Every individual, family, and situation is unique, and therefore, the process of each courtship is unique. What worked well for one couple might not be the best choice for another couple. The concepts presented here are helpful guidelines to consider, but the list is not exhaustive. Each couple, along with their parents or other mentors, must discern God’s direction for the specific steps of their courtship.

Courtship Is the First Step Toward Marriage

Do not enter into courtship until you are at a stage in life when marriage is a realistic possibility. Understand the importance of the decision you are making regarding marriage, and establish commitments about your relationships prior to entering a courtship. Until you are ready for marriage, ask God to lead you in developing friendships with Godly men and women, but do not try to win the affections of those friends.

The Man Initiates the Courtship

When a man senses God leading him to pursue marriage with a particular woman, he should seek counsel from God-given authorities. In most cases, he will consult his parents, but in some situations, such as in the absence of parents due to death, other Godly mentors such as a pastor may fill this role of counselor.

As God’s direction to pursue courtship is confirmed through the man’s authorities, through insights from God’s Word, and through prayer, he should contact the woman’s father to request permission to initiate the courtship. Only when the woman’s father has given the man his blessing to enter into a courtship relationship with his daughter is the man free to focus on winning her affections.

The Initiator of the Courtship Has Special Responsibilities

The husband, who is the head of the family, has unique responsibilities. Similarly, the man who initiates the courtship has unique responsibilities.

He should have a dynamic walk with God prior to marriage, so that he can be the spiritual leader of his family. God prepared Adam for marriage through His personal relationship with Adam—before He provided Eve as a helpmate.

He should follow the admonition of I Timothy 5:1–2 to treat all young women to whom he is not married as sisters, with absolute purity. The man should take care not to treat any woman like his wife who is not his wife. Of course, he must get to know his courting partner well enough to make a decision about marriage. However, prior to the decision to marry, he should always interact with her in a way that he would be happy for other men to interact with her.

He should demonstrate leadership and a willingness to bear the risk of rejection by defining the nature and pace of the relationship. He also should seek to ensure that an adequate amount of time is spent with their families, other couples, and friends.

He should determine how he will provide for his future family’s basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Prior to the union of Adam and Eve, God made provision in the Garden for all of their basic needs. (See Luke 14:28–30.)

The Couple Should Get to Know Each Other’s Families

The family plays a critical role in helping a man or woman identify characteristics and traits of a potential partner that are important to know before deciding to get married. (See Proverbs 1:7–9.)

The couple should get involved in family functions by going to each other’s homes and doing things with parents and siblings. Even if family lives far away, make the effort for potential future spouses and the families involved to get to know each other well. Family members will have a significant role in any marriage relationship, and their support throughout the years is an important component of a successful family.

Accountability Is a Key Factor

It is human nature to strive harder to achieve a goal when we know someone will be checking up on us. The courting couple should be held accountable to God-given authorities for the spiritual health and progress of their relationship, as well as for their emotional attachment and physical intimacy. In a courtship relationship, a couple turns usually to their parents to be their mentors.

Ideally, the two families will communicate with each other to establish the best way to encourage and protect the couple with a plan for accountability. Love should be the motivation for accountability, with a goal of supporting the couple’s decision to obey God and honor one another with their words and actions.

As the couple experiences the joys of a deepening friendship, they will also face many challenges. Their mentors should guide the couple, helping them keep on track and stay focused on the goals of a Biblical courtship. Mentors can hold the couple accountable to consider insightful questions to gain wisdom as God leads them forward in the relationship or directs them to end the courtship.

Avoid Defrauding

To defraud another person is to stir up in them desires that cannot be righteously satisfied. A woman can defraud a man by the way that she dresses, talks, or acts. A man can defraud a woman by improper touching or by talking about a marital commitment that he is not able or intending to carry out.

Failure to safeguard your affections can result in disaster. If you don’t settle this issue before temptations come, inevitably you will make choices that you will regret. As you choose to carefully guard against inappropriate emotional attachment and physical intimacy, you can avoid much heartache and pain, particularly if the relationship does not culminate in marriage.

