Guidelines for Christian Dating Success

Can I just say, I think this is probably one of the biggest ones practically. For Christians. Especially for Christians in an environment where if you grew up, and I'd call it, a conservative church and conservative environment, a Christian environment, a lot of awesome things, but probably we've skewed towards the abnormal. Being a weirdo. Yeah, you just are weird. Guys tend to be weird, and I'm not. Girls can be weird as well, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to the whole dating thing. Nice to meet you. How many kids do you want? Yeah, yes, absolutely. A lot of people ask the question, how far is too far in a dating relationship? They're obviously asking the wrong question. It is natural to be tempted to be physical. And I'd say one of the things we've probably done a poor job in the church is we've probably encouraged aspects of a relationship. When you think of intimacy, everything except for sexual intimacy. any disclaimers before we kind of jump into these set of principles. Welcome to the Dial-In Ministries podcast. I'm Johnny Artavanis. I'm sitting here with Brandon Wolfe, who I've known since I was 13, 13 years old. What was I like as a 13-year-old? Johnny was difficult as a 13-year-old. You called me a meatball. Did I? Yeah, it was rude. Were you? I was. I was. We can put some pictures in the show notes. We're talking about dating. And in our previous episode, we talked about who to date. We primarily looked at kind of just different elements of character and chemistry. Do they love the Lord? Are they a hard worker? Are they teachable? We talked about, is there a level of fun? Do you enjoy them? Is there attraction? It shouldn't all be about physical beauty, but you should be drawn to them to some degree. I think it's worth a PSA. which stands for public service announcement. Yep, sorry. You do not need to know all those things before. Yeah, before you go out, spend time with, go on a date. Before you go on a date. That's why you date. I think there's a spectrum of even the things that you've told me while I was dating different individuals that range from dude with Katie, you said, lock it in. I did, I remember that. Lock it in. And then you've told me on the flip side, don't be a weirdo. So. There's a big range here, you know, time to get married and stop being a weirdo. What we want to talk about in this episode is how to date. If we talked about who to date in our previous episode, we want to talk about how to do that. What does that even look like? And I think we're probably primarily talking to a young adult audience. Probably not talking to a 14 year old here, talking to someone college, post-college, young adult in their thirties. And it's probably worth clarifying that we're not going to provide definitive steps because As we mentioned in the scripture, it's not like there is a methodology for dating. There's two primary relationships, a brother and sister in Christ and a husband and wife. And we'll talk about that and how not to be weird about that. But there's no passage in the Bible that says Lazarus takes Zipporah or Rachel to Applebee's. Do you remember the appetizer sampler? Yeah. Oh, I do. So there's no passage like that. And so what we're not going to provide is steps like follow her on Instagram. like her photo, comment, what would be, what's after that? I don't know. Like the heart, the direct message maybe. I really like what you posted. I really like what you posted. Then the text. We're not going to necessarily do the steps, but I think we can kind of get to that. But more of the principles that should be in play as you go about the dating process. Anything that maybe we should be thinking of or... Any disclaimers before we kind of jump into these set of principles? Yeah, I'd probably give two disclaimers. One is, and it's a review just from last time, but it's not perfection, right? So you said these aren't the things we have to know about the person before we date. I also would say, hey, as you're going through it, you're learning these things about someone. They're not in their final state, right? Just like you're not in your final state. I'd say the second thing is, and this is probably more just personal for both of us here. This isn't because we did it perfect. Right. Like this is for yourself. Yeah. Well, learning through the process of, uh, and I can speak for myself a lot of mistakes along the way. Yeah. Um, learning from those and kind of looking back on, maybe I never had conversation with people. Yeah. And so this is helpful because you're kind of having that conversation and to just learning through mistakes that you made or learning through some things that you did really well that you're going, Hey, this worked out for me. Um, but like you said, it's not a perfect, Hey, here's your step-by-step. And this isn't an exhaustive list. So people might, you know, you can write in the comments, what about this? And that may be a future episode. This is not a 90 minute episode, you know? Yeah. So, okay. Some, some principles. The first, which I would say, you just want to go about the dating process. How to date number one, prayerfully. I. This may be obvious, but it says in James 1.5, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives generously and lavishly. When we talk about dating and we talked and defined it, at least in detail, it should be goal oriented towards the purpose of marriage. And if it's objective is that you would be able to determine whether or not this person could be a spouse for you, then you need to go about that process with a level of dependency upon the Lord. I mean, maybe just talk for a moment about. Why that may be sound cliche, but super necessary when you're evaluating what will be the most important decision you make in life. Yeah, I think you hit on the head. Most important decision you'll make in your life. So prayerfully thinking through the kind of vein or the prism, if you will, of God, his word, where do you get wisdom? You find it in God's word. It's great to have people around you. We talked about that last time that are speaking into your life, but the ultimate source of wisdom is going to come from the Lord. I would also say this. you're not walking into day one of, let's say the first date going, is this a person I'm marrying? Like it's going to take some time. You're going to have those conversations, right? Yeah. You think about like people in scripture that are looking for wisdom more often than not. The normalcy is not that God immediately speaks to them, gives them the answer they want. Sometimes it's time after time and you seek after the Lord and he reveals things, you know, through his word and through other people over a course of time. Yeah. So the prayer might be Lord, help me to have a good time. rather than like, hey, we're going to Sonic. Lord, let me know if this is the one, which we can talk about more in detail. But I think even that element of we pursue the Lord holistically, meaning like if you're wanting wisdom in a particular area of your life, i.e. a relationship, you need to pursue him wholeheartedly. Just Lord, help me to be more like you. And when you're walking with the Lord and you're saturated in his word, your thinking is going to be governed. and submitted to the spirit of God, which is going to affect everything about the evaluation process of this relationship. Okay. So that would be the first one is prayerfully. And you tethered that, I think appropriately to being in God's word, because we pray the scripture. Yeah. The second and third principles, I think we have to conjoin. So the second would be clearly, and then the third we'll talk about in a minute, which would be normally, which I like. Yeah. But let's just talk from a clarity perspective. A lot of people. um, are unsure about how to go about this process, right? Should I ask them to hang out? Should I ask them to, uh, chill, you know, or, but I think under this banner of clarity, we should put a level of intentionality and initiative. And obviously I think we're talking to both men and women here, but let's just talk to the guys for a moment about clarity. Cause No one wants to be along for a journey. They don't know where they're going necessarily. But then on the flip side, you have this paranoia of always trying to define the relationship, which is where we'll get to when we talk about normality. Yeah. I was telling you before, like I've had too many conversations with girls who are looking back going, Hey, this guy's like hung out with me five, six times and I have no idea where we're at. And at some point the guy, you said, let's talk to the guy. He got me a bedazzled monogram purse. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to go, Hey. I have some intentionality behind this. Maybe that's not the first time you've ever talked to them. I've heard those stories as well, where it's like I saw her across the room and knew I'm going to marry her. I would probably warn that's a little crazy. But the Lord moves in mysterious ways sometimes. Yeah, it's a Boaz moment. