The sad state of most marriages, nearly half ending in divorce, most others in a tedious state of non-aggression, but hardly any truly happy, concerns me.  I do not claim to have all the answers, nor even most of the answers, but I have learned a few lessons in my 18 years of marriage to one of the strongest willed ladies I have ever met.  In truth, I am sure she would say I am the strong willed one.  Don’t get me wrong, Laurie and I love each other dearly, but that didn’t make our marriage happy or workable in the early days.  Bringing baggage into a marriage, having to be right, and suffering from low self-esteem are not recipe’s for success in anyone’s marriage book.  What are the key principles to apply and what are the principles to avoid in building a happy marriage?  This was the question that led Laurie and me on a lifetime quest to improve our own marriage, and subsequently, hopefully, any marriage in our community.   As God led us to faith in His Son, we started asking questions on what our Biblical roles were as a husband and a wife.

How can two people who love each other enough to publicly profess it in a marriage ceremony end up months, if not weeks after, in a crazy cycle of turmoil and despair?  Who is the leader in a marriage?  What does the leader do?  Is it true that anything with two heads is a freak?  I teach men that they are responsible for the results, good or bad, in their household.  This doesn’t mean they they should be a dictator, in fact, it means nearly the opposite since a leader is defined as a servant.  Yes, I am the leader of my family, but that just means that I am the first to sacrifice when sacrifice is needed, that I am the first to accept responsibility when things go wrong, and that I must develop a plan to rescue my family if they need rescuing. Leaders cannot pass the buck and men have been given the responsibility to lead their families whether that assignment is easy or not.  Just as there cannot be two starting quarterbacks with only one football, there cannot be two heads on one family team.  Until this is settled, no proverbial touchdowns will be scored by your family.

Let me give you a few examples from the Woodward marriage. First, Laurie and I both wanted to make the final decisions in our house on nearly every issue.  This led to numerous disagreements, arguments, and perpetual unhappiness. The situation continued for years until I finally understood what Stephen Covey meant when he stated, “Big rocks first,” wrapped in with the Biblical concept of dying to self.  Mr. Covey taught the futility of majoring on minors with a beautiful analogy of a jar being filled with big rocks, small rocks, sand, and water.  The placement of the small rocks, the sand, or the water in prior, will not allow enough room to squeeze all the big rocks into the jar.  This example captures the essential point that big rocks are the majors and leaders must focus on the majors.  Laurie and I spent so much time arguing over small rocks, sand, and sadly, even water, that we had no energy or focus left for the big rocks.  My big breakthrough here was to surrender my desire to be right on all the small rocks, sand and water, while maintaining leadership over the big rocks.

If the big rocks are placed in first, it’s much easier to get the smaller rocks, sand, and water into the jar around the big rocks.  Every marriage is unique, meaning the particulars may vary, but the principles will stay the same.  Instead of Laurie and I arguing over every decision, I willingly surrendered 90% of the issues as “not majors,” while retaining the 10% which are critical to the success of our family.  If you asked Laurie, she would tell you that at least 90% of the time we will do what she wants, as I trust Laurie’s judgment and it doesn’t meet the big rock criteria.  But when I need Laurie’s support on a big rock, I have it, because she understands that I have surrendered on the minors to have her support on the majors. I am amazed at how long it took me to understand that arguing over the 90% only hindered my ability to lead on the 10%.  Whoever said, “Happy wife means a happy life,” was preaching real truth!  Yes, that means I have watched my share of “chick flicks,” yes that means I eat at Mexican restaurants more times than not, but that’s hardly a sacrifice worth arguing about.  Serving one’s wife and ensuring her happiness is one of a husband’s greatest responsibilities.  You can tell a lot about a man’s leadership in the house from the countenance of his wife.

Another key point I would like to share with couples is the power of mentorship.  If the husband is serving on the 90%, then he needs the wife’s support on the 10%. If the couple’s mentors have developed a plan for their future, it makes sense to follow it.  One of the quickest ways for a man to fail is for him to stop mentoring with his leader and instead mentor with his wife.  Don’t misunderstand me; a man should always seek input from his wife on all major decisions, listening to her thoughts and sharing his thoughts.  But after listening and understanding he must make a decision and that decision must be supported 100%.  If the wife starts giving cross-counsel that is different than the mentor’s, the man is placed in a moral quandary.  On one hand, he loves his wife and wants to please her, but on the other hand, he respects his mentor and the results he has achieved.  When a man is cross-counseled, he hits analysis paralysis.  Being unsure of counsel makes him tentative in his actions.  This is one of the reasons that Laurie and I have learned to mentor the couple together and not individually.  Gathering all the facts, hearing all sides of the truth, and addressing issues with all parties present, are just a few of the advantages of mentoring together.