If the courtship relationship does lead to marriage, you will discover the great rewards of being faithful and self-sacrificing to one another. Guard your heart so that you don’t ignite passions that should be reserved only for marriage. The wait will make the expression of physical intimacy that much more exciting and wonderful. Ideally, you should be able to look back at your courtship without shame or fear, confident that you honored God and each other.

The Couple Deepens Their Friendship by Spending Time Together

During courtship, the man and woman should spend as much time together as is reasonable. If they do not live close to each other, creativity and flexibility will especially be needed in order to plan opportunities for their interaction and fellowship.

As the friendship deepens, both parties are responsible to be open and honest with each other. The topics, manner, and frequency of conversations should be characterized by the desire to become acquainted with each other more deeply, but not in a way that is defrauding.

When taking time to be alone, make sure that your time is spent wisely. The temptation to go off alone and spend countless hours talking often leads to premature emotional attachments. Too much time spent alone also serves as a temptation to experiment with physical intimacy. Whatever you do—stay visible. Be accountable to your authorities. For times of private conversation, take a walk together, or do something else that offers you some privacy, but avoid seclusion.

Participating in a variety of activities together is the best way to discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Get out there and have fun.

Get together with like-minded friends and enjoy group activities.

Go out for dinner.

Play sports together.

Get involved in ministry together.

Read books out loud to each other.

Study the Scriptures together.

Pray with one another.

Participate in small group Bible studies and other activities at your church.

A Short Courtship Is Best

There are practical reasons for keeping courtship short and not extending it longer than necessary. Obviously, as the couple’s hearts are knit together through their deepening friendship, it will become more and more challenging to manage emotional attachment and remain objective in the decision-making process. When they both sense God’s direction to move forward to the commitments of engagement and marriage, and this direction is confirmed by their authorities, they should joyfully take those steps.

A long courtship can become confusing and frustrating, often leading to disillusionment. Also, the deeper the friendship becomes, the more painful a separation will be, if the courtship does not lead to marriage. The couple should seriously, earnestly seek for God’s direction, and the parents or mentors involved should not unnecessarily lengthen the process of courtship.

While single, both the man and woman are free to concentrate on pleasing the Lord. However, married couples are directed by the Lord to see how they can please one another. (See I Corinthians 7.) During the time of courtship, neither person is able to focus his or her full attention on either of these goals. Therefore, a lengthy courtship should be avoided.

Remember the Goals of the Courtship

Throughout the courtship, both the man and the woman should diligently seek to find out whether they should be married—whether they can serve and honor God better together than apart. As they seek the Lord’s will together, they will discern God’s direction for the courtship. (See Proverbs 3:5–7.)

It is important for both the man and woman to understand that a decision to enter into a courtship is not a commitment to marry. The goal of courtship is to determine if the couple should get married or not, according to God’s direction. It is likely that many Godly men and women will participate in more than one courtship before God leads them to the right life partner.

Receive Hope and Healing if the Courtship Is Ended

As soon as one of the individuals discerns that marriage is not God’s will, with the counsel and affirmation of his or her parents, the courtship should be ended. If either person or any of their family members or friends are tempted to become bitter about the outcome of the courtship, they should remind themselves of the goals of the courtship: to discern God’s best, for His glory.

By God’s grace, instead of becoming bitter, everyone involved can choose to have a grateful heart for the provision of God’s direction and the protection that was afforded by a Biblical courtship. The conclusion of a courtship can be painful, and the couple should seek the support of parents, mentors, and friends, and the Lord’s healing. (See Psalm 147:3.)

Each one can find hope in God’s promise: “The Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee” (Psalm 84:11–12). God wants to guide every man and woman to His best provision for each of them. (See Jeremiah 29:11–13.)

Marriage is part of God’s plan for most of His children, as is evidenced clearly in Scripture. “The LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18). “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the LORD” (Proverbs 18:22).

These basic guidelines are recommended to encourage you to honor God’s design for marriage, even before you enter into it. Jesus said: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4–6). A Biblical courtship will bring honor to the Lord and will contribute to the prosperity of a lifelong covenant marriage relationship.

Courtship is a relationship between a man and a woman in which they seek to determine if it is God’s will for them to marry each other. Under the protection, guidance, and blessing of parents or mentors, the couple concentrates on developing a deep friendship that could lead to marriage, as they discern their readiness for marriage and God’s timing for their marriage. (See Proverbs 3:5–7.)

