“Marriage is like your waistline. If you are not paying attention, it will go in a direction you don’t want it to go,” says marriage leader Danielle Macaulay to the audiences she and her husband, Dan, address at their Married UP date night events. The Macaulays blend their unique skills and talents to create a complete package for couples, content they also share on their Married UP podcast. Dan’s a gifted musician and worship pastor who’s worked with artists including his childhood inspiration Michael W. Smith, a Gospel Music Award winner, and nine-time nominee. Danielle’s a writer and speaker. Together they’ve been a voice for marriage as frequent participants on A Better Us hosted by Anne and Ron Mainse. The extremely popular television show has run for seven seasons in their native Canada.

“Ron’s father was the Billy Graham of Canada,” Danielle said. “His 100 Huntley Street is still the longest running daily show in Canadian history. They are carrying on his legacy in the TV space.”

These longtime friends recruited Dan and Danielle when they launched their marriage-building program. The Macaulays first thought, “I don’t know if we are qualified!” Dan said. But once they said yes, they were captivated by the show’s format, which mimics the way a couple might participate in a small group. Episodes feature a short teaching by a well-known marriage leader, after which the Macaulays or another couple join Ann and Ron around a kitchen table to discuss on camera what they learned.

Dan also researches marriage content and creates memes and posts as part of the program’s social media campaign. He also has toured with speakers and comedians for years providing the musical component to their marriage retreats.

The Macaulays’ path of ministry together evolved from partnering with others’ marriage retreats, to creating the Married UP Podcast and eventually their own Married UP Date night events. Their website, https://dananddanielle.org/, directs visitors to Dan’s worship teaching and worship leading, Danielle’s writing and speaking for women, and the couple’s Married UP ministry. The name, Married UP, came from the concept that “God designed marriage – and His ideas about how to do it will make you, and your spouse better. With His help, we believe you’ll find you both married up!” they write on the site.

They stress that both spouses “married up,” as they are each made better by the other. “Sometimes in the day-to-day it’s easy to forget,” Danielle said. “We try to help people remember why they said, ‘Yes’ in the first place.”

After years of being immersed in the marriage content world (and 24 years of marriage) the Macaulays realized, “We have something to say about this now,” Dan said. “We could take some of the best things we’ve learned over the years” and incorporate them into a presentation delivered in their own style and capitalize on their strengths. Dan and Danielle’s unique date night is filled with music, humor, and practical tools and marriage enrichment applications.

They deliberately keep their content light and fun. “We consider it pre-evangelism,” Dan said. “It’s something people can feel comfortable bringing their neighbors to.” They realize the men in the audience have most likely been dragged there by their wives, so they go out of their way to lower defenses and create opportunities to laugh. When couples have fun together the dopamine hit is the glue that keeps their relationship healthy, Danielle said.

We want them to be surprised by how much they enjoyed the night, she added. Humor breaks down the walls. “We can see the evolution over the night. Once hearts are a little open, we’ll drop in some practical truth,” Dan said.

An example of Dan’s one-liners: He tells the audience he and Danielle met and got engaged in Paris. After the obligatory sighs, he deadpans, Paris …. Ontario …. Canada.  (The site of the summer church camp where the two met when Danielle was just 15). Which turns the sighs to groans of laughter.

A trademark is a song Dan wrote that mashes up humorous things kids say, content often gleaned from their own sons, Keaton and Braden. “People tell us it’s the funniest thing of the night,” Danielle said. Dan also plays a medley of popular love songs from the ‘60s to the 2000s people will recognize. Hearing songs that remind couples when they met and fell in love sets the mood for the evening.

After the medley, Dan will play a few passages from songs he wrote specifically for Danielle, which he uses to bridge to a time of worship. He tells the audience that although it might seem romantic to think that he wrote love songs for his wife, “Honestly 24 years later, I’m struck by how poorly I’ve lived up to those grandiose statements young love makes. But the Bible says in Ecclesiastes that a strand of three is not easily broken. We may have worldly ideas of ‘love,’ but the creator of love and marriage loves us perfectly and wants to empower us to love our spouses.”

Interspersed between the songs and teachings, Danielle will lead an audience-participation game to keep the energy high.

