Laugh and Connect Doing Life Together | Comedy | Ted Cunningham

Instead of being teammates through the grind of life, as Ecclesiastes 9-9 calls us to, we took each other for granted and we turned each other into opponents. And now we saw everything we said and did in one day was all just and everything. We could be, hey, where do you want to eat? I don't care. Why don't we try red lobster? I'm not feeling seafood. What about all? You're not feeling it. OK, you just said you don't care, but you have a strong opinion on where we eat. Well, I traveled here alone tonight from Branson, Missouri. Anybody been to Branson, Missouri? Woo! I usually am told my parents love that place. And so, bring your parents to Branson. We would love to entertain them on Country Music Boulevard. But my name's Ted Cunningham. I pastor a church, Woodland Hills Family Church in Branson and grateful to be here tonight to be a part of it. I met my wife, Amy, on a blind date. I'll show you a picture of her. I met her on a blind date at Liberty University over 23 years ago. And the night I met her, I looked at my friend. I said, I'm going to marry this woman. And Austin said, you can't decide that. I said, I already did. I just decided that. And I'll never forget walking into the kitchen of her six foot two, full-blooded Norwegian father. And I said, I would like permission to marry your daughter, to which he responded in his thick Norwegian accent, you'll betcha. I said, but only under one condition. I had just graduated. She had a year left, and I'm an advocate for young marriage. And so, I wanted to break all the rules and have us get married at 22 and 21. But I wanted to get married between her junior and her senior year. And I said, I'll only do it in between her junior and senior year if you let me pay for her senior year of college, to which he said, you'll betcha. And I'm telling you, you haven't — listen, marriage, it's been so much — I'm an advocate. Young guys come up to me all the time and they're like, bro, how did you get married at 22 and 21 and pay cash for a senior year of college? I said, it's this thing called a job. I had a job. And I always get pushback from young guys. They'll be like, bro, I can't afford to get married that young. And I'm always like, bro, I would believe that if you weren't holding a venti caramel macchiato in your right hand and an iPhone 10 in your left. You need to start thinking Folgers and flip phones, bro. You can't start marriage with a wife and unlimited data. You gotta pick one. And you haven't gotten marriage started right until you get your parents' hand-me-down mattress. Can I get an amen on that one? You know what I'm talking about. The dip already built in. You get in and you roll. Now, that's a good way to start marriage. I tell the young guys at our church all the time, don't go to Ethan Allen. You can't afford Ethan Allen furniture. Go to Home Depot, buy cinder blocks and 1x12s for your shelving. You go to thrift stores. This is the only way to do it. So, we got married. We married young. We're celebrating our 23 years of marriage this year. So, I can't wait to be able to stand at 25 years. And this is my daughter, Corinne. She travels with me a lot. She's our pioneer girl. She's our outdoor girl. She loves knitting and crocheting and sewing and all of that. And this Joe White raised this fawn and Corinne was like, man, I want to go see sugar. I want to go see sugar. I want to go see sugar. So, I would take her down to see sugar every chance I had. This is my son. He loves deer too. He's pretty passionate about deer. I did 78 events last year around the country and two churches told me I could not show that picture. And so, I didn't realize like, oh, I come from Branson, Missouri, you know, Bass Pro Shops country. So, I didn't realize that there's people sensitive to this. So, I've been asking everywhere I go, hey, is it okay if I show that picture? I came here like, can I show that? They're like, are you kidding? That's half the profile pictures of the people who'll be here tonight. So, whenever I show that picture now in California or New York, I make sure they know I released the deer in a forest preserve down the road. I never would take the life of an animal. No, I've never been hunting. I grew up in a fishing family and my dad taught us how to fish. And so, Joe White from Canuckuck, he takes Carson out and teaches them for a year how to shoot. And then he goes on Thanksgiving weekend, he puts us in a blind and by herself, just me and Carson, this 11, 12 point buck comes out within two hours. And any hunters in the room, can I just see? I know I'm in Colorado. Yeah. So, you know that first time I ever experienced that. I felt a little bit when I've caught fish, but like first time I was like, man, I started shaking, like the adrenaline was coursing through me. And I leaned over to Carson, I go, I don't think I should pick the gun up right now. He said, dad, I got it. And he dropped