God works in mysterious ways. Our human minds can scarcely fathom how He holds all things together. It’s always awe inspiring when He pulls back the curtain slightly and lets us view elements of His masterful plan.

One such example is the story of Christian Family Life, which traces its roots back to the 1960s, well before the ministry officially formed in 1971. Don and Sally Meredith were involved in Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) in college and joined the staff once they married. In those early years, Sally and Don were examples for other young Campus Crusaders, including Dennis and Barbara Rainey. In fact, it was Sally who led Barbara to Christ, and the Merediths inspired and mentored the Raineys when they started the Family Life arm of Campus Crusade in 1976, now known worldwide as FamilyLife.

The Merediths had married after dating just a short time and, to their surprise, found marriage more challenging than they had expected. As they describe in their book, Two Becoming One, they “dove into Scripture, and what we discovered changed our marriage.” As they began to apply what they were learning, others began to notice and wanted to know their secret.

What began as “sharing in intimate circles evolved into speaking at conferences to thousands of couples around the world,” they wrote. Those concepts grew into the material that became Two Becoming One and inspired FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember retreats Dennis and Barbara spearheaded for decades. The five Faith Principles detailed in Two Becoming One resources have become the cornerstone of thousands of marriages. A full recounting of their story was aired on FamilyLife Today in tribute after Don passed away in 2022.

During the ensuing decades, the couple planted churches and kept teaching about marriage. Don also pursued business endeavors, helping build a motor racing enterprise into the Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR powerhouse. He complemented the racing organization with an evangelism and spiritual formation arm, Motor Racing Outreach, which Christian Family Life continues to this day. In 1981 the Merediths turned content from Two Becoming One into a course designed to help couples “eliminate conflict, put Christ at the center of their marriage and build marital intimacy.” “Christian Family Life’s ….. resources are designed to help couples embrace their spouse and apply Christian relationship principles to strengthen their marriage,” the website states.

Through the decades, the ministry kept moving steadily, albeit slowly. It started expanding internationally as missionary couples or passionate marriage champions would bring the course to others in their church or mission outreach. Most promising was Christian Family Life’s work in Cuba by invitation of Canadian Darryl Wright. The missionary had already been ministering in Cuba for a close to a decade when he met denominational leaders there who told him their greatest need was to strengthen the marriages of their pastors and lay leaders.

He approached Don and Sally with the idea of bringing Christian Family Life resources to Cuba, leveraging the relationships he had cultivated with the pastors in that land. After a visit to the country in 2006, Don put resources into translating Two Becoming One books and curriculum into Spanish. He began preparing a marriage conference to focus on lay leaders and pastor and missionary couples. but he also wanted to leave an impactful tool they could take back to their churches. The strategy of marriage discipleship following a conference has been the practice of Christian Family Life.

While Don and Sally were doing the work God planned for them and building the ministry, a young couple with Cuban American heritage was following a parallel path. Roland and Tammy Martinez married in 1994 and began leading youth as their young family grew. After 10 years serving teens in churches, they both began to realize that improving the marriages of the kids’ parents was going to make the most difference.

“I’d been in Christian education and spent seven days a week as a youth pastor and coach,” Roland said. But when he considered the common denominator of the now young adults he had taught who were living their faith, it was those whose mom and dad owned their faith who stayed committed.

“I wish I could say it was that retreat, that mission trip or that lock in,” he said. He and Tammy realized, “We have got to minister to moms and dads as we minister to youth. Let’s invest on the parent side.” That call to shift focus led the Martinezes to move from the Naples, Florida, area to lead Marriage and Family at Life Fellowship Church in Cornelius, North Carolina (close to Charlotte).

“We were so excited because we felt the Lord was really pulling us there,” Tammy said. “Little did we know the direction God was taking us. He was going to do a work through us and, as is always the case, in us.”

The year was 2007, right as Christian Family Life was preparing materials for their outreach to marriages in Cuba.