I have learned over the years that when a man is placed between his mentor and his wife, he will eventually succumb to his wife’s thinking, often to the detriment of his calling.  Why is that?  The simple answer is that the man spends much more time with his wife than he does his mentor and his wife offers services to him his mentor is unwilling to provide. 🙂 Serving your wife and seeking first to understand is not the same as mentoring with her.  When you have successful entrepreneurs willing to mentor your husband, why would you choose to interrupt that mentoring by cross-counseling?  Everyone is free to do what he believes is best for his family, but Laurie and I decided early that I would listen and learn all I can from her while mentoring with the top leaders in the areas in which I needed counsel.  By getting on the same page, husbands and wives stop arm wrestling each other, stop claiming pyrrhic victories over each other, and fulfill the purpose for which they were created, together.

Getting on the same page, working together to pursue your dreams, and serving one another unconditionally are keys on your journey to success.  Call a family meeting weekly, developing a “safe zone” to talk over any issues that may be hindering your family from the accomplishment of its dreams.  Do not attack one another, but listen carefully, asking yourselves how you can each improve to serve the other better.  The real TEAM begins at home and expands outward from that solid foundation into the communities.  Get it together, together and your Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, Friends, Freedom, Fun, and Following will all improve.  One final thought: the Bible states that love covers a multitude of sins.  Since all of us need love and forgiveness, let’s start in our homes.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Where would we be without a special group of self-sacrificial leaders known as mothers?  I am so thankful to have been blessed with a mother who taught me:

1. The difference between right and wrong.

2. The courage to speak the truth.

3. The value of work ethic.

4. The peace that comes from doing your personal best.

5. Charity for those less fortunate.

6. Respect for a job well done.

7. Quitting was never an option when the cause is just.

8. The need for personal responsibility.

9. Never to play the role of a victim.

10. To dream big dreams.

Thank you Mom for teaching me these things and much more.  Thank you for being an example for me to know what I wanted in a wife.  I have been doubly blessed to have found and married Laurie Woodward.  Jordan, Christina, Lance and Jeremy thank you for being a beautiful mom for them.  On this mother’s day, make sure you thank your mom for carrying you for 9 months and serving you when you were helpless to serve yourself.  In today’s age this should never be taken for granted.  Happy Mothers day to all of the moms out there who willingly surrender their time, money and self to raise their children.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYB9SZvqLcw]

I feel strongly that a classical education undergirded with Christian principles will be a major plank in the restoration of our countries.  I feel I have learned so much more after I finished formal training than I did in school.  I am not knocking my education more than I am conveying an urgent need to be a generalist and a specialist.   We will all specialize in our certain areas, but we must be educated generally to be part of what Mortimer Adler called the Great Conversation.  I believe the reason we see people so divided today is because they have no way of communicating across their specialties.  Reading the classics will give us the common ground to communicate about the great ideals from our past to take with us into our futures.  I have attached a portion of an article that describes the value of a classical education.  When I read this, I thought of this community and how we are enjoying reading and thinking together.  Our goal is to help each other think, not to force people to think like us.  If we all are thinking and communicating respectfully, we will all gain knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.   Here is the thought provoking article:

Overview of Classical Education

Those who assume that methods used for millennia can be dismissed within a generation forget that time is the best laboratory, especially regarding human behavior.

It has taken modern educators only 50 years to disassemble an educational system that took thousands of years to refine and establish. The classical method was born in ancient Greece and Rome, and by the 16th century, it was used throughout the Western world. This system educated most of America’s founding fathers as well as the world’s philosophers, scientists and leaders between the 10th and 19th centuries. What other period can claim so many advances in science, philosophy, art, and literature?

Why Classical Education?