that buck. And I was like, I couldn't believe it. I didn't ask him to pose for that picture. We went down Creekside, man, we were high-fiving, we were having the time of our lives. And after about five minutes of celebrating, Carson goes, dad, dad, dad, what do we do? What do we do? I'm like, I have absolutely no idea. But I think, according to the movie Red Dawn, you got to take a bite out of its heart. While I yell, Wolverines, I think that's how this whole thing goes down. I love, I love raising kids. I, I grew up in an independent fundamental pre-millennial King James Version, only Baptist church. And, and so I grew up in a church that taught me how to love Jesus. Grew up in a home that taught me how to love Jesus. But I grew up in a church and a home that taught me how to honor purity, not necessarily marriage. And I really wasn't all that prepared for marriage. I wasn't prepared, I wasn't discipled in this area. And I'll, I mean, the message I got on Hebrews 13, 4 growing up, the Hebrews 13, 4 says marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure. And this is how it was taught to us. Sex is dirty, nasty, and ugly, and you should save it for the one you love. Raise your hand if you learned that growing up. Would you just raise your hand? It's because we grew up in churches and homes that taught us well, but we never talked about this subject. It was never discussed. I wasn't prepared for it going into marriage. I wasn't, I remember on the day of my wedding is when my dad decided I should have that talk with him. Now this would be a good time. We're walking through the parking lot of La Quinta and we know what La Quinta means. It means next to Denny's. We're walking over to Denny's and my dad, my 52 year old engineer father says, son, do you have any questions? I said, dad, it's, it's a little too late. I don't, I can't, I'm not going to share anything. And I think that's the answer you want to go. I just want you to know I'm available if you have any questions. And I said, no, and I'll never forget. I went into marriage with that bad belief on my heart, feeling like a pervert when I would initiate with my wife. I'll never forget one night in bed. She was reading a book about seven years into our marriage. She was reading a book on how men think it's, it's not a real thick book. You can read it in about a night. That's true. I always get asked what book are you talking about? Shanti Feldheim's book, four women only talking about how men are turned on visually. And my wife is reading this book. And I mean, she's getting more and more mad. She's frustrated with this book. And I'm over here in the fetal position on this side of the bed, not wanting to talk about it, not wanting to have a conversation because I grew up in a church in a home. We didn't talk about it. Why start talking about it now? And Amy, my wife said, we're talking about it. And we had a conversation that week. She dove into everything. She could find everything that Beth Moore ever said on the subject. And if I see, I mentioned Beth Moore tonight and there's ladies going, Oh, what, what did I got to know what she say? What'd she say? We know if Beth Moore said it, Jesus believes it. That's really how that whole thing comes down. She came to me at the end of the week and she said, listen, we got to have a conversation. We've got to be able to talk openly about this and not be embarrassed by the subject, not let it be full of shame or guilt as maybe some of you were raised to think of this subject. She said, we need to be open about it. I said, okay, have, let's have the conversation. And we started having the conversation and we realized this should have taken place way earlier. We realized a lot of couples don't ever talk about a lot of couples have that same bad belief in their heart. They never talk about it. So we created a menu at our church, 52 questions to give the married couples that they could begin asking one another these questions to find out what's in the heart of one another when it comes to sexual intimacy and keeping the marriage bed pure. And we taught one Sunday on the song of Solomon. And when they left, I said, Hey, listen, as you leave here today, I want you to pick up this 52 question menu and a two hour burning candle. And I want you to go home, light the candle and have a two hour conversation about intimacy. And the next week one Ozarkian Bubba came up to me and he said, Hey pastor. Yeah. I found out you like that candle under a ceiling fan only takes about 45 minutes. Well, that was not the point. We wanted them to slow down and have a conversation. And I want to get you started on that conversation tonight. This is called love, laugh. And what's the last one? Pursue. The Hebrew term for pursue is bam, bam, bam, bam. The Beth Moore ladies all like I made that up. That's not true. But I like to start with the guys. And I just, I want this to be helpful. We want this to be a helpful night for you, how to, how