In God’s perfect plan, Don and Sally were involved in planting the North Carolina church to which the Martinezes moved and noticed the Martinezes’ Cuban heritage in their introductory profile. Roland’s parents and Tammy’s father had emigrated to America as children in 1962, during the mass exodus right after Fidel Castro declared Cuba a communist nation in 1961. The Merediths were impressed by Roland’s knowledge of the culture and Spanish language skills and invited him to translate for the conference in Cuba in 2009.

“I grew up in Miami and was immersed in the Cuban culture,” Roland said. “But God took me to Charlotte to take me to Cuba for the first time.” “It was like God said, ‘Wait and see what I am going to do,’” Tammy echoed. “It was a dream we didn’t even know to dream.”

Christian Family Life’s Cuba conference opened with the faith principles from Two Becoming One. As Roland translated Genesis 1 and 2 describing God’s original intent for marriage, he was pierced to the heart. Like the Cuban pastors to whom he was speaking, he realized he also had allowed his zeal for the great commission to eclipse the great commandment to love your closest neighbor – your spouse.

The Martinezes had been married a dozen years and the busyness of daily life – ministry, homeschooling five children 10 and under, had faded their affection. “I recognized we were just running parallel paths and still trying to change each other,” Roland said.

“This was one of the moments in life I heard God speak clearly to me,” Roland said. “As extravagantly and unconditionally as God loves me, I need to extend that love to Tammy.” He remembers he came home and told her, “I release you.”

Two Becoming One introduces the idea of moving from performance-based love to faith-based love. The Martinezes use its acronym to describe elements of faith-based love.

Forgiveness

Acceptance

Initiation

Trust

Holy Spirit

“None of these things can happen without the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that gives us the capacity to express those things,” Roland said. “That’s the thread God brings into our lives and relationships.”

“We didn’t earn salvation, we are accepted and loved the way we are,” Tammy said. “The Lord designed us, and we can be accepted. God’s perfect provision means Roland’s God’s gift to me, and I’m God’s gift to him.” Therefore, neither is looking to change the other.

As the couple began teaching the Two Becoming One course at their church, the curriculum worked in their hearts as they discipled others. Roland became certified through Prepare/Enrich to provide mentoring to pre-engaged, engaged, and married couples in crisis.

The Cuba ministry blossomed and now covers the entire island, with key couples leading in each of the 16 provinces. Christian Family Life has built on the momentum and now reaches couples in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Madagascar and Ethiopia in Africa and Hungary in Europe. The ministry practices its international outreach by making Christian Family Life resources and training available to a national couple who will be equipped to coordinate in-country marriage discipleship “so the process can be as reproducible and accessible as possible,” according to the website.

“We are blown away!” Roland said. “It all goes back to marriage discipleship and the work the Lord wants to do in our marriage and the responsibility to share that with other couples.

Church planting is exciting,” he added, but cautioned, “The greatest success or failure is going to be dependent on the marriages of the church leaders. Make sure you are investing in the marriages.”

In the subsequent five years after that first conference, Roland kept traveling to Cuba and the Dominican Republic, speaking on behalf of Christian Family Life while still fulfilling his pastoral role at Life Fellowship Church in North Carolina. Don and Sally were advancing in years and were not sure whether Christian Family Life would continue once they stepped back from its leadership.

Roland and Tammy continued to feel pulled to marriage ministry and were passionate about strengthening marriages through discipleship. In 2014 the Merediths asked them to pray about what moving forward to lead Christian Family Life would look like. With the blessing of Life Fellowship Church, which provided them with a war chest of six months’ salary, the Martinezes stepped up to lead Christian Family Life and revitalize the ministry with their full attention.

In January 2015 Roland formally assumed the role of president of Christian Family Life, and in 2018 Roland and Tammy partnered with the Merediths to create the updated version of Two Becoming One with fresh stories and examples. They also began refining the paths to expand the ministry internationally and domestically. Christian Family Life was primarily designed to be a ministry for believers who love the Lord and want to take God’s love and show that to their spouse, Tammy added.

In the past few years, the torch of the ministry has quite literally passed, as the Martinezes have experienced the loss of not just Don, but longtime Christian Family Life Board Chairman Bud McKinney in 2020 and original Cuba missionary, Darryl, in 2021. Roland and Tammy now truly have assumed the mantle of leadership to take the ministry forward.

