.

[39:39]
I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it.

[40:11]
I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to do it. I'm going to call it in because we're going to get lots of ideas from each table. What messages do you get from sex over there on Tim and Deb's table? What's it like in the movies?

[40:43]
It's pretty thrilling and risky and naughty and spontaneous. Good words. I've never organized children's rounds. Usually, I don't hold a hold while noticing that the individual needs a problem. You cover the heat. There's probably nothing else that anyone can say. But that's great. You know a lot of it. A plus plus. Anything to add to that?

[41:13]
That's right. You only look beautiful. So what you're wearing needs ironing. Number five table. Yeah. Lots happens in the shower. Good one. What's this table over here at the back? Anywhere. Anywhere. Any time. Good work. Sometimes it's just between floor three and nine. Number one.

[41:43]
Never old people. Old people don't have sex. That's for sure. I'm not going to say anything about that. Number two. Yeah, married people don't have sex. Do you know there's only like about six percent of all the movies where it's married people having sex. That's amazing. Yeah, you've covered a lot of it. It's always amazing. It's always sort of passionate, isn't it? Yeah, the girls are always just as hot as the guys. Even hotter.

[42:13]
They are. They are pursuing it. And they're ready for it anytime, anywhere. It's never messy. Very quickly orgasmic. Never messy. Yeah, really, really quickly orgasmic. Like between floor three and seven. It's amazing. And it's the loss of suspense. There's the lovely suspense in the relationship. Will they get together or not? Then they kiss. Then they kiss and stand still in your neck. Oh, they'll pull up that night and stand still in your neck.

[42:43]
Oh, my gosh. No. Oh, my gosh. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. beds for Dick Bandai can marry Tyler Moore. There was a rule about one foot on the floor

[43:13]
if it was Kerry Grant. They weren't allowed to be shown in bed unless they were really, really married. There were only two couples that sort of got away with it. One you won't even remember was the Inherit, but the other one you might, there was a show called I Love Lucy. Yeah, Desi and Lucy Arnez in bed, in the same bed because they were really married. It was okay. Then came along another sitcom quite a bit later where the first couple to be shown in bed together that weren't really married. The tune went like this.

[43:51]
Ever we come along way? Brady Baatt. Kor Things And Karole and Mike. They sat up in bed every night reading books but they were in bed and talking through issues. They weren't No, no, no, not in the sitcom where they married in real life. They were married, right? And so that was, so the Brady bunch was the first time there was a sitcom shown where the couple were in bed together who really weren't married. In real life. So haven't we come a long way since the Brady bunch? Sadly, we have.

[44:22]
And it's a matter of getting that Hollywood thing out of our minds because we understand that our sex life is important in marriage. And it is in marriage that we have the best sex in life. Now this is a great book. I think I might be the only mum in the world who was sitting around the Christmas tree. And I unpeeled this one and said, oh, thanks, Sky, that's a nice present.

[44:52]
My daughter, 24-year-old gave me this for my Christmas present in front of everybody. Oh, good. She was actually signing her own little book next to Patricia Warekuhn. So it was a sign book. She was very happy to give me. But it is a good one. Best sex for life. It goes from beginnings right to old age and old people do have sex. So it's a good one. And that's what I've based a little bit of what we're talking about now. But we've got to get Hollywood out of our minds.

[45:23]
And we've got to understand that real life sex is a lot different. And we can't cover everything. I mean, Scotty and I went to a two-day sex therapy course for counselling. I said to Scotty, I've got to do two whole days on sexual dysfunctions, really. You want to come? No, not really. Like, what do you got to know? About sex. We've married long enough. It'll be all right. Anyway, so begrudgingly, I went along to the first day because she said, like, I've done that.

[45:54]
I'll be able to find my way down there and back. So I went down there and then halfway through the day, I rang up and cancelled my board meeting that I had planned for the next day so that I could come down for the second day. It was really, really interesting. We did spend the whole time sort of a bit like this going, I didn't know that. Did you know that? You've got to be joking. Yeah, admittedly, it was on dysfunctional sexuality. So there was a lot of weird stuff that I didn't know. And it was good to know. But I do think we get to the stage where we think, well, we know, don't we know, we know,

[46:27]
most stuff, don't we? And yet there's always something new to learn. So that book's a great one because it's very practical. It's Australian, the best sex of a life by Patricia Weirikun. And it's in the back of your books, I don't worry. So having not been able to cover a whole two-day conference in half an hour, we're going to just go on one particular part of sexual understanding how important sex is to marriage. And I think it's a bit like, it's not the petrol in the car, but it's like oil in the engine. So what does oil do in an engine?