Courtship is a choice to avoid temptation and experience the blessings of purity. It is a choice to not emotionally give away your heart, piece by piece, to many others through casual dating relationships and instead to give your whole heart to your life partner.

It is a choice to wait for God’s best, for His glory. It is a decision to walk by faith, to trust in God, to honor others above yourself, and to believe that God will deal bountifully with you, because He is love. (See II Corinthians 5:7, Psalm 9:10, Romans 12:10, Psalm 13, and I John 4:8.)

Because each individual, family, and set of circumstances is unique, each courtship will be unique. While those who choose courtship will hold to general guidelines for the relationship, their specific choices about when, where, and how to court may differ according to their needs and circumstances.

If, during the courtship, one or both parties realize that marriage is not God’s will and they end the relationship, the courtship has not failed. On the contrary, the courtship was successful, because God gave the direction that was sought through it.

Although the termination of a courtship most likely will be painful, damage and hurt—which can lead to bitterness—can be avoided. Both parties, as well as their families and all the people who love them, should continue to trust in the Lord and accept the grace He gives to deal with any disappointment or unfulfilled hopes. (See Romans 5:1–5.)

“Let love be without dissimulation [be sincere]. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another” (Romans 12:9–10).

The Difference Between Dating and Courtship

Purpose of the Relationship

The main difference between dating and courtship involves the goals to be reached by spending time with a potential marriage partner. Men and women who choose to date often have no commitment to consider marrying the other person. Maturity and readiness for marriage are not considerations in the decision to date. Instead, couples usually date with the selfish goals of having fun and enjoying romantic attachments.

In contrast, courtship is undertaken only when both parties are prepared to make a commitment to marriage. Dating tries to answer the question, How can I find the one who will make me happy? Courtship strives to answer the question, How can I honor God and discern His direction regarding my life partner?

Accountability to Authorities

In a dating relationship, there is little if any accountability for the couple and little or no interaction with family members. The dating couple is merely attracted to one another in some way and often pursues an exclusive relationship that is independent of others’ influence or counsel. Since the boundaries of the relationship are self-determined, the couple may easily succumb to temptation and fail to consider their responsibility to honor each other in purity and genuine love.

A couple participating in courtship seeks the accountability of their parents or other mentors. As they establish guidelines for their relationship, they can more easily recognize that God also holds them responsible to honor one another. Receiving God’s grace and the support of others strengthens them to maintain their commitment to purity.

Exposure to Temptation

In a dating relationship, self-gratification is normally the basis of the relationship. Instead of focusing on God’s pleasure, the couple is often looking for personal pleasure. This oblivious self-centeredness can lead only to dissatisfaction, promoting an attitude of lust (taking what I want) rather than the Scriptural attitude of love (giving unselfishly to others).

Consequently, dating opens the door to many temptations. If defrauding (stirring up desires that cannot be righteously satisfied) occurs, the couple can foolishly and tragically give away both emotional and physical affections that should have been reserved for a life partner. Thus, in a dating relationship, frequently intimacy precedes commitment.

A courting couple can evade numerous temptations by the choice to be held accountable to God-given authorities. The dangers of defrauding can be avoided more successfully, and an honest, open friendship can be nurtured and protected. Thus, in courtship, commitment precedes intimacy.

Focus on God’s Kingdom

Since one of the most important decisions we will make is the decision of marriage, we should make every effort to know and do God’s will in this area. A dating relationship is usually based only on what the dating couple presently knows about each other. In contrast, a Biblical courtship is based on what God knows about each partner and on His plans for their futures.

Jesus gave this instruction with a promise: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). When a person makes a growing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ the foundation of all decisions—as he or she seeks God’s kingdom—God will provide all that is needed, including the marriage partner prepared by God just for that person. (See Proverbs 18:22, 19:14.)

Remember that courtship is a time of romance. Don’t cheat yourselves out of that. Enjoy dynamic, exciting, God-glorifying romance by seeking ways to give of yourselves to each other, to serve each other and to show your love for each other in simple ways. Romance–true romance–is about blessing the other by giving of self . . . and that’s what true love is about, too. So you see, the two go hand in hand. Couples who engage in an intensely physical relationship often lose out on this very point–because physical pleasure has become the focus of their relationship. By converse, couples who do not distract themselves with physical intimacy have more time on their hands to spend creatively doing romantic things for each other and together–blessing each other with their loving deeds and gestures as often as they can.