to pursue your wife romantically and how to prepare her for a night of romance. You know what? I hear a lot in the counseling office. I hear a lot of, a lot of guys say, uh, I spent an entire day thinking tonight was the night only to discover it wasn't even on her radar. So here's how you can begin to prepare your wife. This isn't about manipulation. This isn't about control. It's about having a conversation and enjoying and keeping the marriage bed pure, honoring marriage, esteeming it as highly valuable. So guys, number one, it starts early in the morning. Okay. When it comes to sex, men are microwaves. Women are crock pots. If you want to enjoy a nice meal, when you get home, turn her on before you leave the house. In our home, we have something called the crock pot candle. And when that candle's lit, it means tonight's the night. And I always love at events like this, I will have multiple people come up to me and go, Hey, pastor, like, yeah. Hey, where do I get one of them? And I have to say it's any candle. It's not a special candle. You can go to Yankee candle workshop, pick one up, turn her on before you leave the house and give her one NST, one non-sexual touch before you leave the house. From research, we know your wife needs 12 non-sexual touches a day, and it's not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. A non-sexual touch is the hair over the ear, a hand on the small of the back, a hand on the thigh, holding hands, enjoying one another. Get to work, call her for no purpose other than to connect. Honey, what have you done since we parted ways? Tell me everything you've done. Spare me no details. How'd you feel about it? And then when she shares and you feel like she's done sharing, simply say these three words, tell me more. And the crock pot just went from low to medium. Get home, do something domestic. I have found in our home that the sound of the dishwasher turns my wife on. Now, here's a little secret, okay? You don't even need dishes in it. You just need to turn it on, spray some 409 around the kitchen. Now, this is a big one, guys, for the list, big ones, okay? Sex drive is driven by energy. So, to help her conserve energy, you are removing distractions that evening. And in our home, we have a 13 and a 15-year-old distraction. And on most nights the candle's lit, I'm running around the house going, stay away from your mother. Leave her alone. Stop talking to her. Amy will come out of the bedroom, what's going on? You stay focused. I haven't run the ball down the field all day. Be fumbling it on the five-yard line. Ladies, there's a list for you, okay? Simple list, show up naked, that's it. He needs zero non-sexual touching. He needs zero phone calls asking about his day. You'd be shocked at how distracted he can be, how cluttered the home can be. Amy and I are just, we're making the commitment to enjoy life together. Ecclesiastes 9.9 says, enjoy life with your wife whom you love all your meaningless days, for this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. And that's a decision that you make, not something that you wait for, that you hope finds you. And I am so grateful for my wife, Amy. I'm married to a strong woman. Guys, I'm going to ask you two questions and how you answer this is very important. The rate at which you answer this, the speed at which you answer this. If you're married to a strong woman, would you raise your hand? That's good. See, I shouldn't have give you so much prep on that. How you answer the next question is even more important than that question. How many of you love being married to a strong, look at that, I can't even get the question out. I love it, Ted. It's the best thing I got. Yeah, I do. You know why? Because my wife, we call them in our home declarations. Like she decides something, and we're doing it. And she's, I mean, that strength in my wife is passion. And I mean, I didn't understand this when we were first married. Where's two months? Let me just see two months. Where's two months? Two months, man, stick with me for just a second on this. Because I didn't get it when we were first married. We'd be driving down the road, everything would be good, and topic would come up, and out of nowhere, what happened? I wasn't, it's passion coming out of her. She gets passionate, and she said, when we were at that seven-year mark in marriage, we were getting to the point where it was a little like, everything was, everything was a fight. See, what happened was we turned our marriage into the grind. Instead of being teammates through the grind of life, as Ecclesiastes 9.9 calls us to, we took each other for granted, and we turned each other into opponents. And now we saw everything we said and did in one, it was all just, and everything, we could be, hey, where do you want to eat? I don't care. Why don't we try red lobster? I'm not feeling seafood. What about olive? You're not feeling, okay, you just said you don't care, but you have a strong