This episode is supported in part by the Christian Standard Bible, a translation designed to be faithful to the original text and clear for everyday readers. We're grateful for their partnership in helping bring gospel-centered content to families like yours. To learn more about the CSB, visit csbible.com. Yeah. You got 30 seconds.
I didn't prep you for this. You have no idea what I'm going to ask you. But a single girl comes up to you and says, I'm getting married. I want to have the best marriage ever. Tell me what I need to do in 30 seconds.
Go. I'd just say one thing. You need to be all right. You can't say what? Don't.
You're not allowed to say Jesus. No, I'm going to say that. You have to base it on the rock of Jesus, or it's going to be really hard. And even with Jesus, it can still be hard. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most.
I'm Dave Wilson. And I'm Ann Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. We've got Brian Carter and his wife Stephanie in the studio today. Welcome back to Family Life Today.
Thank you so much. What a lot of people may not know is you are on the Family Life board. Man, it's been an honor to serve, but I've been connected to Family Life for probably 20 years. Really? Probably a week.
I met Dennis in 2002 at a mentoring conference. Crawford LaRitz had organized it. He had invited young pastors, young preachers. And then what happened out of the conference was every person there got a mentor. And so it just so happened there was a lot of gentlemen there.
But I was fortunate enough to get Dennis as my mentor for two years. And so it was Brian LaRitz, myself, and a couple other guys. Every month we talked on the phone. And it was a mentoring call. And then once a year, we had a gathering together.
And so it was a joy to talk to Dennis once a month. Had you and Stephanie been married yet? We were. 2002, so we had just had our first baby. Oh, so it's perfect timing for Dennis Rainey to come into the patient.
New in ministry, new in marriage and family.
So we've been talking on the phone for once a month. For almost 20 years now. You're still talking. We're still talking. 22 years.
We have a call scheduled for tomorrow. That's awesome.
So, do you guys meet in high school? You told us earlier that Brian was this amazing high school athlete. Were you just following him around the court or what? No, we did not meet in high school. I went to the University of Oklahoma.
He went to Oklahoma State. Were you rivals then? How did you meet? Yeah, we were very rivals. We were.
So we met through some mutual friends. And so we met at a big eight conference on student leadership. They introduced us there, and he seemed like really not into me.
So I kind of felt like, wait, I thought you were trying to meet me. Brian, what was that?
Well, I was just trying to make sure. They told me she was interested. I was just trying to make sure. I didn't want to seem too overly aggressive, right? I just wanted to let things play itself out.
So I asked for her number like a week or two later. I said, can I talk about it? A week or two later?
Well, I didn't want to press, no pressure. But the first time we talked, we talked for like two hours. We just kind of connected. It was like a natural connection.
Sometime maybe a month later or a few weeks later, we dated. We went on our first date together to, where did we go? Play putt-putt? Was that the first game?
Okay, so I have to give this to Brian. He had great conversation, and I just don't feel like young men back then did. And I, you know, when I tell, when we tell this story, young women today will be like, yeah, it's still the same. It's still the same. Has it changed?
Yeah, they're like, it's still the same.
So we had, we just talked on the phone and had great conversation. And then he planned this great date.
Now, I'm not going to lie, I think it's just my mom, it kind of scared me a little bit and had, she had watched too much date line.
So when we're going on our date, I mean, OU is in Norman, Oklahoma.
So everything pretty much is a typical college town.
So when he said we're going to the Olive Garden, I was like, oh, okay, I know where that is in Norman. And so when we drove past the Olive Garden, I was like, oh my goodness. You know, this is before cell phones. You're like, you get somebody could track you. And I said, where, where?
I thought we were going to the Olive Garden. He's like, yeah, we're going. To the Olive Garden in Oklahoma City. I thought we could just talk more if we. How far is it?
30 minutes. Oh, wow. That's impressive.
So we go to the Olive Garden. That's more impressive in my mind than putt-putt. Yeah. Well, okay, put-putt is coming. But that's a part of it.
Okay.
Okay.