But what if we’re not being tempted? Why wouldn’t it be alright to be off, alone, in isolation together–for example staying late over at one or the other’s apartment alone? This is where we get into the whole issue of giving rise to scandal. The problem a couple faces here–even if they are strong enough to resist all temptation–is the impression they are giving to others. “So what?” You may ask. “Let them gossip–what do we care? We know we’re not doing anything wrong!” When others perceive you to be leading an impure life, it gives others a sense of it being okay to not embrace purity in their own relationships. They’ll be thinking, “After all, they’re doing it and they’re a nice Christian couple. Obviously it doesn’t make any difference if we do or don’t.” Even though you had been embracing purity, you still misled others to believe you weren’t. In this way you would not be helping to build the body of Christ by your good example. Rather, through the scandal you would have given rise to, you would have inadvertently led others to sin. It is our sense of responsibility in the body of Christ that leads us to make the necessary sacrifices for the sake of others when we decide not to give rise to scandal. 

Accountability: We all are more responsible when we are held accountable for our actions. Make a list together of your resolutions and guidelines for your courtship and give that list to some mentoring couples and accountability partners. These could be your parents, other married couples from Church, friends, roommates, family members. Basically you are looking for people you trust and respect to be able to talk with openly about your relationship. They should be able to ask you at any time how your are doing–if you are keeping your resolutions–and you need to be able to answer them honestly.

As much as possible, spend time with each other’s families. This is so important–for if you do end up married, you’ll want to get along. Family is an invaluable resource and such an integral part of who we are. You will learn much about each other by seeing how each other relates to family members. And your family, in turn, can give you much insight about the man with whom you are courting (and his family, about you!) Family sees things we don’t always see. Love can be blind at times–family (and friends) can really help to correct our vision. If you are far from family, make every effort to get home and spend time with them. And in the meantime, adopt a family (friends from Church, for example) to provide for you all the benefits of a family-based courtship.

Items 6 – 15 deal with setting guidelines for yourselves from the very beginning of your courtship. (If you’re starting over–changing from a dating relationship to a courtship model–then begin now with guidelines.) The following points will cover areas you should consider in those guidelines.

When I was in my early 20’s I spent about 13 months working at an ACE school in Mexico. It so happened that one of my brother’s friends, a guy I had met previously at the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) Dallas Training Center, lived there as well. His family would frequently have me over for meals: I enjoyed the chance to eat some American food, speak English, and generally hang out.

Since this guy was a friend of my brother, I didn’t think it was strange at all that his family invited me over. Turns out, however, that they saw it as a God-given opportunity for their son and me to get to know each other better. He and I did become friends, enjoying humor, discussing Shakespeare, and sharing many of the same experiences as Advanced Training Institute (ATI) students. When I returned home from Mexico, his dad contacted my dad, and I learned that he wanted to court me. I was a little surprised, but thought, “Well, I like him as a friend, and I’d hate to say no to a courtship just because I don’t have any romantic interest. After all, it’s a chance for him to win my heart.”

During my involvement with ATI, I had heard stories of couples who had courted, when one or both of the parties wasn’t initially interested in the other. Yet, God worked in their hearts and they fell in love. Looking back on my situation, agreeing to this courtship was a mistake.

There were a lot of difficult thing for me during this time, but one of the hardest was interacting with ATI friends and acquaintances who excitedly congratulated me, assuming this young man and I would soon be married, simply because we were courting. Deep down, however, I knew that a marriage to this young man would never happen. I knew that my feelings for him weren’t the same as the feelings he indicated to me. I felt sick, and even a little hypocritical, each time I responded graciously to these well-wishers.

Within a few months, when it became clear to me that his winning my heart wasn’t going to happen–ever, I did what any good ATI girl would do: I got my dad to call his dad to call the whole thing off. By this time, his family had announced the courtship in a family newsletter. In addition to all of my friends, a large group of strangers also knew about the courtship. It was a bad situation all around. He was a really nice guy with a heart for God and was genuinely planning to marry me, and I just wasn’t interested.