[46:58]
It keeps it lubricated so that it actually works properly. So it doesn't actually drive the car, but it makes sure that the car works well without overheating and blowing up. So is sexual life in marriage a gift from God to help things go smoothly? It is to create babies. But we know that our kids think we had four children. We must have had sex four times, I think, don't they? But it's not. We are created to enjoy sex in and out of season, as Chris said this morning.

[47:30]
We don't, we are not like the animals who only mate in season. We are not like the animals who just mate, create and die. Animals don't have menopause. We do. We continue to enjoy our sexual life well into whatever age we want it to go to. But I hear from couples that came to our marriage course who were nearly 80s, that was going quite well. So there you go. We can enjoy sex for a long time and we should. But what we do get caught up in is one of the differences, which is the next one.

[48:04]
The differences about desire. And I think we get caught up for this reason. One from Hollywood's. Everyone's always ready for it. And two, because in the Christian community, especially those of us who are waiting for marriage to have sex, we think we are so hot it is going to be amazing. Because we are waiting for something and the tension is there. And when we're going out with each other, we're spending lots of time together and we're

[48:35]
giving gifts and we're sort of having this 12 months for play happening. Slow roasting a woman for 12 months. That's what she's doing. And we can think that we're both really got the same level of desire because we can't wait. And we feel that. We're just going to be easy. Because we've just got this slow roasting going on and it's not always like that. So young love, pent up desire, wedding night, disappointments on honeymoon, all those sorts

[49:09]
of things happen to us. And we've got to get out of the Hollywood idea that it will always be wonderful. So we're going to look at the difference in desire and understanding it and we've got a little Mark Gungal clip for that. It is your job to be a lover to the girl. And I'll tell you what, this whole desire thing really has a lot of couples stressed out. Because we've always heard all of our lives and all the books and all the sex education. This is how it works.

[49:40]
Desire leads to arousal which leads to sex. Right? We've all heard that. Great. Only one problem with that. It's not true for millions of people, particularly women. There are some guys. This works for them too. And they really struggle because they, you know, I'm a man, I should be this way. But a lot of people, they're not.

[50:12]
A lot of women exhibit little to no desire at all. And then they feel badly about themselves. Because I think, well, I should. I should. Who told you you should? Some stupid textbook, who cares? I have discovered asking couples and interviewing them that, you know, this whole desire thing. A lot of guys, yeah, if she's just not ever interested in sex. She doesn't want to have sex. And I said, really? I said, well, let me ask you a question. Will she have sex with you? Well, yeah.

[50:42]
Well, what she like when she does. Oh, she's incredible. She's incredible. In fact, I've actually come to the point. I don't have any data to support this, but just, you know, from the couples I have talked to, but I've come to believe that some of the most sexual people on the planet exhibit little to no desire at all upfront. In fact, a lot of women who are incredible sexual animals are only feel like, who only feel like doing it when they're doing it. They don't lead with this big desire thing in front.

[51:14]
Now, stop and think how that changes your view of yourself. Because right now, if you think, well, yeah, I never feel that much or something wrong with me, then you develop a negative attitude about sex. See? And a lot of guys get angry at their wives because she never initiates it. She never, she never wants, oh, who cares? Who cares? I promise you in my house, I am the initiator. I am the initiator.

[51:45]
I am the initiator. I will initiate. And then I'll be back. Who cares? This has really got a lot of people messed up. I'm telling you, a lot of women, there's not fair until you start waking it in her.

[52:20]
Okay? So you've got to learn to be a lover to the girl. And how to awaken the desire that is in her. Don't worry about this desire thing. You see, you know, I'm waiting for her to have all this desire on front. Stop! You're going to be a very old man if we have sex again. And now he does say, look, this is gender, you know, typical. Usually, the man has a higher desire than the woman, but not always.

[52:51]
Then I room this big. I wouldn't assume that there wouldn't be quite a few who have the gender flip, where the wife is more interested than the man. So I put that out there. I've been running enough seminars for enough time to know that it's often the other way around. And interestingly enough, the research shows that entrepreneurial men, men who like creating, men who like doing stuff, men who are never stop thinking can often have a lower desire because they've got the outlet in a whole bunch of other areas.