Their speaking message covers seven practical points:

1) What you feed grows. “The mind is a powerful weapon for good or bad in marriage,” Danielle said. Just like a social media algorithm, we’ll get more of what we think about and focus on. That’s why God says in Philippians 4:8 to think about the good, lovely, and admirable things. When we focus on a list of our spouse’s wonderful qualities, the annoyances become smaller and easier to handle.

2) Right feelings follow right actions. The world tells us to follow our feelings, Dan said, but the romantic, butterfly feeling lasts only about two years. We need to do something more intentional when we are married to lead our feelings. When we do the right things, feelings will follow.

3) Same team. We are fighting for unity and not the win, Danielle said. We need to choose the relationship over competitiveness.

4) You married up. “You are different by design,” Dan said. People often marry someone who is their opposite. Complementary strengths and weaknesses provide opportunity for friction, but also opportunities to be loving, kind and patient.

5) All about fun. “We spend the majority of time in our marriage doing things we dread together — changing diapers, paying taxes, paying bills. When we do something fun and adventurous together, the dopamine levels in our brain rise. We want to come back for more,” Danielle said, after which Dan chimes in with,

6) Sex, “which is fun,” he said. Dan shares that “Sexual intimacy is to a man what open and honest communication is to a woman,” reminding the audience that intimacy is about giving to the other.

7) Prayer. During this last segment, Dan returns to the keyboard. Danielle asks the crowd, “If you knew you had a 99.9% chance of winning the lottery, would you buy the ticket?” She tells them they have the same odds of staying together and thriving if they pray regularly together. “It’s not a gamble, it’s a wise investment.”

She then acknowledges the elephant in the room — chances are in a group of that size, at least one couple is present who feels like their marriage is broken. She reminds them that God is the master restorer who can repair all things. When they look back on the other side, they’ll realize everything they have gone through has made their relationship more valuable.

Danielle knows what she is addressing. Although she and Dan are open about how their friendship as camp buddy pen pals blossomed into romance (complete with a humorous story of a time when Dan’s tongue turned green on live television), life for the Macaulays has not been all love songs and roses.

The two weathered a tough season when unforgiveness and bitterness from a job loss spilled over into their relationship. They realized their marriage was hanging on a knife’s edge and that they needed help before their lives spun out of control. Marriage counseling allowed them to heal and move forward.

“It did us so much good to have somebody shepherd us and take us along in our path of healing,” Danielle said. “We realized we’ve done that, we can overcome, and we can do it again.”

“Don’t be afraid to reach out,” Dan said. “There’s only so much you can carry between the two of you. There are people who have walked before you. The best gift you can give your spouse is a healthy version of you.”

They end their date night with Dan playing a song titled, “God Gave Me You,” during which a video depicts photos of couples when they were young and old, often in the same pose. The images cast a vision of what the participants could look like 30, 40 years down the road. “You think, ‘Surely they’ve been through some hard times together, but it was worth it,’” Dan said.

Recently the Macaulays were surprised when the church where they were presenting asked them if they’d consent to being live-streamed. The husband of one the first couples who signed up for the date night was now in hospice, with only days left to live.

“They wanted to have a date night with us from their hospice room,” Danielle said. “We were literally part of one of their last days together. They didn’t need the teaching. They were there in sickness and in health. We were very aware of their presence as we sang the love song medley, knowing we were taking them down memory lane.” It was an experience Dan and Danielle will never forget.

Some of the date night content finds its way into their other material. Danielle has gleaned from their humorous kid stories to write three devotion books for families to use at mealtime with their children. Titled, Table Talk Family Devotional Book: Daily Devotions for Families With Young Kids, the series focuses on family meals, spiritual nourishment and kid friendly recipes.

In her book and Bible study, Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?, Danielle draws from her years of working with women at churches to encourage unity and build relationships. She addresses heart issues like overcoming comparison, competition, misunderstanding and prejudgments that frustrate friendships. These concepts transfer from the Same Team portion of their marriage teaching.

“The devil wants us to make each other the enemy, so he can swoop in while we are fighting,” she said.

When Danielle presents this content at women’s events, she often refers to an image of two gazelles whose horns are locked in battle to illustrate this principle.  They are so focused on each other; they fail to notice the lion stalking in for the kill.

Keep paying attention, lest your relationships, like your waistline, head in the wrong direction, Danielle and Dan advise. Their wisdom holds true for churches, worship teams, and women’s groups, as well as the couples they reach through Married UP.