Looking back, I regret that I didn’t call him myself. Calling him personally would have been the decent thing to do; I took the easy route, I think, because I found myself irritated about the entire courtship model. It’s as if I thought, “You dads got us into this mess to begin with; now you clean it up!” I should mention that I had a rocky relationship with my dad (actually my stepfather, who had adopted me when he and my mom married) throughout my teens. Trusting my heart to him was not a concept I embraced, even though I was trying to be submissive to my authorities and to seek God’s guidance with my parents’ help.

After the courtship ended, I spent the next year and a half volunteering with IBLP in Honduras, Mexico, and at the Dallas Training Center, even though my family was no longer enrolled in ATI. Old habits die hard, and I had made a number of good friends through ATI. Eventually, though, I decided that I wanted to pursue nursing school so I left IBLP and moved back home so that I could attend an inexpensive state school.

About this time, I began to evaluate the “standards” I had been taught through ATI (including courtship). I couldn’t help feeling many were external, legalistic, and unnecessary. I felt freedom to jettison many of these standards and even to start dating. As I embraced this new-found freedom, I slowly stopped judging others and myself. And, I started learning how to enjoy life!

I’m not sure when exactly this happened, but during that time frame, I made two really firm resolutions:

1) I’d never, ever go through another courtship.

2) I’d never date anyone to whom I wasn’t already attracted.

Subconsciously, I also determined that I would not go on any date that was set up by someone else, nor would I date any guy that seemed to like me more than I liked him.

The next time someone wanted to court me, I said, “No.” When really sweet people from my church wanted to set me up with their wonderful single nephew, I said, “No.” When one of my best friends wanted me to meet her husband’s good friend (who it turns out actually is a great guy), I said “No.”

I’d been so burned by my experience with courtship, I just shut down any possibility of a serious relationship for about five years, unless it was someone that I alone had met – no family, church or friends involved. I casually dated during this time, but I was completely uncomfortable with the possibility of any real, long-term relationship.

In my last semester of nursing school, I met a Computer Science major named Matt in a fitness swimming class. In addition to being one of the few people on the planet who looks good in a Speedo, he met the qualification of not knowing anyone in my family or church, and he only barely knew one of my friends. A further plus for me was that he did not know a thing about courtship and had never heard of the Basic Seminar or Bill Gothard. I took a relaxed approach to our relationship. It was hard to overcome the mindset I’d adopted as a result of courtship teachings: “If I get this wrong, and miss the will of God in this area, I will make a mistake that will ruin my entire future existence.”

Eventually, I realized that not only did I enjoy spending time with him, I also thought that he would make a great dad, and that I wanted to wake up next to him for the rest of my life. We took our time getting to know each other, and about a year after we met, Matt asked me to marry him. We married eight months later in a simple garden ceremony attended by family, friends and church family. This was such a different experience from the courtship, where I felt we would have been rushed to marry quickly.

In hindsight, it could have turned out so badly–marrying someone I did not love. I believe it was God’s grace and love leading me to Matt. He has been perfect for me! We will celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary next month, and are both so thankful for God’s leading.

As a young man in my early twenties who grew up in conservative homeschool circles, I was excited to return home after spending four years in a Christian college. I had very little experience in dating and hadn’t been in a relationship in college, but I had a good degree and a solid career lined up in front of me. My parents were excited too, because they hoped that I would be able to easily find a bride among the many single homeschool girls my family knew. I was a willing participant to their plans, but I soon found out that even with the right credentials, it was still impossible for me to come against homeschool patriarchy and perfectionism.

According to Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips, a girl who has spent her entire life preparing for marriage under unquestioning submission to her father should expect to have almost too many young men seeking to win her hand. Eventually, her father would choose the right one for her. Her future husband would be a paradox: ambitious and hard-working and able to support a family, yet fully under his parents’ authority and living in their house without going to college. He would be an intelligent, independent critical thinker, yet he would agree unquestioningly with every belief of his parents and church.