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. But yeah, I would say, hey, clarity is, I'm interested in you. I want to spend some time with you and kind of see where it goes. And after you've spent some time together, whether it's in, hey, we're in a group. Our friends are friends. You can be in a group and have some intentionality one-on-one with someone without it being weird. And then realize, hey, maybe there's a little, for lack of a better word, some chemistry. Now I want to take that person out or spend some time with them doing something different. You know, without 25 people. Or without, hey, it's a Sunday morning, can I sit next to you in church? We can have a little more intentionality and be able to have that discussion. Yeah, I think like there's a level of balance here. I think with... the level of intentionality. No one wants to, you know, be unsure and, you know, forever about where something is going, but it's, I would say appropriate to say, Hey, I'd love to get to know you going bowling with a group of friends. And if someone doesn't know immediately what that means, I would say there's a level of that's fine. Right. That's fine. You can get to know someone in a group setting and be like, Hey, we're a group of us are going and get to spend some time with them. And if you find out they're an absolute dud. You know, like you don't have to ask them on a date. Now, even that word date, sometimes I think in our culture, people have gone like, no, we, we like the, the, uh, the presented formality of intentionality when, when you do, you want to go on a date. Right. I would argue, yeah, that might be great. And at some point you might need to get there, but it doesn't necessarily have to start there. You don't have to go like, I want to take you to Olive Garden, soup, salad, and breadsticks on a date. Will you go? Because I want to get to know you for the purpose of marriage. I don't think you have to start there. No, I would actually say, I hope you don't, right? I can reminisce a little and say, there were some moments with you while you grew up that was like, we've hung out in study groups. The only purpose. Should I tell her? exactly how I feel. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe you get coffee before. Yeah. And you were big on that. Coffee is different than dinner. I still don't think it's a big difference. But yeah, but I think it's a little, it's a little less threatening for people to say, hey, we're hanging out and this could end in 15 minutes, as opposed to we're stuck with a waiter and people all around us watching what we're doing. And it's one on one. But either way, I'd say, yeah, absolutely. Like, so it could start in a friend environment. You could ask him to do something, but there should be a certain threshold that you cross where it's like, hey, I want to spend some more time with you. Yeah. Love to do that in my own life. I think with Katie, I asked her to go paddle boarding, right? Very romantic. But that was just like, Hey, let's go do something fun. Yeah. Let's go paddle boarding. We talked. Um, and we did that a couple of times because we were working at a camp and I said, let's, let's get out of here. I don't know what you did with your wife, but it was like, it's not like I was going to a sit down dinner, um, right off the bat. I wanted to see first, can, do I enjoy her? Is she fun? Do we have a good time? And she's probably doing the same thing going, do I enjoy him? Are we having fun? Can we get along in a non-threatening, like pressure environment? And that's, you know, you learn a lot about someone through that. And initially I'm not obsessed with defining the relationship. So we talked about like, hey, what is dating? You were joking earlier about like the difference between someone saying we're going on dates and we're dating. I don't know where the difference is, but it's probably somewhere along the lines when someone just, I told Katie at some point, you're my girlfriend. Right. I didn't ask her. It's not like this like intermediate step where in between. going on dates and her becoming my wife, I ask her to be my girlfriend. I just, I don't know. I just told her what it was after a little while. Yeah. And then she jokes because I, she said, uh, after that, I said, you never responded. Well, she said, well, you didn't ask me a question. I guess you're right. You're my girlfriend. That's on it. But I think there's probably a good balance where you're not overly obsessed with defining the relationship right off the bat, your girlfriend or whatever it is, doesn't belong to you. Yeah. It's not exclusive in the same way a marriage relationship is at all. Right. So. even maybe just talk for a moment about providing clarity without, you know, becoming overly rigid where it's like, she's mine. Right. Yeah. Because I think people overdo that. Well, and I think you hit the thing where you say there's ditches, the ditches, like she's mine, the other dishes, we've been out 15 times and I don't know, I'm seeing like four other people at the same time. Yeah. So you want to live in that middle ground. That's probably not black and white all the time, but intentionality is the key word we keep using. I'd say there's some intentionality when you have those conversations. If you're a guy, at some point in time, you've gone out with a girl six, seven, eight times, and you're not willing to step up and say, hey, here's how I feel. I'd love to continue to get to know you. Yeah, then I would say you're probably the problem. And it's not when you say, here's how I feel. It's not that you're saying, I see this progressing towards marriage. And even that level of clarity, Katie and I hardly ever talked about marriage before I proposed. We never said... much about it. I mean, it was obvious that I wasn't wasting her time, but it's not like we were ending every day going like, how do you think about this in marriage? And in 30 years, when our kids are graduated from high school. So sometimes people want clarity and what they're wanting is every single answer for what life will look like. And if we did proceed in marriage. So I think that's, you've mentioned ditches on both sides. So this leads us to the third one regarding normally, you know, like if we're going prayerfully, uh, With clarity, now there's normally. Can I just say, I think this is probably one of the biggest ones practically. For Christians. Especially for Christians in an environment where if you grew up, and I'd call it, a conservative church and conservative environment, a Christian environment, a lot of awesome things, but probably we've skewed towards the abnormal. Being a weirdo. Yeah, you just are weird. Guys tend to be weird, and I'm not. Girls can be weird as well, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to the whole dating thing. Nice to meet you. How many kids do you want? Yeah, yes, absolutely. Do you want to be my partner in ministry? Yeah. So I think regarding that normality, like let's just help a guy out here, right? So Brandon, there's a girl I really think is cool. She is in this same group. I seen her at church. We don't actually have that, a common friend group. So I have to take some sort of a jump. Um, how do I do that in a way that's intentional, clear, but normal? Yeah, I mean, I would say it starts probably with you expressing some type of desire to say, hey, can we hang out? And whatever that might be for you is let's paddleboard. It might be let's get coffee. It might be, hey, we're in a group that spends time together and you can have a little bit of that one on one interaction with that person. They get a feel for you. You get a feel for them before you take the next step says, hey, I'd like to spend a little time with you like one on one. Yeah. And some type of environment that's not like this to kind of get to know you a little bit. And sometimes I guess, candidly, even with me and Katie, Katie and I, sorry. Get it right. Yeah. There was a point where I had to be super intentional because we weren't crossing, we weren't rubbing shoulders in our day to day life. Like at the end of camp, I had been with her for three weeks. She was going down four and a half hours away from me. I had the, hey, I'd love to continue to get to know you long distance. Right. Right. So I want to drive down every weekend to see you and take you on dates and be with your family and stuff like that. Like there was a certain point where. some people might be asking like, well, it's not like we're in the same setting. So I have to go like make a move and you might have to make a move. So that's why your circumstances might determine your course of action. So you can be intentional and you can say, Hey, and you should at times, I'd love to take you out and I'd love to get to know you because you're not going to rub shoulders with them. So good on you. But you can do that in a way where even in the course of that initial dinner, where it's obviously intentional, you're being normal without wasting your time or their time as well. So there's, those are the ditches. For sure. Okay. Fourth is I put purely in first Timothy five, two, Paul tells Timothy to treat older women as you would your mother and to treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters. Now you could get, um, weird because I'm not holding my sister's hand, right. And dating relationship. And