So we go to dinner, and the waitress in the middle of dinner comes out with yellow roses to give to me. Wait, wait a minute. Wait, are you serious? I dropped by the resistance. They're fist bumping right now.
Yes.
So he had the yellow roses, which was really sweet. And so then he said, I remember that you said you love to ice skate or we can go putt-putting. What would you like to do? And I was like, we have something else to do? In my head, I was saying this.
I was like, sure, we can go miniature golfing. That sounds great. And did you think I'm going to beat you because I'm such a good athlete? And I did. And beat him.
I did beat him. I had a plan. Whoever. Uh, loss, right? Had to pay for the next date.
So I set myself up to lose. I took the fall, I took the dive so that I could get another date. Stephanie's not buying that one. She beat you fair and square. I beat him fair and square.
I have a feeling you still are. Yeah. Dating him was really, he just was super, super sweet. Just had never seen anything like that. Just super romantic, great conversation.
Now, I will be honest. When I asked my friends about him, like before, like I gave them my number, so he called me. I said, Okay, so tell me something about him. And they were like, Well, he goes to Oklahoma State. I was like, Okay.
And they're like, Oh, he's in a fraternity.
Okay.
And then they're like, He's the president of the Black Student Association at Oklahoma State. I was like, Okay. And yeah, he's a minister. I was like, Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Why? What are you asking? Why? You look the same way. He said, I will never.
That is true. I said, I would never be a pastor's wife, ever. Exactly. I kept feeling like, no. Did you grow up in a Christian home?
I did. I grew up in a Christian home.
So you're a believer. I'm a believer. Being military, just we, my mom had us so engaged in church just because we moved every two to four years. And so that was our way to get connected to the community and get connected to meet other kids.
So youth ministry, all that. I did it. But I kept feeling like, no, I guess because I would. Just see that pastor's wife and she just looked like me too. God help me.
Yes.
Brian, what was your family life? It sounds like you come from a really good family.
So, my dad was a pastor. I watched his kind of his transformation, right? I watched him kind of going to church off and on, really becoming really committed. To ultimately say, I want to be a minister, I want to be a pastor, I want to start a church. And so he started a church when I was like 10.
But he's also a mechanic and a kind of a craftsman.
So he takes these old buildings and he remodels them and he turns them in the churches. My middle school years are spent after school. Going to help him as he remodels this church into a facility. That was part of what we did. Very involved in church, very engaged in church.
So, as a young man, I just felt a calling on my life to do ministry. I just felt at that age, like 15, 16, 17, I knew. I wanted to be a pastor.
Now, mind you. I expected every pastor to be bivocational.
So my plan was to teach school, be a principal, and be a pastor, and just kind of pull. I felt like that connected me to the community. I could do all of it together. It just felt like a natural fit.
So even when I went off to college, I was a science and education major because I felt like this would be the pathway where I can serve people, connect with people, help people. You'll be Principal Carter. Yeah, listen, it all goes to the Prince Fun Pastor together. It all goes together. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So it felt like a natural kind of move. And so, watching my dad, him and my mom together, learning how to treat a woman.
So, all of those things kind of collided when I met her. that I always knew I wanted to get married. We were dating sophomore year in college. I knew I needed a wife. And so I'm looking.
And so when we meet, it just is this connection that really, and so even when we first start meeting, we're coming to church together. I'm driving. She's driving me to church. It just is a connection there because I know what I wanted. I wanted somebody that loved the Lord, somebody that had goals and ambitions, right?
Somebody that was cute. You know, all those things were part of what I was looking for when I found her. I just said, man, God, this is really answered my prayer. This is what I've been looking for. Wait a minute.
I need to get over the hump of like, what are you doing with like, he wants to go into ministry and be a pastor? How'd you get over that? She's asking because she's still not over it. Yeah, I don't think you, as wives, you just never get, you're always like, so when are you, okay, this is 20 years, so how much more? But, you know, I think Brian's heart is what won me over.
And I could look past the ministry part because I was an education major. I was an elementary education major. He was, you know, middle school.
So we had these desires just to teach. And like he said, we had never seen a full service staffed pastor. It was, this is what I do, I teach. And we had aspirations to be a principal. He was going to be a superintendent.