Most of my family’s friends subscribed to these philosophies. But as their daughters approached their late teens, these families began to realize, either consciously or subconsciously, that many of the required attributes of a “godly young man” are mutually exclusive. An ambitious, hard-working young man is going to want to go to college, or at least live at a level of independence from his parents unacceptable to Gothard and Phillips’ teachings. And any truly intelligent and critical-thinking suitor is not going to agree with his parents on everything – especially if his parents are die-hard ATI-followers.

For many girls I know, the perfect suitor never materialized. Instead, they became forced to wait for the elusive young man who could gain the approval of their father. Many of my more ambitious male friends left the homeschool community entirely out of disgust, tired of facing impossible obstacles set up by fathers just to get to know their daughters. The boys who remained were often never given enough freedom to choose anything for themselves, and were under-employed, unable to communicate with women, and altogether as uninteresting as they were ineligible.

Faced with failure, most people don’t accept their mistakes but instead cling more dogmatically to the same beliefs that created their errors. Thus, when forced to decide between the two types of young men – those who are ambitious, entirely Christian, but not conformist, and those who were essentially mini-versions of their parents – many fathers ultimately consigned themselves to giving away their daughters to the latter. Doug Phillips loves to say that a father is in a much better position to judge the true character of a suitor than his daughter. I, on the other hand, have found that fathers are just as subject to the flattery and smooth talk of an ill-meaning young man as they assume their daughters are. I have seen young men get married who never would have had a chance of even getting a date in the real world. But for girls with no other alternative except being surrogate mothers for their younger siblings, even bad marriages often seemed desirable. If anything, it allowed them to get out of their fathers’ house.

It is a cruel irony: a culture which esteems marriage and family as the highest ideal ultimately makes it unattainable. Organizations like ATI and Vision Forum that claim that women only have a role in the house ultimately doom them to a lifestyle apart from their ideal. By idolizing marriage, finding a spouse becomes almost impossible.

I experienced this dilemma first-hand last summer when I asked a girl out from a “courtship” family. My family had known hers for several years. I had only spoken to her on a few occasions, as her parents believed very strongly in limiting male-female interaction. Still, I was very impressed with what I had heard about her. She had been accepted into a prestigious Christian university, although she was not attending in accordance of her father’s wishes. She was very intelligent, and did not agree with many of her parents’ stances but chose to live in respect of them anyway. Her family didn’t interact much with anyone outside their very narrow church circles, so she seldom came into contact with the outside world.

I did everything the way a godly young man was supposed to. I called her father first. I patiently listened to his opinions on what our “courtship” should look like for four grueling hours on the first day that I met him. I found a chaperone for our first outing. I learned from an overly-talkative younger sibling that I was the first person ever to ask her out.

Our first event went very well. We spent a day perusing a museum and getting to know each other. I was very impressed with her thoughtful insight and her cheerfulness despite her circumstances. She had the ability to run a household that wasn’t even her own, yet was not blindly accepting of everything she was told by her parents. Deeply impressed, I asked her parents’ permission for another outing.

A week later, I got a phone call from her dad. He was apologetic but firm. He told me that I was a true gentleman several times and congratulated me on my career. But there was one theological difference that he could not overcome, regardless of how his daughter felt on it. When I heard what is was, I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. The issue was so minor that my Christian parents had been married twenty years together in perfect harmony before they had ever even thought of it!

Still, I was satisfied that he at least accepted me as a person. I knew a boy who had been met with ridicule and disdain by a girl’s father when he had expressed interest in her. When she turned twenty-five, still living at home and waiting for a suitor, the dad relented and tried to get the young man to court his daughter again. The young man said in no uncertain terms that he was no longer interested. Several months later, he started dating a woman from far outside homeschool circles.

Recently, I heard that several homeschooling mothers were lamenting that he left the circle of women had grown up with in order to find a wife. To them, it was a contradiction of everything they had expected. They truly had no idea why he wasn’t in a “courtship” with one of their own daughters! I’m afraid that their daughters will also be wondering why for many lonely years.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

The Graduate is a young man in his mid twenties who was formerly raised in the ATI lifestyle. Although he appreciates the contributions his parents made toward his education, he now sees how many parts of his previous lifestyle were both unwise and unbiblical. Because his family has left A.T.I., he struggles to connect and relate to the people he grew up with