For education to be effective, it must go beyond conveying fact. Truly effective education cultivates thinking and articulate students who are able to develop facts into arguments and convey those arguments clearly and persuasively. Parents from Seattle to Orlando are recognizing that classical education adds the dimension and breadth needed to develop students’ minds. Rigorous academic standards, a dedication to order and discipline, and a focus on key, “lost” subjects is fueling the rapid growth of the nation’s classical schools.

There is no greater task for education than to teach students how to learn. The influence of “progressive” teaching methods and the oversimplification of textbooks make it difficult for students to acquire the mental discipline that traditional instruction methods once cultivated. The classical method develops independent learning skills on the foundation of language, logic, and tangible fact. The classical difference is clear when students are taken beyond conventionally taught subjects and asked to apply their knowledge through logic and clear expression.

In 1947, Dorothy Sayers, a pioneer in the return to classical education, observed, “although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think.” Beyond subject matter, classical education develops those skills that are essential in higher education and throughout life – independent scholarship, critical thinking, logical analysis, and a love for learning.

We hope you agree that this movement “back to and beyond” classical education develops timeless skills that are as important in today’s rapidly changing world as they were to our founding fathers.

A Love For Learning

Occasionally, parents who are interested in classical education express concern that it will be too difficult or too demanding for their children. Disciplining and challenging students is certainly part of the classical method. However, we believe that education is inherently enjoyable for children. The classical method is based on the philosophy that students should be encouraged to do what they naturally enjoy during particular phases of their life.

In Dorothy Sayers’ essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” she promotes teaching in ways which complement children’s natural behavior. For example, young children in grammar school are very adept at memorizing. They enjoy repeating songs, rhymes, and chants to the extent that they often make up their own. In classical education, the “Grammar” phase corresponds with this tendency by focusing on the teaching of facts. During the junior high years, children often become prone to question and argue. Classical education leverages this tendency by teaching students how to argue well based on the facts they have learned. We call this the “Logic” phase. During the high school years, students’ interests shift from internal concerns to the external. Teenagers become concerned with how others perceive them. This stage fits well into the “Rhetoric” phase of classical education, where students are taught to convey their thoughts so that they are well received and understood by others. The education culminates with the debate and defense of a senior thesis.

The classical method not only “cuts with the grain,” but it develops a true sense of accomplishment in students. Many educators are artificially positive and soften grading scales in an effort to bolster their students’ self-esteem. We believe that a sense of self-worth comes from accomplishment. The student who excels after working hard achieves a greater sense of accomplishment than one who is given the grade. By holding students to an objective standard, they gain a true understanding of their abilities. Where self-esteem offers an artificial appreciation, classical education provides a realistic and true estimation of a child’s ability. Students who work hard to achieve a “C” based on accomplishment are more satisfied than a class of students who all receive “A”’s and “B”’s.

Finally, we believe that learning, hard work, and fun are not mutually exclusive. Learning should be a joyful endeavor – one that presents a challenge. A visit to Foundations Academy quickly demonstrates the delight of students who love to learn. Learning is exciting, especially for children. In our experience, children who transfer from a conventional classroom to a classical classroom usually develop an increased appreciation for education and for the pursuit of knowledge.

Francis Schaeffer is one of my favorite all time authors.  His books will make you think, stretch and grow.   I have read nearly every book Schaeffer has written.  I would highly recommend them to anyone wishing to learn about worldviews and how they affect a person’s actions.  I believe that before
we can change the world, we must understand it.  Francis Schaeffer’s books taught me to get involved and not just hide in a Christian environment.  We must be in the world, but not of the world if we plan on changing the world!  The following article is from a speech given in 1982 and is a great example of how he makes a person think.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Now, moving from public schools to private schools, what is the priority? Notice I am not saying Christian schools, but all private schools, including Christian schools.  If you are really going to do something here, you have to think larger than your own interest. What we must do in the private schools, including the Christian schools, is to stand against those who have done so much to ruin our public schools in not allowing them to get a hold on the private schools, and specifically, the Christian schools, through a control of the curriculum. What we should be doing is struggling to see that the Christian school’s curriculum is not controlled by those who have with their world view ruined the public schools.