[53:22]
So if that's you, again, it's a difference. It's something you work with. It's not bad or evil. It's just different. So either way, it's likely that at some stage through your marriage, unless you're just having a lovely smooth run and everything's going swimmingly, you will hit a mismatch of a desire problem. Now that shouldn't be real surprise because if you've got, like if you're an example, if you use food as an example, if you're the sort of person who, yeah, I'll eat the food

[53:54]
if it's there, but I don't really need to eat now. If you're living with somebody who wants three or four meals a day and they keep serving you at the same time, you're going to get to the point where you'll eat the food, but you're not really ever feeling hungry. So you'll polarise because you never actually feel hunger. So if you're living with somebody, the odds are that even if it's 49-51 initially where you're slightly out of sync with desire, then it will tend to polarise because one will

[54:26]
be having their needs met before they actually need to feel the desire. So that's just a common thing, but then there's also the physical side of it as well. Just the fact that a man has 20 times testosterone than a girl? Yeah, and also that what desire and arousal, what's the difference between them? Yeah, we'll put up the next slide and I will show you. I can do that. Desire leads to a rousal leads to sex or climax as I've written it, and that's what we're told and that's what we think is normal. So we get the difference between desire and arousal.

[54:59]
Desire is in the head. Arousal is in the body, okay? So we go, oh, okay, desire is because I'm thinking about sex. That's on my mind. Arousal is engorgement, nipple erection, erection for the man, all those physical things that happen. And some people just don't have the desire. They go straight to a rousal or it's switched the other way around. Once I start feeling arousal, then I'll feel desire.

[55:29]
Bit like Mark Gungle said. So switch to the next one. He said something about they don't feel like doing it till they're doing it. That means they need to be aroused first before they feel desire. Get it? So then he says something really helpful. He says, oh, I forgot what it was. It's your job to awaken the person who's got the lower desire because they're flipping. They need arousal first and then desire, okay?

[56:01]
And to just realise that that's quite normal and that's what you're working with. So if you're in a couple where someone has a higher desire than the other one, it's usually cause they're assertive and they will ask for sex more. Their higher desire because the higher desire person is thinking about it. They're starting with desire. They think about it even maybe if they just see something not pornographic but just maybe even a dentist poster with a nice smile. Woo, that looks nice. Like that can be a high desire person.

[56:33]
They can get aroused by nearly anything. They really can be that bad. And so they will ask for and want to be the initiator. So they're assertive. And the low desire person is the person who doesn't feel at all. I don't think about it much. I don't feel uncomfortable when we don't have sex for a while. I'm quite comfortable with that. I don't mind it but I just don't think about it.

[57:03]
I don't have a high desire. Look at the slash. Receptive. Once we start doing it, I like doing it. There's no problem with either of those. The only real problem you've got if you've got a high desire person, an assertive person, and a withdrawn person, someone who's backing right out. That's a problem. But just to be receptive is pretty good. So Mark says they don't feel like doing it until they're doing it. Our own Australian sex therapist, patina, explains it a bit like this. She says, often if you ask a woman, putting it at that gender one, if she wants to go kayaking

[57:39]
or canoeing, she'll go, okay, means I've got to pack a picnic, get the swimmers, the towels, put the kayaks on the roof, drive down to the lake. No, don't want to go kayaking. I can't be bothered. But if she was just walking along the lake and she saw some canoes there, she might go, oh, let's pop in and have a paddle. That sounds good. So she's receptive to it. She's just not planning for it, thinking about it. But if she's in the canoe, she's happy to paddle.

[58:09]
So sometimes you need to just ask your wife or vice versa, your husband. Is it just that you're happy to paddle and you don't think about it much? Yeah, that's me. Okay, well that's all right. As long as I understand, I'm not going to blame you for being lower desire than me. But it could also have differences in different stages of your relationship, if you marriage as well. Like when we're talking about yesterday, I talked about the collaboration stage, where there's just so much going on, that just to sort of think about having sex for a low desire person

[58:41]
can be just another thing to do. And it's just so exhausting and you sort of can let the whole thing just drift off your radar completely. And it's very easy at that time to go for a long time with a sexless marriage, which isn't helpful because it's like running the engine without the oil in it. It just doesn't work. And so there's been times when we're in our collaboration stage where we'd have sex and we're like, hey, that was pretty good. Why don't we do that more often?

[59:13]
And that's because you can just let it just go longer than you should. And that is the danger, isn't it? So what do you do if you do have the mismatch of desire? What's the answer for it? And what can you do about it? Now it is a bit like that appetite thing that Scott was talking about. Just remember that the high desire person is thinking about the next meal a lot. And working out when will that next meal be?