And that was going to be our life. And that was going to be our role.
So I really wasn't thinking pastor's wife. And I think it was the only time I would get really nervous about it is when his dad would talk about it. Oh, yeah. So that would take me down because I remember like his mom, his mom was very traditional, very traditional house. Mine was the complete opposite.
Yeah. My home church is a very small church, small family church. And that's the church that we're, that I grew up in. That's where we met. That's where we're dating.
So part of the transition is she's thinking, right, this is where, like, I thought I was going to succeed my dad.
So you're talking about 20 to 30 people, small Oklahoma city. That's on a good day. Hey, hey, hey, you know, pastors, they count by three. It's about 50. It's like a small group.
Small group. Small group by three more people. Yeah, it is.
So it's a small, intimate family church. But he has a lot of outreach. But that's in those kind of settings, right? It would have been hard for her to kind of fit into this space, right? And so it didn't fit.
And we, it was going to be a struggle. It really was. It already was. There already was a struggle. You thought you're strong.
Is that what you mean? I I was strong and his dad would say things like, So, would you be up to taking piano lessons? No. I don't remember that. No.
Ryan, don't do this. Don't do this. Then, y'all, my friends, my friends, I love my friends. I would plea with them. Like, they could go out and kick it all night long, and then they'd get up and go to whatever the hot church was in Oklahoma City.
And so I'd be like, hey, you guys want to go to church with me? They're like, no. Please go to church with me.
So they're like, okay, okay, okay. We'll go to church with you.
So they go and they're. One of my friends was like, if anybody ever says that you don't love Brian, I'm going to be like, she loves him a lot. She loves him a lot. Dave and I made this pact when we got married. I was only 19, Dave was 22.
But we came on staff with Athletes in Action with crew. And then a couple years later, We're like, let's go to seminary. We're going to do this the rest of our lives. And so I made a pact with him. Like, all right, we're going to go to seminary, but you are not going to become a pastor, right?
Like, this is our deal. This is our deal. Because if we're, if you're going for that, like, I'm, I don't think I'm into that. He literally said, I'm not doing that. I'll do ministry, but not that kind of ministry.
Because I had expectations. I had a vision of what I thought a pastor's wife was.
Sort of what you saw. Yeah. And I wasn't that. I'm like, they are going to hate me.
So I can't do that.
So you kind of get that. I so get it. Yeah. So what? Look, Ryan, Brian is so plain right now.
Because you remember that time, like, Brian had to preach. I had to preach. And, you know, in your dad's church? No, in another church. In African-American contexts, sometimes the pastor's wife will sing.
Before the preacher gets up to preach. And it's the pastor's wife. Yes.
Or playing the piano. Right, right, right. Or sometimes both, right? And so they call her up to sing. And I cannot sing.
It's my honor gift. They called you us to sing just because you're out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. She tried, though. She tried.
And then in this small trish y'all. They even had the nerve to shade me or like kind of tease me. Yes, they did, Brian. Because they were like, that's not whatever. That's a worship song.
I was like, you know what? But we made it. Needless to say, we made it through some seasons of testing, trying to find our roles. Oh, my goodness. I was trying to find myself.
She was trying to find hers, and the box really didn't fit.
So, ultimately, what happens is we relocate to Texas, we move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It would have been hard trying to navigate through all the dynamics: family, ministry, family, church. It would have been challenging. Not to say that I didn't, I think I think in my mind. I wanted to, but I think we tri went through a few challenges there.
And it felt like this is not going to work. We had a church meeting one Sunday that we had and it just it went really sour between me and my dad. And it really was a moment where I said, This is not going to work, and I really wanted it to. Like, I had a vision of what could happen. I saw some things, but that conflict that we had.
I don't think I would have made it in ministry. I think it would have been hard in ministry. I think we've been hard on our marriage. And so those tensions ultimately led to us relocating. We regraduated together in May, and we moved to Texas the next month.
It sounds like this is God's plan. It definitely was God's plan. But I learned a valuable lesson during that season. My mom, she taught me how to pray. And so I'll never forget the year before we got married, it was a true testing season.