opinion on where we eat. And I'm, but you see, that's, that's where it's, we just said, that's not the marriage we want. We don't want the marriage where everything is, we haven't even started having kids yet at this point. We're saying, so we want our kids to see this? That everything going on in the home, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. No, I said, we are not doing this. And Amy said, listen, ain't happening. Ain't happening. We, Ted Cunningham, are going to enjoy life together. Do you hear me? Yes, I, yes, ma'am. We are. This is what I love about my wife. When she gets her mind on something, there is no taking her off course. She said, we're going to have fun together. I want you to start, Ted, I want you to pick something that absolutely wears you out right now, that exhausts you in this marriage. And it can be something real small, real little, that just like, you're just like nails on a chalkboard when it takes place, because we're at each other's throats on too many areas. You pick it, and I'm going to show you how we can have fun with it. I said, game on. I'm ready for this. And this is what I told her. I said, babe, there's not a lot of adventure left for men in the world anymore. Would you please let me find my own parking space? I want to do it all by myself. I want to provide this for my family. And you know what my wife said? Game on. Game on. You know what she does now when we pull into a parking lot? She knows if she looks at a spot, it automatically disqualifies that spot. But she used to look at me with those eyes that said, you stubborn, stubborn man. Not anymore. Now, when we pull into a space that I found 20 spaces away from her third space from the door, I love this about her. She leans over, and she starts massaging my bicep. And she'll say, did this all by yourself? I'm so proud of you. Kids, doesn't your dad do a great job finding parking spaces? I return the favor. I'm like, this is exactly how this is supposed to work. Enjoying life together. What would your marriage look like if you took every irritating, frustrating, annoying thing and turned it into fun? The things that you just, just think of something right now that if I were to mention anything from driving to parking spaces, to shopping, to the bank accounts, and you just right now, you're like, start there. Say, let's find a way to have fun with that. Two months married, I don't know if this has happened to you yet. But when we were first married, she asked me questions about things, and I'd be like, wow, I don't have a clue why you would think I would have an answer for you on that. I don't, I never studied that. I don't have a degree in that. We would drive through construction zones, and Amy would be like, hey, babe. Yeah. What are they doing right here? Let's see. I wasn't involved in any of the meetings on this project. I have absolutely no idea. But that was my little husband brain going, like, why would she think for a second I have information on that? So just like she did that for me in the parking lot, I said, I'm going to return the favor and have fun with the questions that she asked while we're driving. Because we used to drive down the road and she would go, what are you thinking about right now? And I'd look at the sticker on the upper left-hand corner. We need an oil change in 300 miles. You were not just thinking about the oil change. I know I was thinking about nothing. But now watch this. This has become fun in our marriage. Now when we drive through a construction zone and she'll ask me the question, because she knows I do it every single time. She'll go, hey, babe, what are they doing right here? I turn into the construction foreman. I told him, rip it up, boys. We're going 12 lanes, not six. Listen, do you want a great marriage? Nod at me two months if you want a great marriage. If you want a great marriage, you just start making stuff up. Here's the mistake you'll make. You're going to think she wants information. She doesn't want information. She wants connection. Accuracy? She wants connection. Have fun in your marriage. We did it for the very first time this week. My wife found this show on Netflix called Tidying Up. Okay, I haven't seen the first episode, but I already hate the woman that's doing the thing. Raise your hand if you've seen Tidying Up. Okay, so you can verify this. You can verify this right here. If you haven't seen it, it's a sweet lady. Her name's Marie, and she wants you to declutter your home. And marriage researchers are actually finding out that decluttering is actually fantastic marriage therapy. But here's how she wants you to do it. This just cracks me up. I saw my wife in the closet this week doing this. You're supposed to, one article of a clothing at a time, pull it down off the shelf, off the rack. You're to look at it, and you're to ask the question, you've seen, yeah, the woman's lost her mind. You're supposed to look at each article of clothing and ask the