I'm probably not gonna say holding your girlfriend's hand is sin, but I think you should be wise, right? Obviously with, uh, the physical element of dating, but A lot of people ask the question, how far is too far in a dating relationship? They're obviously asking the wrong question because according to the scripture, we're to operate with all wisdom and all purity. And so I think people fail to recognize that even if the point of dating is an evaluation process where you determine whether or not an individual should be your spouse, crossing boundaries physically distorts and sabotages your ability to think rationally and biblically. And- wisely about the individual you're dating. So let's just talk from a purity perspective. Maybe just elaborate on someone's asking you a question. What type of physical boundaries should I set up in this relationship? Yeah, I think there's a lot of practical application here that you'd probably work kind of work through. And it's how much time are you spending alone? Right. That you want to avoid temptation. I think just like Joseph, right? Like he ran from temptation to get away from him. Right. How can you avoid temptation? That is natural. Can we say that? Like it is natural to be tempted to be physical. And I'd say one of the things we've probably done a poor job in the church is we've probably encouraged aspects of a relationship. When you think of intimacy, everything except for sexual intimacy, right? Like you can't have sex before you're married, but gosh, you need to be, and I know we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but you need to be the mature believer, lead them, ask deep spiritual questions, pray together, all these things we've encouraged. And the closer you get in those areas, the more temptation there is to act like you're married, which is to have sex with the other person. Yeah, because emotional intimacy leads to this physical intimacy. And you start already thinking, I'm the spiritual leader of my girlfriend, which you're not. You're not. Yeah. So I would say, hey, some of that is like, you start thinking about how am I going to treat this person today, whether it's physical or emotional, so that if I'm not prepared to be married today, I'm not going to act like I am in either facet. Right. Yeah. And I think that's probably a key for people to think. It's not just how do I set up some physical boundaries, but how do I set up boundaries in general in my relationship? How we're going to operate, what we're going to talk about. What we're going to say. Yeah, all those types of things. Yeah. So obviously asking the question, how far is too far is the wrong question. You want to ask the question, if you're walking with the Lord, how holy can I be and how much can I preserve this individual? If you don't end up marrying them, they're going to end up being married to someone else. And so you obviously want to walk with a level of discretion. And... accountability there. Yeah. And someone might say, well, won't that create tension, you know, in the relationship? Well, yeah, maybe good. You know, like that's why people date, you know, when you look at someone that's in their mid late twenties, been dating for eight years, you don't have to make too many guesses on whether or not they're crossing physical boundaries, right? 99.9% of the time. And so that kind of leads us, we were talking physical boundaries, but it is closely conjoined to, I would say emotional boundaries. So that fifth word I have is guardedly wish. I had to make sure it was a word. Yeah, you got it. You're a preacher. So you gotta have the L-Y in there for all of them. Harry, be proud of me. Emotional boundaries. You know, I think, let's go back to, you mentioned, you know, in the church, we kind of get this skewed. This is actually one that I'm almost just as kind of adamant about. You know, you got a 20-something-year-old guy leading his girlfriend in a Bible study, just him and her in the, you know, in the car at 9 to 11 p.m. every night. They're reading and praying together. I would never recommend that. Yeah. I never tell a guy, you know, in the previous episode, we asked about teachability. You can discern if a woman is teachable. You're obviously going to have conversations, you know. you're going to see if she could follow your lead to a degree. You want to be able to ascertain that you don't want to marry someone that's belligerent and hardheaded and obstinate, but you're a boyfriend is not the spiritual leader of their girlfriend. Right. And I think these long prayer sessions of we're being really godly, um, are actually dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would, I would discourage it quite frankly. Right. I mean, I think we go back to the teachability idea. You can discern someone's teachable. without you having to be the teacher. I can watch how you interact with older men. I can watch how my wife at the time when we were dating interacted with the church or her family or her father. Yeah, all those types of things. So it's not my job to take on the spiritual mentorship or leadership of the girl that I'm hanging out with, whether it's I'm further along and I'm dating. Until you're married, like you're not married. You're not married. Yeah, so this idea, like I've talked to guys who are like, you know, I was... We, you know, you mentioned we started kissing and I said, what were you doing before? Well, we were worshiping in our bedroom. You know, I was playing guitar and you're like, well, you're, you're dumb. You know, like you don't do that. You know, that's why we operate. I think leading us to maybe just this next word is familially or communally. Yeah. Uh, you mentioned this in like a circle of friends that obviously how much you asked the question, how much time are we spending alone? I think I grew up in a way. where because there was so much pressure on dating, right? Like you had to be at a certain point with an individual to introduce them to your people. You know, like I think my parents met two girls I ever dated, right? Because it was going to be a big stinking deal. You better believe it. To introduce them to Scott and Patty. You know, like it was the George Foreman grill at that point. And I think that honestly allows you to, you know. You may end up in a relationship too long because you don't have other people speaking into it until you get to a certain point. And you're like, well, I love this person and now I'm going to introduce them. Right. And it's almost like, hey, you know, we've crossed the finish line. But by the way, tell me if I should give up right now, even though I'm about to. I'm already emotionally bonded. And that makes it that much harder. And I've been in that situation with friends who have held out for a long time. Yeah. And then finally, when they think, hey, this could be the one. And I'm so tied in years. down the road now I'll introduce them to you and we all meet them and go oh gosh they're terrible what do you mean they're terrible and all of a sudden the friction's there and it's hard yeah I think you know what that does is you know I say it often like you're blind your own blind spots too you know like so people are going to be able to point out different things if I brought a girl around you and Kate when I was dating them you're going to ask questions that I don't ask Right. Kate's going to ask questions of an individual of a girl that I don't ask. And so I think that's, you know, I put familially, like it could be in the context of your own family, right? Like your parents, your sisters, they know you better than maybe anyone else in the world. And you may be saying, well, not my family. They don't know the Lord or they're this. That's why I said communally is another element where you live your life amongst the body of Christ. Because when you go to make the biggest decision of your life, as in who you marry, you want older godly men and women speaking into that. And when I say communally here, I don't just mean someone's buddies. Right. So maybe just even talk about that for a moment of like how sometimes people are evaluating their dating relationships with other people that are in the same stage of life with them. Like how does how do the questions of a married individual differ from someone that's just looking at it from like she's cool. Right. I think you just have history. Right. So you've gone through kind of the ups and downs of marriage, whether it's maybe it's kids. And you're like, how do I. How am I going to respond to some difficulties and to some high moments? Right. I mean, if I'm an excited person and my wife is never excited and I just had the greatest day of my life and I walk home and I go, Hey, this was great. And she goes, awesome. Then all of a sudden, are you speaking from experience? Yeah. Flip the roles a little bit. Yeah. That's what Caitlin would probably say to everybody else. But, but I mean, there's part of that where you're like, Hey, I've been through some things that you haven't been through. Right. Um, just practical wisdom. of how do you deal with these things? Hey, you want to have kids? Here's some questions. Have you thought about it? I remember one of my good friends dated a girl and we, a couple of us had been married for several years and she walked in the door and wanted to tell us how to like raise our kids. As a non-mom. Non-mom, like very young. They just started dating and immediately we were kind of like, what is going on here? Not that you can't know something if you're not having gone through it, right? Wisdom comes from the Lord. We get it. But you just kind of work through those types of things. And now you're married looking back on, hey, here's some things I'd look for if I was you. Yeah. Right? And they're not every one of those details. Doesn't think they're God's gift to everything. Yeah. Doesn't think they have the answer. Yeah. Yep. Okay, seventh and finally, and this is, I think there's a relativity to this, but I just put permissively in the sense that, you know, at what point would you make your intentions known to a father? You got four boys, which may be different than me with three girls. I can tell you this. At 19, if a guy's dating Lily, I'm definitely involved. Yeah, a little bit. I'll probably be involved. It doesn't mean a guy. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't mean that the guy's coming to me and saying. Um, I'd like to, you know, take your daughter to Chili's, you know, but I think that there should at least be a clarity between the individual, you know, and me of going, Hey, what are you, what's the plan here? I think with Katie's dad, I said, Hey, I just want to let you know, I'm get, I want to get to know Katie and she's awesome. Love getting to know that if you ever have any questions for me. Yeah. He was great. And some dads are on different, you know, take my daughter out and have her home by three. Right. And other guys are like, very intense. Yeah, very intense. I think it's going to vary, right? I mean, some families. And age-wise, where you're at. Right. If you're 18, that's a lot different than your 29-year-old woman and you're going out with a guy. Yeah, and you've been living on your own for the last nine years and going, hey, do you want to call my dad? He's 2,000 miles away. Yeah. You know. And that may be necessary, but. Sure. And that's why I'd say every family is a little bit different. You want to respect the family while also, you know, understanding kind of just the nature of the relationship that you're walking into. Knowing the family, I would always say is a great thing. But there's people out there you're going to date that go, I have nothing to do with my parents or family. That wouldn't create an awkwardness for them. So you're going, I'm going to feel out every situation. There's not one right answer and this is exactly how it is. Yeah, unless you're 2,000 miles away from your parents and you're a 29-year-old, 31-year-old woman and a guy wants to take you out. There may be an element where if I'm a dad 2,000 miles away and my daughter's 2,000 miles away and I go, well, what other guy knows him? Yeah. I would say. you know, bring it goes back to our previous point, bring them around someone, you know, and trust from the church. I want at least that guy to be like, Hey, getting to know Julie. Right. And, um, so I think there's a level of, it may not be permission, but where other people may need to be involved, may need to clarify that depends on your age and stage of life. Um, first time I went to go visit Caitlin's family, I, we were, we were just friends. If I could give a quote or I, you know, And I think her dad looked at her mom and was like, hey, that guy really likes her. And her mom was like, nah, I don't know. And in that instance, he was right. Right? And it was a process of kind of hanging out, spending time together. My parents are 2,000 miles away. Hers were much closer. So we got to meet her parents and spend time with them a lot more than mine at that time. And you just, you have somebody with a little wisdom that looks at this and goes, I kind of see what's going on, even if they don't realize it yet. So it's always a great thing. Yeah. So let's maybe land the plane here. And I think this may be further conversation, but how do I know? Right. Yesterday I was sitting down with a young adult in my office and he was asking me about Katie and he said, so how'd you know she was the one? Yeah. And I was like, classic, amazing. And I said what I said last time, Hey, she's the one because I married her. I didn't marry her because she's the one. But I think there is an element where you go, you have to make a decision at some point. You know, people say fall in love. It's not an involuntary response to something that takes over you. Right. I remember I was in. Nepal and I couldn't talk to Katie for two weeks. I missed her. And I went, hey, fundamentally, she loves the Lord. We have a great time. I'm able to get married financially. The people in my life like her and love her. There's some unknown about our future, right? But I bought a ring on my phone, shipped it to her parents' house, got home the next day, asked her dad at four in the morning. Can I marry Katie? And I think I proposed that evening. There you go. You know, so you make a decision. But as far as maybe just talk about the overthinking, because I remember talking about this with you. Like you can, you know. You can run every scenario. And at some point in time, you can find out reasons for and against. I mean, I think I almost had the opposite. Meaning I was into Caitlin. She was not ready to like take that next serious step. I went away for the summer. We couldn't talk because I worked at a camp. And she decided, I really miss this guy. He was a huge part of my life. Yes, very obviously. I kind of started chatting with another girl. And that really was something that kind of sparked in her like, yes, well, I mean, you know, we weren't exclusive. We weren't dating. Nothing was happening. And that's when it kind of went. She decided, oh, wait, this feeling I have or this desire I have for a relationship is real. And that kind of was what. Did you say feeling? I did say feeling. I think it's great to have a feeling. So then we talked about it and it was like, oh, yeah, well, that's kind of what. was confirmed in our mind, if you will, in our heart, because there was a decision. All right, let's take the next step and see where this thing goes together. And you ask people in your life. I remember I called my people. Yeah. Hey, I'm thinking I'm going to propose to Katie. And I remember my sisters. This is a big one. I remember my sisters. I got five sisters. You know that? Yep. My sisters came up to me and said, if you don't marry Katie, we'll kill you. There you go. That's a pretty clear sign, right? When you're the people in your life that love you and know you, It's not just that they approve and okay, they said, Johnny, if you don't marry Katie, we'll kill you. Which I think is helpful, you know, right? When I love my sisters, they're great. And so you have an element of that. I think regarding this like commitment to like, you don't have to know if they're the one within three months, right? Which again, we don't believe in the one. If you're a girl asking a guy to commit to you and you've been dating for three months, you need to relax. It's always a good thing. Relax. If you're dating a guy that you've been dating for three years and he won't commit to you, you need to dump him. Yeah. Right. And if you've been dating someone for three years and you're in a perpetual state of unknown and uncertain, lack of certainty, I would just say a perpetual lack of certainty is certainty. If you don't know forever, then you know, right? Or you may have an issue, obviously, that you need to work out. So anything else we've missed? I don't think so. I think, you know. I'd go back to, we'll see what happens in all the questions that you get after this, but, uh, be normal. I mean, in one sense, like dating, someone's supposed to be fun. So when you overthink those types of things, you're just asking, or if you're walking in day one, trying to figure it all out, like at some point, I know some of us are more analytical than others. You being one, like you don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to have every question, you know, you need to ask like on a piece of paper or in your phone on day one, like, at some point, like you want a natural relationship like you would with anyone, right? I would, well, I guess one thing to ask or one thing to add that we didn't add under intentionality is that's reciprocated. Yeah. Right. So if I'm a guy dating a girl that never asked anybody questions, that's one of the first things I ask a guy is, does she seem others minded? Yeah. Does she ask you questions? Does she ask the other people that you're around questions? Because if you're dating someone that you're constantly, you know, that's not someone I would want to spend my life with. Right. So that intentionality is reciprocated. You want to know that a guy can lead. There's a level of obviously that's biblical. He should be a leader. You should be able to determine that to some degree. Right. But that doesn't mean girls should get dragged. And I think it's fine to be able to like, yeah, I'd also like to get to know. Right. Yeah, absolutely. All right, sweet. Well, thanks, Brandon. Thank you.