Just things were getting. Just throwing at us left and right. And I'll never forget. My mom was like, Do you pray for Brian? I was like, I do.
And she was like, How do you pray for him? I was like, Help him to realize that he. She was like, Seven, that's not how you pray to him. And I said, She's like, You need to pray for the future husband he's going to be, the future father, the future leader he's going to be. What did that sound like?
And so I said, It definitely didn't sound like what I was doing before. And so I would be like, God, just whatever the plans you have for Brian, I pray that you will just surround him with people that can pour into him. I pray for the future husband he's going to be, how he will lead our family, and so on. And I pray for the father he will be. And just doing that prayer.
And then my mom was like, Have you told Brian? Because our biggest issue was we did not want to live. Where were you going to live? Stay in Oklahoma City or we're going to move, right? Yeah, yeah.
And so that was a huge. That was our biggest thing.
So my mom was like, Does he know that you don't want to live here? And I said, Yes. And she was like, Oh, what am I asking? Of course, he knows you don't want to live here. I know you told him.
And so she's like, Have you prayed to God and asked him? About where he would have you to be. And I said, no. And she was like, Stephanie, I don't want you to tell Brian anymore. About what you don't want to do, or this, that, this, that.
I need you to take that to God, and I need you to have faith in what God will have, the plan that He has for y'all. I kept feeling like, No, but see, God doesn't. And she's like, God knows everything, and God is going to hear your prayer, but he doesn't know his parents or doesn't. She's like, God knows, and I need you to leave it there with him. And I said, all right.
And so I'm praying. This is probably like in August. The church meeting that he talked about earlier happens in January.
So, y'all, I haven't said anything. I haven't said anything else about it. I just, I took it to God. I left it there. And so when the church meeting happens, I'm kind of like, in my head, the sassiness in me wanted to be like, no, this is what you want.
This is why you want to stay here. Yeah, I was ready. Because I was so accustomed to some of the dynamics at work, you know, you can manage them. Yeah, right. That's what, but oftentimes, when you bring in someone that's outside, it's all like, wait a minute, right?
How do we, what's this? And so we were trying to, but it's just the conflict and the differences. And a lot of it was just differences. You have one generation colliding with another generation. Yeah.
It's just a total. Opposite ways of view. And then I'm young and I'm probably a little bit arrogant, right? Like, and so I'm thinking my way, my way, my way. I'm trying to change things at the church probably a bit too fast, right?
Or a bit too quickly, which is meeting with resistance. And it just, it just was a recipe for disaster. And probably. Creating tension between the relationship you had with your parents. With parents, relationship with my wife.
So it's one of those things where most young couples, and we're not even married yet, but managing through. Your parents, your spouse, your fiancé, trying to navigate that can be hard sometimes, right? Yeah. And so I'm feel like I'm caught in the middle trying to make everybody happy. And so it was a bit rocky.
Hey friends, Ron Deal here, director of Family Life Blended. Did you know Blended and Blessed, the only worldwide live stream designed for couples and blended families, is free this year, Saturday, April 18th. We're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch. But other than that, it is free.
Free to live stream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day. Absolutely free. Gayla Grace is going to be with us. Davey and Christy Blackburn.
Cheryl Shoemake is going to be with us. Kathy Lip and Brian Goens, our MC. It's going to be a wonderful day. I hope you can join us. Learn more and get the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.
Now, as you look back, I mean, here you are 25 years later, and we haven't even mentioned your book, Made to Last. Made to Last, right, right, right. We'll get to that. We'll get to that tomorrow. I mean, but it's all about long-lasting relationships.
Do you think that start, prayer? I'm hearing leaving and cleaving. How important would you say now, 25 years in, that is to building a relationship that's made to last? Oh, I would say it's crucial. It's essential.
I learned a valuable lesson. There was an issue where his dad did a sermon and he talked about women and what they're supposed to wear. And at that time, as a college student, you had your stuff on a rotation. And so he had an issue with pants. Never knew it was an issue with pants.
