Devotions For Dating Couples: Building a Foundation for Spiritual Intimacy »

Today, there is a great deal of emphasis on the mystical and intangible nature of relationships but very little emphasis on the real, practical steps involved in building an enduring love. In contrast, authors Ben Young and Sam Adams place great importance on the value of spiritual compatibility in Devotions for Dating Couples.

Designed especially for highly committed or engaged couples, it helps readers:

Each of the nine sections includes Scripture quotations, suggested meditation passages, and discussion questions, as well as anecdotes from real people including the authors. Intended as an eight-week study, weekday devotions are to be completed by both individuals, and each weekend study is to be completed together as a couple.

Publishers Weekly

Young, host of the syndicated radio show The Single Connection, and Adams, a clinical psychologist, present a nine-week course of daily devotionals for committed Christians involved in long-term relationships and aiming toward marriage. Weekly "disciplines" focusing on foundational spiritual themes-love, prayer, simplicity-are divided into daily mediations meant to be read in solitude. On Saturdays, suggest the authors (The Ten Commandments of Dating), couples should spend the day together and discuss their thoughts about the week's theme; Sundays they ought to attend church. The Monday-to-Friday anecdotes, which often use the prosaic to illustrate the profound (the shame of a messy dorm room, for instance, teaches the importance of "healthy self-talk"), can feel a bit judgmental and preachy. But each week's summary questions will help partners reconnect with their spiritual selves, and may even settle questions of compatibility. Successful relationships take work, the authors remind us. Their somewhat didactic approach, however, might turn off some readers, and the length and intensity of the course may mean that others lose steam partway through. (Oct.8) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.