[59:44]
And so they're thinking how many times do I have to ask? How many knows will I get before I get a yes? So this game happens. And that person starts pressuring more and more and more. So if you can actually switch in your mind to actually talk about this and say, yeah, we are dealing with this mismatch of desire. How about we try this one, which is? Whoops, just the first one. Just say yes. That's where you as a couple go, look, I'm going to stop this game thing.

[1:00:14]
You know, I know I'm playing games. I know I get out the flenny night. You're not interested. I know that you'd pretend to be asleep. All the onesies. All the onesies. We're playing games and we know we are. Let's be honest about it. Why don't we deal with this properly? And I know it's important to our relationship. I know it's a God ordained thing. I'm going to stop playing games and I'm going to say yes. OK? Unless it's like a really true migraine. I'm not going to put up with these games anymore. I'm going to say yes.

[1:00:45]
Then you sort of think, OK, what's that do for the? For the loady's eye person to say that. That's a big gift, isn't it? They're actually saying, I will, as the Bible said. Give you my body. Now that can be really scary. Really scary. I could imagine anybody that's a load desire is probably sort of freaking out at that point. And the high-design person could be rubbing their hands with glee going, yeah! That's what I'm talking about, right? But that's really, if you do have the loady's eye person is willing to say,

[1:01:20]
I'll just say yes, because I appreciate this is a problem for you, that you need to be able to have sex. And we've committed to each other. And you are the only person that I can get my needs met. And I'm the only person that I can get my needs met. Then this is something that we covenant to each other. And so it's important that we work out how we're going to do this. So you would hope that the high-design person doesn't take advantage of that? Yeah. So if you've got the load as eye person is willing to commit to meet those needs

[1:01:53]
as a self-sacrifice, which is what marriage is all about, yeah, don't take advantage of that. Don't take advantage of that. It's an act of love. But it does reduce the anxiety in the relationship. Because if the person who feels they have to ask five times before they get a yes, they're just getting anxious all the time. If you say, well, I will say yes, they go, oh, okay. I can relax a bit. I'm not worried that I'm going to be starved out of this marriage. I'm going to be able to relax in it.

[1:02:24]
So it is worth trying. I just say yes approach. Here's another approach to schedule sex. How holy what is that? Well, we're just been through the calendar and diary stuff a minute ago. So here's another entry to put in. We're the biggest on it. Just don't make it public. Well, we went for years and years and years without having to schedule sex. Like, it just wasn't a problem. But then there comes a time when it is a problem. And scheduling might sound unromantic, but it's actually quite loving to look at your

[1:02:54]
calendar and go, you know what? Tuesdays never work for us. Well, we don't get home to 11 o'clock. We've got an early morning Wednesday. Let's just cut Tuesdays out. Let's just forget about Tuesdays. And to talk about, you know, well, one of you might say, well, once a week's enough for me. And the other one might say, but I'd like it four times. Well, you've got to compromise on that. Would you be happy with two? Well, yeah, it's better than none. So let's work through that. Let's work out the Wednesdays and Saturdays work really well.

[1:03:24]
Let's just put that in the diary for a while. Let's roll it out. Let's see if it works. What it does for the high-design person is, again, anxiety, lowers. It might be Tuesday, but Wednesdays coming. I can hang on. And for the low-design person, it's really helpful. Because they can then go, OK, I'll get ready for Wednesday. I'll start thinking about it. I have to plan a better dinner. I have to get the kids to bed earlier, whatever it is, because I've committed to Wednesdays

[1:03:55]
and Saturdays. So it just reduces anxiety both ways. It just say yes or a schedule. It reduces the anxiety that you have in the relationship. And it helps you to stop playing games. It helps you to be more intentional about the whole thing, OK? I actually think the scheduling sex has a side benefit to it that I think makes it even better than the just say yes. Because what we've seen happens often in a marriage is the affection goes out of it. And probably particularly over this, well, you know, when you're first going out together,

[1:04:30]
you were very affectionate and cuddly and all over each other. And you're actually kissed, remember? Those days. And so you were very affectionate with each other. But then once you're able to sleep together and have sex, you didn't need to have this physical affirmation all the time. And so you let the affection drift out of your marriage. And you probably think, oh, we don't need it anymore. But there could be another reason why the affection drifts out. And that could be because, oh, if you put your arm around me. I know what's coming.

