Courtship vs. Dating {Will and Brittany's story}

Will and Brittany began their courtship on March 28^th of this year. Some of you may be wondering what a courtship looks like.  How does courtship look different than dating?  

     

    Here is a description of courtship and what Will and Brittany’s story looks like so far, as told by Will…..

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“Where casual dating tends to lend itself to a premature over focus on the romantic/emotional side of the relationship, a courtship focuses on getting to know a person’s beliefs, convictions, and personality to determine if that person is someone you would want to spend the rest of your life with.  It’s been described as “Dating with a Purpose”.  With dating relationships there is usually a focus on the romance, to the point where most couples begin to function and live as if they were already married, but in a courtship certain aspects of the romance are kept at bay until marriage, such as most couples usually wait until the altar for their first kiss.  The blessing of this is that if, in the course of the courtship, the couple feels it is not God’s will for them to marry and they walk away from the relationship, they can leave not having significant emotional scars or given anything romantically to the other person, thus saving that only for the person they will marry.  The families are also very involved in a courtship as the parents on both sides give guidance and counsel to the relationship.  

»Acquaintance   Our family first met the Spragg family in 2005 when we moved to Kansas.  They taught their kids at home as well, so we were involved together in a group that took field trips and did different activities together.  Our families became good friends, and we spent quite a bit of time together, going over to their house for supper, or having them over.  With Brittany being a few years older than I, we were friends, but did not get real close to each other.  I recognized Brittany as being the Godly young woman she is, but did not really think about starting a relationship with her at that time.  We then moved to Arkansas in 2011, but our families still kept in touch through our mom’s phone conversations (most of which lasted several hours J).

»Friendship   Now jump ahead to the spring of 2014. I’m 21, Brittany is 24, and now I’m really looking for a wife, and she’s ready to become one.  Brittany joined Facebook around that time, and we began to message each other back and forth.  We continued this all through summer and fall where the frequency of our messaging began to go up.  In December, God really began working on my heart and opened my eyes to the possibility of starting a relationship with her.  After much prayer about this I approached my parents and shared with them my interest in the matter.  They were very supportive about this, counseled me to talk with Mr. Spragg to share with him my interest in his daughter, and ask his permission to begin talking with her on the phone.  While I was not quite ready to start a courtship at this time, I wanted to begin talking with Brittany about that possibility and get to know her better.  So we began talking on the phone about two or three times a week.  It was kind of awkward at first, where we would run out of things to talk about, but that soon changed.  Our friendship began to deepen, and I quickly began to see that I wanted to proceed in starting a courtship with her.  So I spent some time praying about that, receiving counsel from my parents, and began making plans to travel down to Fort Worth to visit them (they had moved to Fort Worth in 2013 due to Mr. Spragg’s work).  I wanted to have some face to face time with Brittany before I asked if she would like to start a courtship, due to the fact that it had been about three years since I had seen her.  So on March 27, I made a trip down there and my mom tagged along to have some “girl” time with Mrs. Spragg. 

»Courtship   So we arrived on Friday afternoon, and spent an evening of visiting and playing games.  The next morning Brittany and I went for a walk in their neighborhood, where we had a good talk, and I decided I wanted to talk with her dad about beginning a courtship with her.  Throughout this whole process I’ve tried to make sure I respect Mr. Spragg’s authority as her father and seek his blessing before taking these steps.  God presented an opportunity to do that later that morning where we talked, and he gave his approval for us to begin a courtship.  We had already made plans for Brittany, her siblings, and myself to attend the wedding of some of their friends, so later that afternoon at the reception we walked down to a spot overlooking a lake where I asked her if she would like to start a courtship with me.  And she said yes!  So we proceeded the rest of that weekend to discuss the purpose of our relationship and the physical boundaries that we would have.  Now, through many phone conversations, and weekend trips to Fort Worth, we are seeking to grow closer to each other, to study each other, and seek God’s will in our lives.  We talk about everything from our beliefs and convictions, our life goals, our fears and failures, to just how our day went.  It’s been an exciting process, in which I look forward to seeing how God will work in our lives.

 »Engagement   This, of course, will be the last step if God leads and directs our relationship toward marriage.  We would both appreciate your prayers for us as we seek God’s will for our lives.”

*Three good books on dating and courtship are “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and “Boy Meets Girl”, both written by Joshua Harris, and also Voddie Baucham’s book “What He Must Be”.