This does not mean that the state does not have a legitimate interest in the safety of the pupils in such a thing as a firedoor. There are Christian schools that have said the state has no right even to tell them not to have a fire trap. That is not so. The state has a responsibility to say that a group of people meeting in a building like this we are meeting in have exit signs around the room, so that if there is a fire you will not all burn to death, and that is equally so for the kids in school. So the issue is not something like fire doors. The issue is that they must not begin to bring the same destructive teaching into the private schools by the back door of curriculum control that they have brought so dominantly into the public schools. We must not allow them to bring in through the back door a control of the curriculum and especially at the very point where the Bible’s content is denied and contaminated. Therefore, the protection of the Christian school curriculum is another one of the priorities, which Christians ought to be consciously and intelligently standing for.

However, let me say another side of this question of the Christian school and our protection of it. While we are saying that the Christian school is not to allow its curriculum to be corrupted, we must also say that the private school, and specifically the Christian school, should give a good education. 

We are to say we are going to control the curriculum. We are not going to let the state bring in the materialistic view as the final reality through the back door. But if we are going to say that with any validity the Christian schools must be giving a really good education. It should not just be a matter of not teaching what is wrong in a twisted education that rules out a Creator. Our Christian schools should not primarily be negative oriented. It is to be positive.

It is not just to be negative. It should be a superior education, if you are going to really protect the Christian school. It should certainly teach the students how to read and write and how to do mathematics better than most public schools enjoy today. It should do that but it should also appreciate and teach the full scope of human learning. Christian education is indeed knowing the Bible, of course it is, but Christian education should also deal with all human knowledge. We can think of what I said previously about the humanities. Christian education should deal with all human knowledge – presenting it in a framework of truth, rooted in the Creator’s existence, and in his creation. Real Christian education, if we are going to protect our Christian schools, is not just the negative side, it is positive, touching on all human knowledge; and in each case, according to the level of the students, showing how it fits into the total framework of truth, the truth of all reality as rooted in the Creator’s existence and in His creation. If the Judeo-Christian position is the truth of all reality, and-it is, then all the disciplines, and very much including a knowledge of, and I would repeat, an appreciation of, the humanities and the arts are a part of Christian education. Some Christians seem absolutely blind at this point.

If Christianity is not just one more religion, one more upper story kind of thing (as I speak of it in Escape From Reason and in my other books) then it has something to say about all the disciplines, and it certainly has something to say about the humanities and the arts and the appreciation of them. And I want to say quite firmly, if your Christian school does not do this, I do not believe it is giving a good education. It is giving a truncated education and it is not honoring to the Lord.

If truth is one, that is if truth has unity, then Christian education means understanding, and being excited by, the associations between the disciplines and showing how these associations are rooted in the Creator’s existence. I do not know if you know what you are hearing or not. It is a flaming fire. It is gorgeous if you understand what we have in the teaching and revelation of God. If we are going to have really a Christian education, it means understanding truth is not a series of isolated subjects but there are associations, and the associations are rooted in nothing less than the existence of the Creator Himself. 

True Christian education is not a negative thing; it is not a matter of isolating the student from the full scope of knowledge. Isolating the student from large sections of human knowledge is not the basis of a Christian education. Rather it is giving him or her the framework or total truth, rooted in the Creator’s existence and in the Bible’s teaching, so that in each step of the formal learning process the student will understand what is true and what is false and why it is true or false. It is not isolating students from human knowledge. It is teaching them in a framework of the total Biblical teaching, beginning with the tremendous central thing, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It is teaching in this framework, so that on their own level, as they are introduced to all of human knowledge, they are not introduced in the midst of a vacuum, but they are taught each step along the way why what they are hearing is either true or false. That is true education. The student, then, is an educated person. I just say in passing, John Harvard understood that when he founded Harvard University. It was founded with this whole thing in mind. The student, then if he is taught this way, is an educated person, who will have the tools to keep learning and enjoy learning throughout all of life. Is life dull? How can it be dull? No, a true education, a Christian education, is more than the negative, though that is there. It is giving the tools in the opening the doors to all human knowledge, in the Christian framework so they will know what is truth and what is untruth, so they can keep learning as long as they live, and they can enjoy, they can really enjoy, the whole wrestling through field after field of knowledge. That is what an educated person is.

In short, Christian education should produce students more educated in the totality of knowledge, culture and life, than non-Christian education rooted in a false view of truth. The Christian education should end with a better educated boy and girl and man and woman, than the false could ever produce. Protecting the Christian school must carry with it more than the negative; it should produce a superior education in all areas of.  Knowledge, and notice I am saying all areas of human knowledge.