The Marriage To The Max Podcast

“I didn’t sign up for this!” This week,  Brett and Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement discuss a phrase that they hear often from married couples, both newly married and those that have been married a long time. Frequently, this comment is made in the midst of a peak moment of frustration or disillusionment within marriage. It’s not uncommon. In fact, if most happily married “veteran” couples were...

Where would you take your spouse for a “dream” date night? A sunset beach setting? A mountaintop view? Or would it be your local hospital? In this episode,  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement unpack a recent family health crisis. During this conversation, they discuss the many lessons about their marriage that they learned and re-learned as they went through this particular experience tog...

This week on “Marriage to the Max”,  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement interview good friends Chris & Meka Arend. The Hursts and the Arends have been in the same Married Life Group for the last five years. During this episode, the conversation centers around the Arends’ new innovative idea–—having an annual “State of the Union” marriage and family retreat. Chris and Meka unpack their ins...

We appreciate your ongoing listening to “Marriage to the Max”, the weekly marriage podcast hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. This week, we revisit the topic of managing conflict within marriage. As always, it’s important for us to emphasize that EVERY married couple will encounter the challenges of disagreement—it’s a very normal situation in marriage. Conflict is simply a di...

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, the marriage podcast hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. In this week’s episode, we discuss “Your Communication IQ“. As a married couple, how do you currently communicate together? This is an important topic that needs constant unpacking within married couples. In marriage (or in any other personal relationship), you can’t take effective c...

Thanks for listening to “Marriage to the Max”, a weekly podcast about marriage hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. This week, our topic is “Realistic Expectations in Marriage”. Now, of course, we believe with God at the center of your marriage relationship, that all things are possible—we believe that marriage offers a couple one joyful opportunity after another! Yet, many folk...

This week on “Marriage to the Max”, we bring you a rich marriage conversation with our good friends, James and Rachel Poysky. James earned an MA in Psychology, an MA in Christian Leadership, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. James is a  Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy  board member and Clinical Assistant Professor at Baylor Co...

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, a podcast hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. This week, we return to an experiment we tried a few episodes ago. We are bringing you again some hand-selected quotes about marriage from famous people and some not-so-famous people—and then we are subjecting you to our comments about those quotes! When we tried this format a few weeks ago, we...

This week’s episode is entitled “Introverts vs. Extroverts” and deals with the challenges and opportunities of marriages and households that incorporate the strengths and growth opportunities of both general types of temperaments. There’s a lot of truth to the old phrase “opposites attract”. It is definitely the rule, rather than the exception. And one of the most blatant examples of this is in th...

Happy New Year to you and your family! And thanks for listening to “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. We are so grateful for all the new listeners to our marriage podcast since we launched back in October 2012. We’re even more surprised that most of you tell us you can’t wait to hear the next one! Thanks for your feedback–it really helps us! In this MTTM...

Merry Christmas and welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, a marriage podcast, hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. We hope you and your family are celebrating this very important day together in peace and with great thanksgiving! Our podcast today is an interview taped earlier this year with our very good friend, Deborah Kristen. Deborah is the Program Director of  The Clearing...

We’re so glad for your continued listening of our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. And we greatly appreciate your ongoing feedback and comments! We have entitled this week’s conversation, “A Marriage of Grace”. When we are in ongoing dialogue with struggling couples, or even couples in critical crisis, we very frequently hear the desi...

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, a marriage podcast hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement . We’re always grateful that you join us for these podcast episodes. We hope you’ll continue to make it part of your weekly routine. We will continue to shoot for releasing a new episode every Tuesday. This week’s topic is “Affair Proofing Your Marriage”. Actually, we had some debate abo...

Thanks for listening again to “Marriage to the Max”, a marriage podcast hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement . We hope you have been enjoying each weekly episode. We continue to release a new installment of these conversations every Tuesday. Please feel free to leave your comments regarding these episodes. Give us your feedback. It helps us to know what types of podcasts to create...

We’re grateful for your continued investment into our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by  Brett & Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. We enjoy bringing you this podcast with a new episode every week. During this week’s installment, we bring you our first “marriage quotes” conversation. We thought it would be a fun idea for the two of us to gather some quotes by famous and not-so-f...

Welcome back to Marriage to the Max, the weekly podcast hosted by  Brett and Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. In this week’s episode, we conclude with “Part 2” our in-depth conversation with gifted counselor  Adam Mason  of Houston’s First Baptist Church. We received so much from listening to Adam in these sessions together. Adam’s vast wisdom and experience offers much to all married couples....

Thank you for your continued listening of our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by  Brett and Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. In this new episode, we are honored to feature our very first interview guest.  Adam Mason  is the Minister of  Counseling Services at Houston’s First Baptist Church , one of the pioneer church counseling organizations in the country. Adam is an ordained...

Welcome back to “Marriage to the Max”, the weekly marriage podcast hosted by  Brett and Kellie Hurst  of Home Encouragement. This week, we discuss “Communication 101”. This is a vital topic for most couples. Are you aware that the average amount of quality conversation per day for married couples is 3 minutes? Wow! Really? That staggers the mind, frankly. However, we’re willing to bet that, with j...

This week, Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement discuss “Divine Romance” on the Marriage to the Max podcast. Is the idea of romance between a man and a woman a divine idea? Most certainly, it is! And, even more unequivocally, God is the utmost expert on a married couple’s need for romance. As a matter of fact, scripturally speaking, it’s crystal clear that the Lord desires married couples to...

Thanks so much for listening to our new marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. Your positive emails are keeping us going and we’re glad that the content has seemed helpful to several couples. We also hope that you have been enjoying listening to us bumble through these conversations. At least we’re having fun doing this….not sure about anyone...

Thank you again for listening to our new podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement! This week’s topic, “Date Your Mate”, is obviously focused on that very vital subject of marital dating. Even though we have worked with couples for many years now, it always surprises us how many married couples have stopped the fun and creative practice of dating altogeth...

Thanks to everyone who listened to last week’s first episode of our new podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett and Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. It was great hearing from you! This week’s episode is about F.A.C.E. time–a simple way to remember to stay better connected as married couples. During some weeks, daily stressors alone can keep spouses from being intimate on any level. Coup...

Welcome to our new blogsite for the Marriage to the Max Podcast. Marriage to the Max is a weekly podcast hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst, co-founders of Home Encouragement in Houston, Texas. Our goal is to encourage married couples to take marriage to the next level. We have a simple hope…and that is to make marriage a front-burner conversation! We are grateful to you for your interest in this podc...