May 3—Brad and Marilyn Rhoads are like many couples whose marriages have faced challenges.

Those experiences — and how they've overcome their struggles — serve as the foundation for their new book, "The Grace Marriage," which takes a Christian-based approach to help couples keep their matrimony going even during hard times, avoiding divorce.

The Rhoadses launched the book Tuesday at their 620 Carlton Drive office in conjunction with an open house.

"We share real stories and it hits the reader where they are," Marilyn Rhoads said. "A lot of it is from our personal marriage and what the Lord has shown us. It's having a grace-based approach instead of a works-based approach to marriage. That was the whole shift in our marriage. So we tell our story about how we went from a train wreck of a marriage to God redeeming it."

In 2012, the Rhoadses began hosting marriage groups around the idea of couples sharing their experiences and using the Christian faith as a solution to resolving marital problems.

Three years later that grew into what became Grace Marriage — a Christian-based organization designed to help churches create marriage ministries, along with counseling couples, to reduce divorce.

And to do that, Brad Rhoads left his nearly 20-year career as an attorney to focus on Grace Marriage.

The Rhoadses, who've been married for 27 years, said there were pre-marital and crisis counseling programs for couples, but nothing was offered that was geared to being proactive in keeping marriages healthy.

"We really didn't have any strategies for marriage," Brad Rhoads said. "So it just seemed like a bad approach — get people ready for something, and if it ever gets terrible we'll try to fix it. It seemed like it made more sense to help people do marriage well so they never go through the terrible pains of crisis and the terrible pains of divorce. A more preventive wellness approach needs to be primary in the church and not just a prescriptive response approach."

The couple, who write a monthly column for the Messenger-Inquirer, began writing the 202-page book three years ago and co-wrote it with Brittany Cragg, who edits and authors curriculum as the director of content for Grace Marriage.

The book was published by Moody Publishers, a Chicago-based nonprofit Christian publishing house. The book can be purchased on Amazon and at retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Walmart and Target.

"It's been a gift," said Marilyn Rhoads about having the book published. "Our hope is that, in prayers, it just gets into more people's hands. We reach people through the churches, and we have Grace Marriage at home that people can find online.

"But our prayer is that more couples can hear the Gospel for marriage."

Don Wilkins, dwilkins@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-691-7299