Yeah, you just are weird. Guys tend to be weird, and I'm not. Girls can be weird as well, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to the whole dating thing. Nice to meet you.

How many kids do you want? Yeah, yes, absolutely. A lot of people ask the question, how far is too far in a dating relationship?

They're obviously asking the wrong question. It is natural to be tempted to be physical. And I'd say one of the things we've probably done a poor job in the church is we've probably encouraged aspects of a relationship. When you think of intimacy, everything except for sexual intimacy.

any disclaimers before we kind of jump into these set of principles. Welcome to the Dial-In Ministries podcast. I'm Johnny Artavanis. I'm sitting here with Brandon Wolfe, who I've known since I was 13, 13 years old. What was I like as a 13-year-old?

Johnny was difficult as a 13-year-old. You called me a meatball. Did I?

Yeah, it was rude. Were you? I was.

I was. We can put some pictures in the show notes. We're talking about dating.

And in our previous episode, we talked about who to date. We primarily looked at kind of just different elements of character and chemistry. Do they love the Lord? Are they a hard worker?

Are they teachable? We talked about, is there a level of fun? Do you enjoy them?

Is there attraction? It shouldn't all be about physical beauty, but you should be drawn to them to some degree. I think it's worth a PSA. which stands for public service announcement.

Yep, sorry. You do not need to know all those things before. Yeah, before you go out, spend time with, go on a date. Before you go on a date.

That's why you date. I think there's a spectrum of even the things that you've told me while I was dating different individuals that range from dude with Katie, you said, lock it in. I did, I remember that.

Lock it in. And then you've told me on the flip side, don't be a weirdo. So. There's a big range here, you know, time to get married and stop being a weirdo. What we want to talk about in this episode is how to date.

If we talked about who to date in our previous episode, we want to talk about how to do that. What does that even look like? And I think we're probably primarily talking to a young adult audience. Probably not talking to a 14 year old here, talking to someone college, post-college, young adult in their thirties.

And it's probably worth clarifying that we're not going to provide definitive steps because As we mentioned in the scripture, it's not like there is a methodology for dating. There's two primary relationships, a brother and sister in Christ and a husband and wife. And we'll talk about that and how not to be weird about that.

But there's no passage in the Bible that says Lazarus takes Zipporah or Rachel to Applebee's. Do you remember the appetizer sampler? Yeah.

Oh, I do. So there's no passage like that. And so what we're not going to provide is steps like follow her on Instagram. like her photo, comment, what would be, what's after that?

I don't know. Like the heart, the direct message maybe. I really like what you posted.

I really like what you posted. Then the text. We're not going to necessarily do the steps, but I think we can kind of get to that. But more of the principles that should be in play as you go about the dating process. Anything that maybe we should be thinking of or...

Any disclaimers before we kind of jump into these set of principles? Yeah, I'd probably give two disclaimers. One is, and it's a review just from last time, but it's not perfection, right? So you said these aren't the things we have to know about the person before we date. I also would say, hey, as you're going through it, you're learning these things about someone.

They're not in their final state, right? Just like you're not in your final state. I'd say the second thing is, and this is probably more just personal for both of us here. This isn't because we did it perfect.

Right. Like this is for yourself. Yeah. Well, learning through the process of, uh, and I can speak for myself a lot of mistakes along the way.

Yeah. Um, learning from those and kind of looking back on, maybe I never had conversation with people. Yeah.

And so this is helpful because you're kind of having that conversation and to just learning through mistakes that you made or learning through some things that you did really well that you're going, Hey, this worked out for me. Um, but like you said, it's not a perfect, Hey, here's your step-by-step. And this isn't an exhaustive list. So people might, you know, you can write in the comments, what about this? And that may be a future episode.

This is not a 90 minute episode, you know? Yeah. So, okay.

Some, some principles. The first, which I would say, you just want to go about the dating process. How to date number one, prayerfully.

I. This may be obvious, but it says in James 1.5, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives generously and lavishly. When we talk about dating and we talked and defined it, at least in detail, it should be goal oriented towards the purpose of marriage. And if it's objective is that you would be able to determine whether or not this person could be a spouse for you, then you need to go about that process with a level of dependency upon the Lord. I mean, maybe just talk for a moment about.

Why that may be sound cliche, but super necessary when you're evaluating what will be the most important decision you make in life. Yeah, I think you hit on the head. Most important decision you'll make in your life. So prayerfully thinking through the kind of vein or the prism, if you will, of God, his word, where do you get wisdom? You find it in God's word.

It's great to have people around you. We talked about that last time that are speaking into your life, but the ultimate source of wisdom is going to come from the Lord. I would also say this. you're not walking into day one of, let's say the first date going, is this a person I'm marrying? Like it's going to take some time.

You're going to have those conversations, right? Yeah. You think about like people in scripture that are looking for wisdom more often than not.

The normalcy is not that God immediately speaks to them, gives them the answer they want. Sometimes it's time after time and you seek after the Lord and he reveals things, you know, through his word and through other people over a course of time. Yeah.

So the prayer might be Lord, help me to have a good time. rather than like, hey, we're going to Sonic. Lord, let me know if this is the one, which we can talk about more in detail.

But I think even that element of we pursue the Lord holistically, meaning like if you're wanting wisdom in a particular area of your life, i.e. a relationship, you need to pursue him wholeheartedly. Just Lord, help me to be more like you. And when you're walking with the Lord and you're saturated in his word, your thinking is going to be governed. and submitted to the spirit of God, which is going to affect everything about the evaluation process of this relationship.

Okay. So that would be the first one is prayerfully. And you tethered that, I think appropriately to being in God's word, because we pray the scripture. Yeah.

The second and third principles, I think we have to conjoin. So the second would be clearly, and then the third we'll talk about in a minute, which would be normally, which I like. Yeah. But let's just talk from a clarity perspective. A lot of people.

um, are unsure about how to go about this process, right? Should I ask them to hang out? Should I ask them to, uh, chill, you know, or, but I think under this banner of clarity, we should put a level of intentionality and initiative. And obviously I think we're talking to both men and women here, but let's just talk to the guys for a moment about clarity.

Cause No one wants to be along for a journey. They don't know where they're going necessarily. But then on the flip side, you have this paranoia of always trying to define the relationship, which is where we'll get to when we talk about normality.

Yeah. I was telling you before, like I've had too many conversations with girls who are looking back going, Hey, this guy's like hung out with me five, six times and I have no idea where we're at. And at some point the guy, you said, let's talk to the guy.

He got me a bedazzled monogram purse. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to go, Hey.

I have some intentionality behind this. Maybe that's not the first time you've ever talked to them. I've heard those stories as well, where it's like I saw her across the room and knew I'm going to marry her. I would probably warn that's a little crazy.

But the Lord moves in mysterious ways sometimes. Yeah, it's a Boaz moment. Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah. But yeah, I would say, hey, clarity is, I'm interested in you. I want to spend some time with you and kind of see where it goes. And after you've spent some time together, whether it's in, hey, we're in a group.

Our friends are friends. You can be in a group and have some intentionality one-on-one with someone without it being weird. And then realize, hey, maybe there's a little, for lack of a better word, some chemistry. Now I want to take that person out or spend some time with them doing something different.

