Lesson 07 (Making Amends)

June 19th, 2025
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Key Concept

Pursue peace with your spouse because Christ pursued peace with you.
The goal of this lesson is to help participants realize that when conflict occurs in their marriage, they often have a part in it. To make peace with their spouse they must take full responsibility for their part without excuse, blame-shifting, or any expectation that their spouse will own their side of the conflict. This lesson will show participants how to identify their part in the conflict and provide clear steps for making amends.

Question Highlights

  • Q1:  What are some subjects, topics, circumstances, or settings that often lead to conflict in your marriage?
    Try not to spend too much time on this question. Simple one-word answers should suffice. Since the group has been together for weeks, it’s not unusual for the answers to be well known already, e.g. “You guys are always fighting about how to discipline the kids.”

  • Q2:  When you were growing up, how did your family resolve conflict?  What aspects would you like to build into your marriage?  Avoid?
    This question helps you better understand participants’ stories of origin. Many have a desire to do things differently but find themselves falling into the same old patterns, so this lesson can be a reset for how to handle conflict.


  • Q4:  What questions or doubts do you have about the process of making amends?
    Some of the concerns that frequently come up:
    • “My spouse may not admit their part and/or make amends.” The spouse may never admit it. But that does not release you from your obligation to own your part. See Romans 12:18.
    • Under the bullet “Repairing the damage of your sin”, you are to ask your spouse if there is anything you can do to make up for the hurt you’ve caused. Beware of spouses who are demanding repayment for the harm because it might indicate they have not forgiven the offense. We are to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, which means the debt has been released to God and we will not demand repayment.

  • Action Item 2: Share a "log in your eye" that you discovered in question three and practice making amends with your spouse. Then, practice receiving amends when your spouse shares his or her "log" with you.  Write down what you experience. 
    This is a crucial moment. Was every participant able to see something they could own? Reinforce the question “Would Christ have acted, said, or thought exactly like me in this conflict?”.

    If not, ask open ended questions to help them see it, such as:
    • What tone and body language did you use to communicate?
    • What outcome were you hoping for when you began the conversation?
    • If the roles were reversed and s/he asked you that question, how would you have responded?

  • Action Item 3:  Afterward, ask how you can improve at making and receiving amends.  Thank your spouse and record his or her answers.  
    Ask couples how they did receiving improvements from each other. You are hoping to see couples have healthy exchanges, especially those who struggled giving constructive feedback in the past.

Reminders

  • Remind your group that this is peacemaking step 2 of 3.
    • Keep the focus on this step. For some, there will be a tendency to jump ahead to the principles in the next lesson (reconciliation) where both spouses reach agreement. For this lesson, continue to focus inside your circle and own your part.
    • Action item 4 encourages participants to start Lesson 8 early. You might give them a preview by turning to Lesson 8 and let them see the whole peacemaking process (Steps 1-4), as well as Appendix D. Encourage participants to set aside time in the upcoming week (and you set aside time to pray for and encourage them). Point out the last sentence on page 57: “This exercise is to learn the process, not to address all problems at once.” Just get started!
  • Continue to reinforce principles from previous lessons, for example, a significant amount of humility (Lesson 4) is required to stay in your circle and own your part in a conflict.
  • An often-used resource to help reinforce Matthew 7:3-5 is the Conflict Field Guide. It has some helpful language around “getting the log out of your own eye”.
  • You might notice a few typos in Appendix C, which is referenced in this lesson. Review the Curriculum Version 3 Typos and share the corrections with your group if appropriate. If you find any other typos, let us know!
Small Group Ground Rules
Posted in Re Engage

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