Newlywed Curriculum for Churches
For pastors and marriage ministries
A first-year marriage curriculum your church can actually run.
Premarital counselling usually ends at the wedding, right when the patterns start forming. These are 48 weekly lessons for a couple’s first year of marriage, one theme a month. We can send them to each of your couples every week, or your church can run them yourselves with the Leader Kit.
- Serving couples since 2012
- Grounded in Scripture & survey data
- For one couple or fifty
At a glance
- 48 weekly lessons, one a week through the first year, with a week off each quarter.
- One theme a month, from listening and repair to sex, money and in-laws.
- We deliver to each couple: from $49 to $69 per couple, depending on how many.
- Or run it yourselves: the Leader Kit, $249 a year per church.
Why the first year
Most of the marriages you counsel were shaped in year one.
What usually happens
The couples who end up in a pastor’s office are often five, ten, fifteen years in, sorting through patterns nobody chose on purpose. How they fight, spend and make love gets worked out on the fly, one reaction at a time, until those habits harden into “just how we are.”
What a church can do
In the first year, almost all of it is still being written. A lesson a week keeps your newlyweds talking about the things that matter, and it gives your ministry a way to stay with them after the wedding without adding another program to run every week.
Inside one lesson
What one week looks like
Each couple sets aside about an hour a week and works through the lesson together. Every lesson follows the same shape, so couples always know what’s next, and so does anyone leading them.
- Open in prayer, with a short prompt for the two of them.
- The big idea, where this week fits and what it builds on from last week.
- An icebreaker, something light to get them talking before the teaching.
- The teaching, the core idea with Scripture, what the research says, and a few simple ways to start.
- Fifteen discussion questions in three stages: the idea, then their home, then their heart.
- 10 & 10, ten minutes of writing on one prompt, then ten minutes sharing what they wrote with their spouse.
- A weekly challenge, one small, real thing to try before the next lesson.
- Close in prayer, asking God for what this week needs.
Read a sample lesson: Month 3, Week 2, “The LADDER Approach”
Twelve months, twelve themes
The scope and sequence
Four lessons per theme, each going deeper on a different piece of it. The skills come first, so the harder topics have something to stand on. Sex and money come early on purpose, while goodwill is still high.
- Month 1The first-year mindsetWhy the patterns you set now compound, and the family defaults you each brought in.
- Month 2AttitudeAssume love. The story you tell about your spouse runs the marriage. Gratitude, out loud.
- Month 3CommunicationListen before you solve. The LADDER approach. Knowing when they want help and when they want a hug.
- Month 4Conflict and repairDecide whether you keep your parents’ way of fighting. Build a repair ritual before you need it.
- Month 5Sex and intimacyDesire mismatch is normal. Talking about sex without fighting about it.
- Month 6MoneyYour first joint decisions: accounts, budget, giving and saving as a unit.
- Month 7In-laws and boundariesLeave and cleave, applied. Holidays, phone calls, and who comes first now.
- Month 8Time and the division of labourWho does what at home, the calendar, protected time, and the mental load.
- Month 9Faith as a couplePraying together, devotions, and handling disagreements about church.
- Month 10Friendships and communityFriends of your own, couple friends, and mentors who get to see your marriage.
- Month 11Vision and the long arcKids, career, where you live, ministry. Now you have the skills to talk about it.
- Month 12The year-one auditWhich defaults did you change, which did you inherit, and what to keep working on in year two.
Step by step
How it works for your church
If we deliver the lessons
- Choose how many couples. Set the quantity to the number of couples and check out with your church’s name. The price per couple drops automatically at 10 and at 25.
- Register your couples. After checkout, add each couple’s names and the email address their lessons should go to. You don’t have to do them all at once: the link in your order email brings you back any time.
- Their lessons start that week. Each couple gets their first lesson the week you register them, then one a week with a week off each quarter: 48 lessons over 52 weeks. Their forum invite follows within two business days.
If you run it with the Leader Kit
- Buy the licence. Check out with your church’s name. It is $249 for the year.
- We email you the kit. All 48 lessons as PDFs plus the leader guide, sent to the address on your order. The forum invite link for your couples follows within two business days.
- Run it your way. Weekly, in a group or one couple at a time. The licence renews each year until you cancel.
One forum for every couple, on purpose
Whichever way you run it, your couples get a year in our newlywed forum. It is shared by every newlywed couple taking this course, from any church or none. That is by design. Couples won’t ask the real questions in front of people from their own church, and anonymity makes it much easier to be honest about what is actually going on. So there is no private space for your church, and we don’t report back on who posts or what they say.
Questions pastors ask
Before you decide
What theology is this written from?
A Christian view of marriage: covenant, grace and repair. Every lesson opens and closes in prayer, and Scripture is the lens, never a weapon. Alongside it we use what the research says and what more than 13,000 survey responses have told us. The sample lesson is the quickest way to judge whether it fits your church.
How does it handle sex?
Plainly, the way the first year of marriage needs it to. Month 5 is sex and intimacy: desire mismatch is normal, and couples need a way to talk about it without fighting about it. It is written for married couples, within a Christian view of marriage.
What do couples actually receive?
With delivery, one email a week from Uncovering Intimacy with that week’s lesson, 48 across the year with a week off each quarter, plus their forum invite. They can unsubscribe at any time. With the Leader Kit, couples receive whatever you hand them: the lessons are PDFs for you to print or share. Either way, they also get an invite to the shared forum.
What stays private?
We use the names and email addresses you register to send each couple their lessons and their forum invite. We don’t send you reports on what couples read, answer or post. The discussion questions are for the two of them, and what they share with you is up to them.
Can I walk through it with them?
Yes, and it works well that way. Each couple starts the week you register them, so couples you register in the same week move through the lessons together, and you can gather them to discuss each week’s lesson. If you plan to lead it, the Leader Kit puts every lesson and the leader guide in your hands, so you are on the same page they are.
We’ll have more couples later in the year. Do they count toward the lower price?
Yes. Before your next order, get in touch and we’ll count the couples from your earlier order toward the tier.
Do couples have to be in their first year?
It’s written for the first year, so it fits best for couples about to marry or recently married. Couples further in will still recognise themselves in most of it, but the order and the examples assume a young marriage.
Is this coaching or therapy?
Neither. It is a curriculum. If a couple needs more, private coaching with Jay Dee is available separately on our newlywed coaching page, and some situations need a counsellor rather than a lesson.
Questions first?
Ask us anything before you start
If you want to know whether this fits your church, how to roll it out, or anything else, send us a note.