Christian Family Life has refined its mission and vision with a goal of “marriage discipleship in every community, every church and every country.”

According to the ministry website, “90% of runaways come from fatherless homes, 85% of kids with behavioral problems live without dad, 43% of single moms are on welfare.”

“We can’t just fix the urgent. We must break cycles. What do they (children) go home to?” Roland asked on the site.

“When a couple is one. Women are empowered. Kids thrive. Communities get stronger. The invisible God becomes visible. If we long to see kids smile, let’s help dad love mom.”

They describe the ministry’s three-fold purpose “We are here to help buildup leaders to become Marriage Disciplers, equip churches to become Marriage Ambassadors, and encourage everyone to become Marriage Investors,” according to the site, which defines a Marriage Ambassador as “one who connects Christian Family Life to their church, ministry or organization.”

To accomplish these goals, Christian Family Life created a blog, podcast and Two Becoming One couple’s workbook and leaders’ guide in English, Spanish, French, and Chinese. They also offer a Getting Married? booklet for pre-marital couples. Christian Family Life connects through social media and a marriage devotional delivered Monday via email. The ministry continues to support Motor Racing Outreach and mission trips to Cuba. Two Becoming One classes and virtual training also are offered online. The website lists selections on an events page. The site, https://www.christianfamilylife.com/, offers a clear path for those interested in learning more about how to become a Marriage Discipler or Ambassador.

“If you share our passion for transforming and strengthening marriages, consider becoming Marriage Disciplers—husbands and wives willing to invest in their own marriage and the marriages of others. Marriage Disciplers can access free resources and well-thought out, well-defined digital training via a leader portal where they are encouraged to invest in their own marriage, invest in training, and invest in others.

“We are dedicated to the success of our Marriage Disciplers. We have developed numerous tools to aid you in helping others strengthen their marriages.” The site encourages interested couples by noting, “Two Becoming One is facilitated rather than taught. Facilitators spark conversations based on the homework couples have done that week. We will train you, equip you, and be available when there are questions.”

In addition to individual disciples, the ministry desires to equip churches to do more for marriages than just responding to a crisis. Incorporating Two Becoming One is a great place to start, or, “it plays well with others,” Roland said, and will complement any existing program or format.

Two Becoming One can be as simple as a class taught on a Sunday morning, in a mid-week class, or in a small group setting over the course of eight weeks. Christian Family Life makes taking the first step easy for churches, providing live training events, online resources, mentorship, even sample recruitment emails and promotional videos. A team member can come to the church to kick off a series with a conference.

“We are committed to helping each local church plan and prepare to disciple couples,” the website states.

A Snapshot of Content:

Two Becoming One opens with six reasons marriages fail, describes different stages of marriage and explains how unresolved resentment impacts men and women differently.

Next, the book shares the Five Faith Principles that Roland called a Biblical blueprint for building a house of marriage.

Purpose – why God created marriage. Look at the reason God established marriage so you can get on the same page.

Provision – How do you know you married the right person? Because that’s the person God provided you.

These first two Faith Principles form the foundation of the house of marriage.

Power – The power of the Holy Spirit is the wall that holds up the roof and establishes the home’s atmosphere. The Power of the Holy Spirit also provides the ability to carry out the activity on the roof, under God’s protection.

Protection – romance and intimacy, communication, conflict resolution, overcoming trials – this is the work that now can be accomplished by applying the practical tools found in subsequent chapters.

“This book started the revolution in biblically based Christian marriage enrichment programs …. and is a result of helping hundreds of thousands of couples better their marriages for over 40 years (now 50+),” Sally and Don wrote in the forward.

In addition to their own marriage being blessed, Tammy reported two of the Martinezes’ daughters are married and involved in a Two Becoming One small group. “We are so thankful our children are living faith-love out and investing in other couples,” she said. “The fruit shows when something is genuinely lived.”

The Martinezes’ legacy embodies the blessing Don and Sally proclaimed in Two Becoming One, “The faith principles in these pages will transform your marriage … Your home will change. Your children’s homes will be changed as they apply what they learn from you to their own relationships.”