You know, without 25 people. Or without, hey, it's a Sunday morning, can I sit next to you in church? We can have a little more intentionality and be able to have that discussion. Yeah, I think like there's a level of balance here. I think with...

the level of intentionality. No one wants to, you know, be unsure and, you know, forever about where something is going, but it's, I would say appropriate to say, Hey, I'd love to get to know you going bowling with a group of friends. And if someone doesn't know immediately what that means, I would say there's a level of that's fine.

Right. That's fine. You can get to know someone in a group setting and be like, Hey, we're a group of us are going and get to spend some time with them.

And if you find out they're an absolute dud. You know, like you don't have to ask them on a date. Now, even that word date, sometimes I think in our culture, people have gone like, no, we, we like the, the, uh, the presented formality of intentionality when, when you do, you want to go on a date.

Right. I would argue, yeah, that might be great. And at some point you might need to get there, but it doesn't necessarily have to start there.

You don't have to go like, I want to take you to Olive Garden, soup, salad, and breadsticks on a date. Will you go? Because I want to get to know you for the purpose of marriage. I don't think you have to start there.

No, I would actually say, I hope you don't, right? I can reminisce a little and say, there were some moments with you while you grew up that was like, we've hung out in study groups. The only purpose.

Should I tell her? exactly how I feel. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe you get coffee before.

Yeah. And you were big on that. Coffee is different than dinner. I still don't think it's a big difference. But yeah, but I think it's a little, it's a little less threatening for people to say, hey, we're hanging out and this could end in 15 minutes, as opposed to we're stuck with a waiter and people all around us watching what we're doing.

And it's one on one. But either way, I'd say, yeah, absolutely. Like, so it could start in a friend environment.

You could ask him to do something, but there should be a certain threshold that you cross where it's like, hey, I want to spend some more time with you. Yeah. Love to do that in my own life. I think with Katie, I asked her to go paddle boarding, right?

Very romantic. But that was just like, Hey, let's go do something fun. Yeah. Let's go paddle boarding. We talked.

Um, and we did that a couple of times because we were working at a camp and I said, let's, let's get out of here. I don't know what you did with your wife, but it was like, it's not like I was going to a sit down dinner, um, right off the bat. I wanted to see first, can, do I enjoy her? Is she fun?

Do we have a good time? And she's probably doing the same thing going, do I enjoy him? Are we having fun? Can we get along in a non-threatening, like pressure environment?

And that's, you know, you learn a lot about someone through that. And initially I'm not obsessed with defining the relationship. So we talked about like, hey, what is dating? You were joking earlier about like the difference between someone saying we're going on dates and we're dating. I don't know where the difference is, but it's probably somewhere along the lines when someone just, I told Katie at some point, you're my girlfriend.

Right. I didn't ask her. It's not like this like intermediate step where in between. going on dates and her becoming my wife, I ask her to be my girlfriend.

I just, I don't know. I just told her what it was after a little while. Yeah. And then she jokes because I, she said, uh, after that, I said, you never responded. Well, she said, well, you didn't ask me a question.

I guess you're right. You're my girlfriend. That's on it. But I think there's probably a good balance where you're not overly obsessed with defining the relationship right off the bat, your girlfriend or whatever it is, doesn't belong to you. Yeah.

It's not exclusive in the same way a marriage relationship is at all. Right. So.

even maybe just talk for a moment about providing clarity without, you know, becoming overly rigid where it's like, she's mine. Right. Yeah.

Because I think people overdo that. Well, and I think you hit the thing where you say there's ditches, the ditches, like she's mine, the other dishes, we've been out 15 times and I don't know, I'm seeing like four other people at the same time. Yeah. So you want to live in that middle ground.

That's probably not black and white all the time, but intentionality is the key word we keep using. I'd say there's some intentionality when you have those conversations. If you're a guy, at some point in time, you've gone out with a girl six, seven, eight times, and you're not willing to step up and say, hey, here's how I feel. I'd love to continue to get to know you.

Yeah, then I would say you're probably the problem. And it's not when you say, here's how I feel. It's not that you're saying, I see this progressing towards marriage.

And even that level of clarity, Katie and I hardly ever talked about marriage before I proposed. We never said... much about it.

I mean, it was obvious that I wasn't wasting her time, but it's not like we were ending every day going like, how do you think about this in marriage? And in 30 years, when our kids are graduated from high school. So sometimes people want clarity and what they're wanting is every single answer for what life will look like.

And if we did proceed in marriage. So I think that's, you've mentioned ditches on both sides. So this leads us to the third one regarding normally, you know, like if we're going prayerfully, uh, With clarity, now there's normally. Can I just say, I think this is probably one of the biggest ones practically.

For Christians. Especially for Christians in an environment where if you grew up, and I'd call it, a conservative church and conservative environment, a Christian environment, a lot of awesome things, but probably we've skewed towards the abnormal. Being a weirdo.

Yeah, you just are weird. Guys tend to be weird, and I'm not. Girls can be weird as well, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to the whole dating thing.

Nice to meet you. How many kids do you want? Yeah, yes, absolutely.

Do you want to be my partner in ministry? Yeah. So I think regarding that normality, like let's just help a guy out here, right? So Brandon, there's a girl I really think is cool.

She is in this same group. I seen her at church. We don't actually have that, a common friend group.

So I have to take some sort of a jump. Um, how do I do that in a way that's intentional, clear, but normal? Yeah, I mean, I would say it starts probably with you expressing some type of desire to say, hey, can we hang out?

And whatever that might be for you is let's paddleboard. It might be let's get coffee. It might be, hey, we're in a group that spends time together and you can have a little bit of that one on one interaction with that person.

They get a feel for you. You get a feel for them before you take the next step says, hey, I'd like to spend a little time with you like one on one. Yeah. And some type of environment that's not like this to kind of get to know you a little bit.

And sometimes I guess, candidly, even with me and Katie, Katie and I, sorry. Get it right. Yeah. There was a point where I had to be super intentional because we weren't crossing, we weren't rubbing shoulders in our day to day life.

Like at the end of camp, I had been with her for three weeks. She was going down four and a half hours away from me. I had the, hey, I'd love to continue to get to know you long distance. Right.

Right. So I want to drive down every weekend to see you and take you on dates and be with your family and stuff like that. Like there was a certain point where. some people might be asking like, well, it's not like we're in the same setting.

So I have to go like make a move and you might have to make a move. So that's why your circumstances might determine your course of action. So you can be intentional and you can say, Hey, and you should at times, I'd love to take you out and I'd love to get to know you because you're not going to rub shoulders with them.

So good on you. But you can do that in a way where even in the course of that initial dinner, where it's obviously intentional, you're being normal without wasting your time or their time as well. So there's, those are the ditches.

For sure. Okay. Fourth is I put purely in first Timothy five, two, Paul tells Timothy to treat older women as you would your mother and to treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.

Now you could get, um, weird because I'm not holding my sister's hand, right. And dating relationship. And I'm probably not gonna say holding your girlfriend's hand is sin, but I think you should be wise, right? Obviously with, uh, the physical element of dating, but A lot of people ask the question, how far is too far in a dating relationship?