[1:05:00]
You know, there's an ulterior motive for it. And so then there's the reaction to shy away. And if you're the low-design person, I don't want to show affection because that's leading you on and on. I know what's going to go on. I really don't want to go there today. And so the whole affection can drift out of the relationship. So I think it's really important if you do have this scheduling sex, then this means you've actually, I know it sounds a bit weird to say it, but you've disconnected this affection equal sex thing. Affection actually is showing your love and kindness to each other in every daily activity

[1:05:34]
that you're doing. And so that can actually help when you are coming up to the schedule day, when you are going to have sex, then you're already warmed up because you're cuddly with each other. The only time you're touching me is on the day when we're having sex. So that's good too. So to the next slide, please tell. As a married couple, you have to decide, look, are we going to include sex in our marriage simply by desire? Well, if you're going to just rely on desire, it's going to hit the rocks many, many times.

[1:06:07]
It's just not going to sustain you. Are you going to do it out of duty? Well, let's not particularly attract you. But if you're going to just do it out of decision, we are going to love and serve each other in our sexual relationship. We've decided to do that. Let's work how we can best do that. If we have a desire mismatch, let's see if we can just say yes, we can shirt your sex, we can talk about other ways that we can give and serve each other. Now we've talked a lot longer than we wanted to on that one, but I hope that's been helpful. And you do get a chance to talk to each other in couple talks, six.

[1:06:41]
So you're not going to want to do this next door to each other, are you? And there's more in there than you'll ever come up. An interesting group table activity. There's more in there than you'll ever get through, and we're not going to give you that long. We're only going to give you maybe seven minutes. To talk through question one, two, three, four. And then the more to discuss is any other time. Okay, and that could be over lunch if you want to take it. But we'll give you just five minutes to set away from each other.

[1:07:11]
Talk about what we've talked about now on those questions, and we'll call you back in five minutes or so. I think you're very brave. It's very hard to talk about sex. It's the most personal thing that you do with for each other. And lots of couples never talk about it. So there may even be you first time ever that you've actually stopped to talk about it. And you didn't get very long either, which makes it even harder. So I realize you could be in the air of we haven't got through all that.

[1:07:42]
You do have a lovely lunch together. So there is a chance to say, let's talk more about that, or say, let's drop that for another time. It'll make some interesting conversation at the table at the restaurant. People are overhearing you. I'm talking about a walk on the beach. But we are nearly ready for lunch. I did say there was many more things to talk about about sex in there simply because it is hard sometimes to just talk. And even just ticking those on the mortar discuss ones would be helpful to get you talking.

[1:08:14]
And of course, there are books and things that you can read too. But Scotty, what's this like? So the last slide. We just like you to be able to think into what we've been talking to you about yesterday and today. So there's been the four elements there. And what we're wanting you to be able to do is to continue to think into having a strong we, which is the stability of the stool. So it's very important to have a strong we. And to do that, you need a very firm stool. That you can remember. And so to do that, you need to work on your friends, partners and lovers.

[1:08:47]
OK, so just keep that mantra going in your head and it'll play with you. Yeah, and honestly, you can say that. Do we have a strong we happening here or are we separating? Are we disagreeing on things? But we want you to take your books with you to lunch simply because there's an action page. OK? Now, by going through each of the sections that we've done and there's not a lot of detail in there, but there's enough to remind you, can you come up with an action for being

[1:09:17]
the we, the strong we? It might be as simple as let's celebrate our anniversary this year because we haven't done that for five years. Or let's finally get the wedding album done. Or let's go back to where we met. Let's firm up that meeting, that marriage that we have. Let's have a date night. It could be something like that about the we. The friends was about differences, so it might be that you'd look at it and go, we really need to work on this night out thing.

[1:09:48]
It's not working for us. Look at the differences there. In partners, you did a lot on calendar and trying to work out together and you did that pillow talk. So maybe you can say, let's try that on this issue. And then in lovers, maybe you need to say, look, let's roll out the scheduling sex for three months and see how it works. There'll be something you can do to change. It's no use coming to a seminar like this saying I had a late, great time and then going home and nothing happens. So over your lunch, have a great lunch to start with.

[1:10:19]
Then go sit somewhere on the beach or somewhere by yourself and work on your action points okay. And then you'll be coming back to wrap up. Scotty, we're over and out. Yeah. And we just like to thank you for the opportunity being able to speak to you over this last couple of days. It's been terrific being able to share fellowship with you around the dinner table. It's a great blessing and we pray blessings on all of your churches as you go back into them, into the front line. So I hope you feel better equipped and refreshed through the seminar this last few days.

[1:10:49]
Thank you, Scotty.