1. Attraction: Be attracted to godly opposite sex only. The best way to be more attracted to a godly person of the opposite sex is to love Jesus more. The more you grow in your love for Christ, the more you will want to worship, serve, and obey Him. The more you want to worship, serve, and obey Christ…the more you will want to be with someone who shares your love for Him. Don’t waste your time with those who don’t love Christ, who don’t love the church, and who don’t love His Word.

2. Ask Out: Guys, ask the girl out. Ladies, don’t be the one who asks the guys out. You can make yourself available to him by simply saying, “If you asked me out, I’d say YES!” If the guy you like doesn’t ask you out, then he either doesn’t like you enough to ask you out, or he isn’t man enough to have you. Guys, ask the girls out from the beginning to establish your spiritual leadership from the get go.

3. Move Slow: It is straight up scary to watch how fast teenagers today get into exclusive relationships. It can be as easy as…I like you. I like you too. Want to be my girlfriend? Sure, thought you’d never ask! Yeah, that’s totally ridiculous. Relationships aren’t about dating, but relationships are about marriage. Start thinking through if you really want to be with this person. Pray through it a lot. Ask God what He wants you to do. Trust Him that He’ll work it out in His time. Get into relationships slowly, prayerfully, and thoughtfully!  

4. Guy/Spiritual Leadership: Guys, be the leader in the relationship by picking the places to go out, asking her what she wants, making the decisions on the dates, romancing her in that way, taking care of her and not advantage of her. Get to know her. Talk to her. Study the Word and pray together. Guys, you need to lead in this. Pick a passage together. Read it separately. Talk about it together (even on the phone). Do this daily! Pray daily. Talk about weekly sermons from your church. Talk about what God did in your life through your small group session. Talk about what God is doing in your life. Talk about spiritual things. Talk about Christ! If you pray, worship, and study the Word together…Satan has much less power to tempt you to sin.

5. Family: Get to know the family. You’re not just dating the person, you’re dating the family. You’re not just marrying the person, but you’re marrying their family. The better you get to know their family while dating, the better your marriage will be. Remember, relationships aren’t about dating, but they are about marriage. So spend time in each other’s homes with each other’s families.

6. Real Conversation: Talk about things that count. Talk about who you want to be. What you want to do. What kind of husband/wife you want to be. What kind of parenting you want to do. How you want to be involved in the church. If this is really awkward for you, then you aren’t ready for a relationship. Relationships aren’t about dating, but they are about marriage1

7. Pray Continually: Pray about the relationship constantly about whether or not God wants you together, and whether or not He wants you to have a future together. Pray together, and pray separately about each other. Make sure to not EVER move forward in a relationship unless God is the One who is moving you forward. Don’t take a step without Him.

8. Give Freedom: Give each other a lot of freedom to cheat. What?! What I mean is this… You want to know whether or not the person you’re in a relationship is really and truly all about you, that they are faithful at heart, and that they aren’t a cheater. So don’t make them do anything, try to hold them back, or put rules on them that would hold them down. Rather, you want to see if you can really trust them. Do let them know your expectations. Your expectations should be that they should not spend time with, internet chat with, text with, or hangout with someone of the opposite sex alone. When you are married, you will not be able to watch their every move and check on them every second. Constant fear will ruin your marriage, so give them freedom to cheat on you now so you can know for the rest of your life if you can truly trust them.

9. Get Engaged: When you’re totally confident (and only then) that they are the person you want to marry because of their relationship with Christ and their relationship with you, then guys should ask the girl to marry them. Plan on being engaged for a short time. Allow just enough time to plan the wedding. The longer you’re engaged, the more opportunity and temptation you’ll have to sexually sin…and sexual sin is not okay in engagement. So the shorter the engagement, the better!

10. Get Married, Have Babies: Get married, love each other, love Christ, and have tons of babies. Just like in Esther, God saved His people because they were the ones He called to spread His glory over all the earth. That’s what we’re called to do as Christians. We need to have lots of babies (be fruitful and multiply) to spread the glory of Christ by raising kids in a way that they will go out, leave the home, and serve Christ with their lives too by doing the same thing!