Twenty-years ago I pulled into Champaign-Urbana driving a 1974 baby-blue Ford LTD with a significant oil leak.  Sitting beside me on the vinyl bench seat was my bride of nine days.  A new campus ministry job at the University of Illinois brought me to the twin cities.  I came with a big Bible secured inside a garish leather case, a box full of massive Bible commentaries and an opinion on almost everything.

Any perceptive observer could see beneath the veneer.  Our first Sunday in town we dutifully attended church.  Incredibly, a man leading a class on marriage asked me to substitute for him the following Sunday.

Without giving it a second thought I said yes.  True, nine days of marriage wasn’t much experience.  But remember, I was a campus minister, although brand new and entirely untested.

All of the half dozen married couples in the class were older than my wife and I were, and the majority had been married more than a year.  No problem.  I prepared a lesson on the characteristics of a good marriage.  Sunday arrived and I started delivering my talk with both authority and gusto.

I was quite impressed with my performance until people started asking questions such as, “What about those times we have big fights?”

“Fights,” I responded, looking across the room at my blue-eyed, blond-haired wife, “I can’t imagine having a serious fight with my wife.”  Plainly, Mr. nine-days-of-marriage was oblivious to what it takes to have a good marriage.

At that point, I lost the class.  A spirited discussion ensued and the lesson clunked to an unceremonious end.  I should have been smart enough to decline the offer to teach the class.  But it took no brains to see that the couples in the class had shut me off.  It would take a fledgling campus minister with an over inflated ego to make an audacious comment about never having a fight with his wife.

Clearly, I had no relationship with the couples.  Moreover, my teaching skills essentially were untested.  In actual fact, I had no equity with those couples.

After 25 years of marriage to the same good wife and having counseled lots of engaged and married couples, I know that building equity is crucial in every relationship, especially marriage.

Equity is people’s good will.  It’s their trust in you.  It’s like a bank account.  You can make deposits and withdrawals.  If you have a strong balance, things go smoothly.  If you’re overdrawn, relationships start bouncing.  Money and relationships both can bounce right out the door.

Take pastoral ministry as an example.  Some pastors I know have become leaders in congregations where the former minister was strong-handed with his authority.  Sadly, the new pastor begins with a deficient in his account.  People may say to him, “So nice to meet you, pastor.”  But what they really are saying is “Hello, power-hungry, controlling religious person.  You’re not going to have any influence in my life.”

People interact with others according to an instinctive sense of equity.  If a prickly issue appears, one of my first thoughts is, “Does this person respect my opinion?” If my equity is negative, the chances of a successful confrontation are not very good.  I quickly try to find someone else who does have equity with the person who can work through the problem.  That individual will have a higher degree of trust.

Giving wise counsel is a good way to make an equity deposit.  Asking your wife for a date well in advance puts big money in the bank.  A pastor who delivers a well-prepared sermon makes a substantial equity deposit.

Without enough deposits, however, you may try to spend equity you don’t have.  That’s what happened when, as a young pup, I tried to speak definitively about marriage.  If the equity account of a pastor or a boss or a parent is low, and yet the person in charge keeps pushing for more and more, revolt is not far away.

After 25 years of marriage, I know that you cannot fight every battle that comes along.  Contest every scuffle and you will not have enough equity when you need it.

Time after time in marriage and parenting and work and friendship -- well, in all of life -- I am faced with the same questions, “Is this battle worth fighting?  Am I going for broke on this one, spending my equity, or do I need to save it for something of greater priority?”
 
 

Don Follis is an Urbana pastor and member of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Urbana, Ill.  His column
appears on Fridays.  Copyright © 2003 by the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.