How We Love Group Study for Churches

This study is designed to put the principles from the book, How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance your Marriage into practice.

WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR THE CHURCH GROUP STUDY?

• Group Leaders: The leader will need streaming access to the Video Curriculum and a Leader’s Guide. (NOTE: The Leader Guide contains all of the Participant Guide material, along with additional instructions and notes for leading the group, so leaders do not need to purchase a separate Participant Guide.)  The video access is available on this website through the online account of the purchaser. It is available to be viewed in a streaming format for the time period selected during purchase.
• Group Participants: Each group member needs their own Participant Guide.

WHAT WILL PARTICIPANTS LEARN?

While How We Love was originally written to help strengthen marriages, the attachment research behind the book—and the practical tools we’ve developed—can improve many different types of relationships.

Our Love Style, or attachment style, is most strongly activated in our closest relationships—often with a spouse or serious dating partner. However, these same relational tendencies can also influence our relationships with family members, friends, coworkers, and others.

Throughout the study, participants will learn about the five insecure Love Styles and how the attachment imprints formed earlier in life can affect emotional intimacy, communication, conflict, and connection in adulthood.

Understanding our Love Styles gives us an opportunity to identify areas that need healing, develop new relational skills, and grow in wisdom and maturity—becoming more like Christ (Ephesians 4:13–16).

As participants gain insight into their early attachment imprints and recognize how those experiences continue to influence their relationships, they will begin practicing one of the primary tools of How We Love: the Comfort Circle. The ultimate goal is not simply greater self-awareness, but learning the skills necessary to develop secure attachment and become a Secure Connector.

WHO IS THE STUDY FOR?

You do not need to be married—or attend with a spouse—to benefit from the Church Group Study.

The study can benefit:

• Married couples who want to better understand each other, improve communication, and develop deeper emotional connection.
• Married individuals attending without their spouse who want to better understand their own Love Style and relational responses—even if their spouse is disengaged in efforts to improve the relationship.
• Singles and dating individuals who want to understand recurring challenges in their relationships and build healthier relationship skills before marriage.
• Divorced individuals who want greater insight into the dynamics that contributed to previous relationship difficulties and learn healthier ways of approaching future relationships.

We believe this material can strengthen healthy marriages, help struggling couples change destructive relational cycles, and equip individuals with skills that can help prevent future relationship breakdown and divorce.

HOW IS THE STUDY STRUCTURED?

The Church Group Study consists of nine sessions. Each session includes:

• Two studio-recorded teaching videos featuring Milan and Kay Yerkovich
• Guided discussions and reflection questions
• Practical exercises and relationship skill practices
• A Leader Training video to help facilitators prepare for that week’s session

Churches also receive our recommended Best Practices resource to help leaders structure and facilitate the study for maximum impact.

As with most successful group programs, intentionality matters. The more consistently participants engage with the videos, discussions, exercises, and relationship skills, the more opportunity they have to experience meaningful and lasting growth in their marriages and other important relationships.

SESSION Breakdown:

• SESSION ONE – Introduction: Key Elements to a Successful Relationship
• SESSION TWO – Early Development and Its Effects on Adult Relationships
• SESSION THREE – Understanding Love Styles: The Avoider and the Pleaser
• SESSION FOUR – Understanding Love Styles: The Vacillator and Core Patterns
• SESSION FIVE – Understanding Love Styles: The Chaotic (Controller/Victim)
• SESSION SIX – Triggers, Growth Goals, and the Comfort Circle
• SESSION SEVEN – The Comfort Circle: Seek Awareness and Engage
• SESSION EIGHT – The Comfort Circle: Explore and Resolve
• SESSION NINE – When Past and Present Collide: Relating as Adults in Our Families of Origin