Here are some tips and tricks about how to survive the MbF process.
The marriage decision is one of the most critical decisions you will make in your youth. Some say it is the single most important decision. In my experience, it is the most impactful and deciding factor for the rest of your life: 50, 60, 70 years ahead. So I would plead with you to pause and pray, and ask many, many questions. Do you really want to go through the “marriage by faith” process in ubf?
Marriage By Faith Secrets
Ok, so you’ve made the decision: you will go through MbF. Probably, like me, you feel this is your only option as a shepherd in ubf. It’s not, but that is how you feel you can best glorify and honor God. So let’s make this process as smooth and pain-free as possible. Here are some facts to understand and my advice based on my own experience. I found that these things made the ho-hum ubf live far more exciting. On one hand you are stuck in UBF, but on the other hand you are stuck in UBF ;)
1. MbF is the “holy grail” of Korean missionaries. As a young man, you really want to get married. But did you realize your shepherd wants you to get married way more than you do? If you successfully pass MbF, your shepherd will gain much honor and prestige. Use that to your advantage. NOTE: Koreans have a loud bark, yes. But they are not really “marines of Christianity”. You can push them. They are more like marshmallows. But be wise in how you push. You will need more cunning, more prayer and more wisdom to pull off a successful MbF than anything you’ve done in your life.
2. Go on holy dates. You already attend so many meetings right? Well use each Friday meeting as a “holy date”. You won’t be able to talk to any woman, that would kill your chances of MbF. But while you are sitting in your chair, imagine you are already married to one of the single women there. Try out different women, dating them virtually in your mind. Pay attention to their testimony and see if they seem like someone you like. Of course, if your chapter doesn’t have mixed Friday meetings (with men and women), you’ll have to be more creative, like going on holy dates during Sunday service. If you already have met a girl in UBF and she likes you, then you’re in luck. You can both go on a holy date together (but be certain never to talk to each other or even look at each other during the meeting).
3. Do 5:30 AM Daily Bread before beginning the conversation. Suck it up and do Daily Bread for three weeks straight. Then ask for a meeting with your shepherd to talk about marriage. At that meeting, don’t talk about yourself, focus the discussion on your shepherd’s marriage. Normally he will want to share how beautiful his MbF process was. Be sure to express how much you want to glorify God like he did.
4. Use reverse psychology. After a few years of holy dating, you probably have a good idea of who you would like to marry. Hopefully you have had a chance to indicate this to the girl, but that is not necessary. In MbF, you get to choose your wife as “the man”. But your marriage will be far better off if you can be friends with the girl and get some indication if she likes you too. So what do you do? BY NO MEANS do you ever, ever ask to marry a specific girl. That is cause for dead-dog training and possibly a two year delay in the MbF process. So you use reverse psychology. Come up with a prayer topic that is general, but would open the way for the girl you like to be your “chosen one”. For example, if you are filled with Russian mission vision, pray something like this: “I will marry any UBF shepherdess who has Russian mission vision.” Share that for three weeks in a row after initiating the MbF conversation with your shepherd. BY NO MEANS do you share this prayer topic before meeting with your shepherd. That is also cause for a 6 month or 1 year delay in your MbF. There is an added bonus by sharing such a prayer topic: you might find a girl who likes you this way. If some sister hears that you want to be a missionary to Russia, she might suddenly start talking about Russia a lot in her testimonies :)
More secrets, tips and tricks to come… feel free to comment here. This is an open mic and I will never reveal your identity.
Hi Brian, are you being serious, or tongue-in-cheek? I can’t quite tell.
Believe it or not, I am serious. This post is not a joke. I am not being facetious, but recommending my best advice for getting through marriage by faith. Are there better ways? I hope there are.
In fact, everything here is what I actually did. If I had not done such things, I would not have survived marriage by faith.
One of my friends messed up something in his MbF process. His dead dog training was to write down everything he did for every minute of every day. He had to turn in this report for many days.
Two other friends wanted to get married, but they screwed up royally by having a movie date. They had to leave UBF in order to get married because they were convinced they were supposed to be together. They are both still friends and still married to this day.
With dead-dog training like that, he should have adopted this guy as a role model: http://soundportraits.org/on-air/worlds_longest_diary/transcript.php
My Shepard prayed tonight that God would grant me a suitable helper and help me start a house church. Is this a sign he is starting this process? Or is this standard stuff?
Hi Forests,
This prayer is not standard stuff.. no ubf chapter director would pray for marriage unless they were actively looking for your “suitable helper”. To the ubf missionary, prayer=action and action=prayer, so there is almost no chance they he is only praying– he is looking and likely already found your “co-worker”.
Here is what this prayer topic means:
1. Your chapter director is acting out the role of the servant in Genesis 24:1-9. He is treating you like “Isaac” and will go to a foreign land (Korea) because all the women in this land (America) are like the ungodly Canaanites. In his eyes American women are not good enough, so he ideally will want to find a Korean woman for you.
2. You will likely be married by Christmas this year, or whenever you are going to Korea (you are going to Korea right?). When you go to Korea, you’ll get engaged and/or married, and then you will come back to America. But guess what? Your “co-woker” will stay in Korea for 1 year. She will be trained until she proves she is indoctrinated with the ubf heritage sufficiently. If she fails the training, she will be made to stay another year. Some excuse will be made up for you, like “visa problems”, so that you don’t become alarmed.
This is a favorite method of mild “dead dog training” of the ubf missionaries. You’ve been demonstrating your independent mind and critical thinking lately, correct? So in the ubf missionary mind, you need training from a Korean woman because an American woman would “lead you astray”. Marriage is used like a “dangling carrot” in ubf to “train you in godliness”.
Oh and remember that special photo that your chapter director insisted you be in with him? Why was he so insistent? It was because he needed a photo with him and you so he could send back to Korea (or wherever your co-worker candidate has been found). This all sounds like my friend, who was married to a Korean woman. I’ll put you in contact with him privately (or he may read this and reply), because he can answer your questions better.
The bottom line is this: Get ready to be married and to be “trained in godliness” in some way.