Lesson 5: Communication Leader's Guide

KEY CONCEPT

Communicate with your spouse with the goal of mutual understanding.

The goal of this lesson is to help participants understand that communication with your spouse is not about getting your point across, or winning the argument, or being right, but it is to understand one another. The lesson focuses first on identifying each spouse’s negative communication patterns and how to overcome them, then on creating a positive pattern using an active listening technique.

QUESTION HIGHLIGHTS

• Q1: This exercise can be a game-changer for couples. For years they may have observed some of these negative patterns but known neither what they are, nor how to combat them.

  - Make sure everyone is given an opportunity to share so watch your time as this topic could generate a lot of conversation!

  - Few couples have positive role models for communication. Let participants know that just because you are leaders you have not achieved some sort of expert status in communication. Be ready to share an example from the past week where one of your negative patterns revealed itself. Couples need to see that this is an ongoing battle against our flesh!

  - As participants identify their negative tendencies, this awareness should breed humility so point back to Lesson 4. How would a humble person respond? Hopefully it will result in a desire to grow in this area and ask God for help doing it!

• Q3: The key thing with this question is to determine if couples did the exercise and what snags they hit. You don’t necessarily need them to replay the disagreement in the group.

  - Even for couples that have used the Speaker-Listener Technique before, it can be a little clunky so expect a comment from someone about how mechanical it feels.

• Action Item 3: Many people are scripture memory averse. They have either never done it, don’t think it’s necessary, or think it’s too hard. But they will do it if YOU do it. This is a great lesson to memorize one verse. These proverbs and the James 1 passage are short and highly practical. Encourage participants that when they feel their emotional temperature rising, quote the memory verse to themselves and follow it.

REMINDERS

• One of the huge benefits of this lesson is that it gives couples a common language surrounding communication. You know the concepts have taken root when you hear participants use terms like Withdrawal and phrases like “What I hear you saying is…”!

• As the curriculum begins to introduce helpful and practical skills be reminded that our biggest need is the gospel. You can learn great skills but those skills will be of little long-term value in a heart that is not aligned with Christ. We often see non-believers take positive steps during re|engage but if they do not come to Christ, over time their relationship often reverts to its previous state. This is because they did not fundamentally change their approach to life. Always point back to the gospel!

• By this point your group has been together a while and you’ve earned the right to ask follow-up questions. Always have a few good open-ended questions ready, such as:

  - What could you have done differently?
  - Tell us a little bit more about that.
  - Why do you think you responded that way?
  - What do you think God wants you to do?

• At some point during group time, point out the “Introduction to Peacemaking” that follows Lesson 5. Participants could miss it if they go straight to Lesson 6. It is important for them to understand that the next three lessons work together and they need to review the Introduction to put the process in context. There is also a special Lesson Preview video on Peacemaking for you.

DID YOU KNOW?

According to post-group surveys, the most common complaint from re|engage participants is that their facilitators talk too much. Would anyone in your group give you that feedback? When you debrief with your spouse each week, ask each other how you did on this topic.