I wrote a book and published it less than a year ago about relationships. You can get it for your Amazon kindle for $5. Once in a while I offer it for free. “Doing it Right” details some wise steps to follow in the engagement, wedding and honeymoon phases of our relationships.

Further, I tell my story and that of many of my friends. Some of them are really fun and others are really painful. They teach-I hope.

I tell the story of Martin Luther in the engagement section who was engaged and married on the same day. His story teaches. The lesson?- Keep them short, engagements that is. I often tell my students, “I believe in short engagements and long honeymoons.” Short engagements because God is not into seeing how much torture a person can put up with in denying their (God-given) sex drive. I believe in long honeymoons because God is setting a foundation for a whole lifetime together and it takes more than a couple of days to do that. Judy and I had over a month in ours.

In the wedding section, I talk about many different facets of a wedding. One thing I emphasize is the sweetness of relying on a traditional service and not writing ones own vows or worse yet trying to memorize something to recite. Let the preacher do the work with time tested vows from powerful church history documents like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. I have seen some very sub-standard vows which were written by the couple and not reviewed by the preacher prior to the actual service itself.

I also talk about wedding and reception expenses. Average wedding expense in the United States is 32,000 USD. I think that is too much. I offer some suggestions to cut the costs by a lot.

In the honeymoon section, I give extremely practical advice from several directions.  Several friends have felt that I was quite explicit with this advice. Actually, the book is much less explicit than most of the popular Christian marriage/honeymoon/sex books out there. I do give some advice that I have not seen emphasized by some other good Christian books on the topic. I talk about the time of day of the wedding and how that can really effect wedding night sex. This is especially important for sexually inexperienced couples. Nothing like being way too exhausted to really go for it sexually.

I also talk quite a bit about condom usage as many of the young people I have worked with recently use this as a contraceptive. There are some important condom facts that not everyone knows.

All in all, the book has received a positive review from a variety of people. I have been most interested (and encouraged) that the book has received rave reviews from young married women who wish someone would have said some of the things to them prior to their marriage that i address in the book.

Again, “Doing it Right” is the title and you can get it cheap on Amazon Kindle.