They're obviously asking the wrong question because according to the scripture, we're to operate with all wisdom and all purity. And so I think people fail to recognize that even if the point of dating is an evaluation process where you determine whether or not an individual should be your spouse, crossing boundaries physically distorts and sabotages your ability to think rationally and biblically. And- wisely about the individual you're dating. So let's just talk from a purity perspective. Maybe just elaborate on someone's asking you a question.

What type of physical boundaries should I set up in this relationship? Yeah, I think there's a lot of practical application here that you'd probably work kind of work through. And it's how much time are you spending alone?

Right. That you want to avoid temptation. I think just like Joseph, right? Like he ran from temptation to get away from him.

Right. How can you avoid temptation? That is natural. Can we say that?

Like it is natural to be tempted to be physical. And I'd say one of the things we've probably done a poor job in the church is we've probably encouraged aspects of a relationship. When you think of intimacy, everything except for sexual intimacy, right? Like you can't have sex before you're married, but gosh, you need to be, and I know we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but you need to be the mature believer, lead them, ask deep spiritual questions, pray together, all these things we've encouraged.

And the closer you get in those areas, the more temptation there is to act like you're married, which is to have sex with the other person. Yeah, because emotional intimacy leads to this physical intimacy. And you start already thinking, I'm the spiritual leader of my girlfriend, which you're not.

You're not. Yeah. So I would say, hey, some of that is like, you start thinking about how am I going to treat this person today, whether it's physical or emotional, so that if I'm not prepared to be married today, I'm not going to act like I am in either facet.

Right. Yeah. And I think that's probably a key for people to think.

It's not just how do I set up some physical boundaries, but how do I set up boundaries in general in my relationship? How we're going to operate, what we're going to talk about. What we're going to say. Yeah, all those types of things.

Yeah. So obviously asking the question, how far is too far is the wrong question. You want to ask the question, if you're walking with the Lord, how holy can I be and how much can I preserve this individual? If you don't end up marrying them, they're going to end up being married to someone else. And so you obviously want to walk with a level of discretion.

And... accountability there. Yeah. And someone might say, well, won't that create tension, you know, in the relationship?

Well, yeah, maybe good. You know, like that's why people date, you know, when you look at someone that's in their mid late twenties, been dating for eight years, you don't have to make too many guesses on whether or not they're crossing physical boundaries, right? 99.9% of the time.

And so that kind of leads us, we were talking physical boundaries, but it is closely conjoined to, I would say emotional boundaries. So that fifth word I have is guardedly wish. I had to make sure it was a word. Yeah, you got it. You're a preacher.

So you gotta have the L-Y in there for all of them. Harry, be proud of me. Emotional boundaries. You know, I think, let's go back to, you mentioned, you know, in the church, we kind of get this skewed.

This is actually one that I'm almost just as kind of adamant about. You know, you got a 20-something-year-old guy leading his girlfriend in a Bible study, just him and her in the, you know, in the car at 9 to 11 p.m. every night.

They're reading and praying together. I would never recommend that. Yeah. I never tell a guy, you know, in the previous episode, we asked about teachability. You can discern if a woman is teachable.

You're obviously going to have conversations, you know. you're going to see if she could follow your lead to a degree. You want to be able to ascertain that you don't want to marry someone that's belligerent and hardheaded and obstinate, but you're a boyfriend is not the spiritual leader of their girlfriend. Right. And I think these long prayer sessions of we're being really godly, um, are actually dangerous.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would, I would discourage it quite frankly.

Right. I mean, I think we go back to the teachability idea. You can discern someone's teachable.

without you having to be the teacher. I can watch how you interact with older men. I can watch how my wife at the time when we were dating interacted with the church or her family or her father.

Yeah, all those types of things. So it's not my job to take on the spiritual mentorship or leadership of the girl that I'm hanging out with, whether it's I'm further along and I'm dating. Until you're married, like you're not married. You're not married. Yeah, so this idea, like I've talked to guys who are like, you know, I was...

We, you know, you mentioned we started kissing and I said, what were you doing before? Well, we were worshiping in our bedroom. You know, I was playing guitar and you're like, well, you're, you're dumb. You know, like you don't do that. You know, that's why we operate.

I think leading us to maybe just this next word is familially or communally. Yeah. Uh, you mentioned this in like a circle of friends that obviously how much you asked the question, how much time are we spending alone? I think I grew up in a way.

where because there was so much pressure on dating, right? Like you had to be at a certain point with an individual to introduce them to your people. You know, like I think my parents met two girls I ever dated, right? Because it was going to be a big stinking deal.

You better believe it. To introduce them to Scott and Patty. You know, like it was the George Foreman grill at that point.

And I think that honestly allows you to, you know. You may end up in a relationship too long because you don't have other people speaking into it until you get to a certain point. And you're like, well, I love this person and now I'm going to introduce them. Right.

And it's almost like, hey, you know, we've crossed the finish line. But by the way, tell me if I should give up right now, even though I'm about to. I'm already emotionally bonded. And that makes it that much harder.

And I've been in that situation with friends who have held out for a long time. Yeah. And then finally, when they think, hey, this could be the one.

And I'm so tied in years. down the road now I'll introduce them to you and we all meet them and go oh gosh they're terrible what do you mean they're terrible and all of a sudden the friction's there and it's hard yeah I think you know what that does is you know I say it often like you're blind your own blind spots too you know like so people are going to be able to point out different things if I brought a girl around you and Kate when I was dating them you're going to ask questions that I don't ask Right. Kate's going to ask questions of an individual of a girl that I don't ask.

And so I think that's, you know, I put familially, like it could be in the context of your own family, right? Like your parents, your sisters, they know you better than maybe anyone else in the world. And you may be saying, well, not my family. They don't know the Lord or they're this.

That's why I said communally is another element where you live your life amongst the body of Christ. Because when you go to make the biggest decision of your life, as in who you marry, you want older godly men and women speaking into that. And when I say communally here, I don't just mean someone's buddies. Right.

So maybe just even talk about that for a moment of like how sometimes people are evaluating their dating relationships with other people that are in the same stage of life with them. Like how does how do the questions of a married individual differ from someone that's just looking at it from like she's cool. Right.

I think you just have history. Right. So you've gone through kind of the ups and downs of marriage, whether it's maybe it's kids.

And you're like, how do I. How am I going to respond to some difficulties and to some high moments? Right.

I mean, if I'm an excited person and my wife is never excited and I just had the greatest day of my life and I walk home and I go, Hey, this was great. And she goes, awesome. Then all of a sudden, are you speaking from experience? Yeah. Flip the roles a little bit.

Yeah. That's what Caitlin would probably say to everybody else. But, but I mean, there's part of that where you're like, Hey, I've been through some things that you haven't been through. Right. Um, just practical wisdom.

of how do you deal with these things? Hey, you want to have kids? Here's some questions. Have you thought about it?

I remember one of my good friends dated a girl and we, a couple of us had been married for several years and she walked in the door and wanted to tell us how to like raise our kids. As a non-mom. Non-mom, like very young. They just started dating and immediately we were kind of like, what is going on here?

Not that you can't know something if you're not having gone through it, right? Wisdom comes from the Lord. We get it. But you just kind of work through those types of things. And now you're married looking back on, hey, here's some things I'd look for if I was you.