I had my little pants suit on that he had bought me. And the day is like his son had bought you the pantsuit, and his dad's talking about a sermon about pants. And I'm like, again, the church is small. On this day, I may have been eight people. I'm the only one with pants.
And I just kept feeling like, yeah, no, this is not going to work.
So make a long story short. I leave the church. And I basically, we almost end our engagement because I just saw my life and I kept feeling like, I cannot do this.
So to have a marriage to make made to last or a relationship with made to last, you also have to compromise, but then you also have to. You have to let go of yourself. Like, I was a very, my parents had raised me to be very strong and very independent. And I remember crying, calling my parents to tell them about what happened. And my dad was like, He's like, Stephanie, you're going to take that?
And then my mom was like, Stephanie, this is something you have to pray about. This is y'all's first sign because we had not had any major things in our relationship while we were dating, in our engagement. And so, this was the first true test. And I'll never forget. So, I go to another church, y'all.
I'm in the church that everybody goes to in Oklahoma City, and I'm sitting there, and there's an older woman sitting next to me. And she sees my engagement ring and she goes, Oh, Where's your husband? And I was like, Oh, I'm not married. She was like, Oh, where's your fiancé? And I was like, Oh, he goes to another church.
And she was like, Well, Baby, if you wear his ring, you need to be by his side. And I was like, well, see, you don't understand. I don't care. If you wear his ring, you need to be by his side. And that was so convicting to me.
And I remember going back to the church. And going back. With a dress on. Yeah. Good for you with that dress on.
But it was very, I went back and it was very humbling because I'm very competitive. I've always played competitive sports. And so I felt like I was losing and that his dad had won. It was a battle. It was a battle.
I think when you talk about made-to-last couples and relationships, one of the last chapter in the book talks about resilience. Yep. Suffering and suffering and the trial. Her commitment to me, her commitment to our relationship, and willing to face those challenges and obstacles, right? And us willing to face those challenges and obstacles together, I think are essential for any relationship.
I think when things get hard, if relations, if people quit, right, or someone says, you know, I don't want to dive in, or I'm not going to deal with that, or. I think that's when we lose. The strength of our relationships. It's the challenges and the obstacles that we go through together, that we face side by side, that we fight back to back together with those instead of fighting each other, that then allows us to build something that's healthy, that's strong, that's reliable. I mean, now looking back 25 years later, I mean, those moments and challenges and tensions and conflicts that could have really driven us apart, they both were painful.
They were hard. I hate some of the things she had to go through. As a man, I had to figure out how to love her, protect her, support her. And I probably didn't always do the best job.
Well, I didn't do the best job early on in marriage, but I had to learn through those lessons. She had to coach me and I had to manage through them. But it's that resilience, right? It's that persevering. It's that relying on our faith, watching God work on our hearts and our souls, watching God mature us.
Because sometimes in our own immaturity, we become selfish and self-centered and we don't think about others. But now looking back, I just can. See God faithfully working through those moments, faithfully working through those challenges, growing her, growing me, and really giving us a peace about some of those things.
Sometimes you can't change other people, right? Most of the time, most of the time you can, but you learn to have a peace and you learn how to navigate through some things in a way that honors God, but also protects your relationship.
Well, that was a great conversation with Brian and Stephanie Carter. Yeah, I love having them on. And, you know, as we said, they're on our Family Life board. And they've, actually, Brian's written a book that we talked about today, and you can get it. The book's called Made the Last, Eight Principles to Build Long-Lasting Relationships.
And you can get it at the show notes at familylifetoday.com. I tell you what, one of the best things we ever do for our marriage. It's get away. That's it. And focus and work on our relationship, and we don't want to do it.
It's hard to get on this calendar, but when we do. We grow and our marriage gets better. You know what though? You know what really goes along well with that getaway is something that's cheap or that's on sale. Yeah, we're talking about the Weekend Remember Family Life's Marriage Getaway and it's 40% off right now if you sign up.
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So visit weekendtoremember.com. There's no promo code needed. Again, that's weekendomember.com to get that sale. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry. celebrating fifty years of God's faithfulness as marriages grow stronger and families flourish in Him.
Yeah.