Yeah. Right? And they're not every one of those details. Doesn't think they're God's gift to everything.

Yeah. Doesn't think they have the answer. Yeah.

Yep. Okay, seventh and finally, and this is, I think there's a relativity to this, but I just put permissively in the sense that, you know, at what point would you make your intentions known to a father? You got four boys, which may be different than me with three girls.

I can tell you this. At 19, if a guy's dating Lily, I'm definitely involved. Yeah, a little bit. I'll probably be involved.

It doesn't mean a guy. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't mean that the guy's coming to me and saying. Um, I'd like to, you know, take your daughter to Chili's, you know, but I think that there should at least be a clarity between the individual, you know, and me of going, Hey, what are you, what's the plan here?

I think with Katie's dad, I said, Hey, I just want to let you know, I'm get, I want to get to know Katie and she's awesome. Love getting to know that if you ever have any questions for me. Yeah. He was great.

And some dads are on different, you know, take my daughter out and have her home by three. Right. And other guys are like, very intense.

Yeah, very intense. I think it's going to vary, right? I mean, some families.

And age-wise, where you're at. Right. If you're 18, that's a lot different than your 29-year-old woman and you're going out with a guy.

Yeah, and you've been living on your own for the last nine years and going, hey, do you want to call my dad? He's 2,000 miles away. Yeah. You know. And that may be necessary, but.

Sure. And that's why I'd say every family is a little bit different. You want to respect the family while also, you know, understanding kind of just the nature of the relationship that you're walking into.

Knowing the family, I would always say is a great thing. But there's people out there you're going to date that go, I have nothing to do with my parents or family. That wouldn't create an awkwardness for them. So you're going, I'm going to feel out every situation.

There's not one right answer and this is exactly how it is. Yeah, unless you're 2,000 miles away from your parents and you're a 29-year-old, 31-year-old woman and a guy wants to take you out. There may be an element where if I'm a dad 2,000 miles away and my daughter's 2,000 miles away and I go, well, what other guy knows him?

Yeah. I would say. you know, bring it goes back to our previous point, bring them around someone, you know, and trust from the church. I want at least that guy to be like, Hey, getting to know Julie. Right.

And, um, so I think there's a level of, it may not be permission, but where other people may need to be involved, may need to clarify that depends on your age and stage of life. Um, first time I went to go visit Caitlin's family, I, we were, we were just friends. If I could give a quote or I, you know, And I think her dad looked at her mom and was like, hey, that guy really likes her.

And her mom was like, nah, I don't know. And in that instance, he was right. Right? And it was a process of kind of hanging out, spending time together. My parents are 2,000 miles away.

Hers were much closer. So we got to meet her parents and spend time with them a lot more than mine at that time. And you just, you have somebody with a little wisdom that looks at this and goes, I kind of see what's going on, even if they don't realize it yet. So it's always a great thing. Yeah.

So let's maybe land the plane here. And I think this may be further conversation, but how do I know? Right. Yesterday I was sitting down with a young adult in my office and he was asking me about Katie and he said, so how'd you know she was the one? Yeah.

And I was like, classic, amazing. And I said what I said last time, Hey, she's the one because I married her. I didn't marry her because she's the one. But I think there is an element where you go, you have to make a decision at some point.

You know, people say fall in love. It's not an involuntary response to something that takes over you. Right. I remember I was in. Nepal and I couldn't talk to Katie for two weeks.

I missed her. And I went, hey, fundamentally, she loves the Lord. We have a great time.

I'm able to get married financially. The people in my life like her and love her. There's some unknown about our future, right?

But I bought a ring on my phone, shipped it to her parents' house, got home the next day, asked her dad at four in the morning. Can I marry Katie? And I think I proposed that evening.

There you go. You know, so you make a decision. But as far as maybe just talk about the overthinking, because I remember talking about this with you.

Like you can, you know. You can run every scenario. And at some point in time, you can find out reasons for and against. I mean, I think I almost had the opposite.

Meaning I was into Caitlin. She was not ready to like take that next serious step. I went away for the summer. We couldn't talk because I worked at a camp. And she decided, I really miss this guy.

He was a huge part of my life. Yes, very obviously. I kind of started chatting with another girl. And that really was something that kind of sparked in her like, yes, well, I mean, you know, we weren't exclusive.

We weren't dating. Nothing was happening. And that's when it kind of went.

She decided, oh, wait, this feeling I have or this desire I have for a relationship is real. And that kind of was what. Did you say feeling?

I did say feeling. I think it's great to have a feeling. So then we talked about it and it was like, oh, yeah, well, that's kind of what.

was confirmed in our mind, if you will, in our heart, because there was a decision. All right, let's take the next step and see where this thing goes together. And you ask people in your life.

I remember I called my people. Yeah. Hey, I'm thinking I'm going to propose to Katie.

And I remember my sisters. This is a big one. I remember my sisters. I got five sisters. You know that?

Yep. My sisters came up to me and said, if you don't marry Katie, we'll kill you. There you go. That's a pretty clear sign, right?

When you're the people in your life that love you and know you, It's not just that they approve and okay, they said, Johnny, if you don't marry Katie, we'll kill you. Which I think is helpful, you know, right? When I love my sisters, they're great.

And so you have an element of that. I think regarding this like commitment to like, you don't have to know if they're the one within three months, right? Which again, we don't believe in the one. If you're a girl asking a guy to commit to you and you've been dating for three months, you need to relax. It's always a good thing.

Relax. If you're dating a guy that you've been dating for three years and he won't commit to you, you need to dump him. Yeah.

Right. And if you've been dating someone for three years and you're in a perpetual state of unknown and uncertain, lack of certainty, I would just say a perpetual lack of certainty is certainty. If you don't know forever, then you know, right?

Or you may have an issue, obviously, that you need to work out. So anything else we've missed? I don't think so. I think, you know. I'd go back to, we'll see what happens in all the questions that you get after this, but, uh, be normal.

I mean, in one sense, like dating, someone's supposed to be fun. So when you overthink those types of things, you're just asking, or if you're walking in day one, trying to figure it all out, like at some point, I know some of us are more analytical than others. You being one, like you don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to have every question, you know, you need to ask like on a piece of paper or in your phone on day one, like, at some point, like you want a natural relationship like you would with anyone, right? I would, well, I guess one thing to ask or one thing to add that we didn't add under intentionality is that's reciprocated. Yeah.

Right. So if I'm a guy dating a girl that never asked anybody questions, that's one of the first things I ask a guy is, does she seem others minded? Yeah.

Does she ask you questions? Does she ask the other people that you're around questions? Because if you're dating someone that you're constantly, you know, that's not someone I would want to spend my life with. Right. So that intentionality is reciprocated.

You want to know that a guy can lead. There's a level of obviously that's biblical. He should be a leader. You should be able to determine that to some degree.

Right. But that doesn't mean girls should get dragged. And I think it's fine to be able to like, yeah, I'd also like to get to know.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. All right, sweet.

Well, thanks, Brandon. Thank you.

Transcript for:Guidelines for Christian Dating Success

Transcript for:
Guidelines for Christian Dating Success