question, does this spark joy? And if the answer is yes, put it back on the rack and you get to keep it. If the answer is no, you're supposed to say to this object, thank you for the joy that you brought me. I'm not making this up. Am I making up one word of this? Not making up one word of this. Then you're supposed to kiss it and lay it down in the pile. Okay, I told Amy, that's not what men ask when they walk into their closet. Our first question is what? Does it still fit? If it still fits and it doesn't smell, we're keeping it. But this is, my wife is passionate about decluttering. My wife has two love languages, acts of service and quality time, which means I serve her for long periods of time. That's what that means. And one of her love languages into cluttering is pitch, pitch, pitch. Is that your love language? You look like you love it. Oh yeah, let's just do it. It's, it's, it's, it's metaphorical. It's, it's spiritual. It's emotional. You have the whole thing. Oh yeah, you're into it. And I just, I told Amy, this just doesn't work because she gets in these moods where, you know, I had to tell the kids, quick, hide your stuff. Mom's getting rid of everything again. That's another one of her declarations. How many moms have had that declaration? We're getting rid of everything. We're just tired of everything. She will, I'm not making this up. She'll get our garbage can that we wheel down to the street every week. She'll do it like grocery shopping through our garage. She'll walk around the garage. She'll hold something up and go, Ted, are you, because her rule is if you haven't used it in the last couple months, we don't need it. How many of you think that's a good rule? That's a terrible rule. That's of your father, the devil, because she'll hold it up and she'll go, are you still using this? I'm like, that's a hammer. Well, when's the last time you used it? I'm like, I haven't, I, I don't remember the last time, but I think every home gets at least one hammer. Nope. And onto the next thing. Not kidding you. She holds up the car charger, the battery charger, that little box you got with the little cables you put on your battery. When's the last time we used this? I said, we got good batteries. We're okay. Well, no, you can't throw it away because there's going to be a day we need it. She says this, then we can buy another one. I said, but then we can't get to the store to buy another one. Pitch, pitch, pitch. Oh, that's why I love that. We're so different, but she's very passionate. It's very, it's fun being married to her. She loves this other show with Chip and Joanna Gaines. And I've said it before. If I ever meet Chip Gaines, I'm going to punch him right in the face. I hate that man and everything he stands for. I come home, I come home one day from the church and she's standing there in the dining room studying. And I'm going, oh boy, here we go. I walk over, I go, Hey babe, what's going on? She goes, you know, I think after dinner, yeah, we should move this wall. Just get rid of that wall. This, how many of you guys are not honeydew, like fix it list. Like it's just not your thing. I'm just not skilled at it. And I don't, I don't have tools anymore to be able to do stuff. And I said, I said, babe, I started panicking. I was panicking going, we're going to be, she, I'm not joking. She's taking stuff down off the wall. We're getting rid of a wall. After dinner, I go in and I Google real quick, something that can save our home and marriage. And, and I found a term that saved our marriage. And the term is load bearing. Every wall in our home is load bearing. But this is, this is what I love. And here's what's cool about too much. You'll see this. I love that after 23 years of marriage, not really great at fixing things, not having the tools in which to do it. She still thinks I can, she still will come over and squeeze my bicep and go, you got this. And I'm like, oh man. And it makes me want to do it. Because she says that when we were getting ready for our daughter's first birthday party, this was a shocker for me. I come in and I'm just in that mode of, okay, what can I do? It's a week before the party. And I said, Hey babe, what can I help you do to get ready for the party? And she goes, Oh babe, thank you so much. Would you lay ceramic tile for me in the kitchen? And that's not, that's not a punchline. That's not a joke. She's like, he wants to help and we need tile in the kitchen. So here's what I tell her. I go, babe, I do know this. I've done it before. You have to rip the linoleum up off the floor. That's going to take me a night. Then the next day I have to cut all the tile and, or actually do backer board and thin set, wait 24 hours. Then I got to cut the tile and, and then set that out, wait 24 hours. Then I got to grout and wait. I'm giving her this whole long process and her response is, you should probably get started. But we've just made the decision like all through life. I'm grateful to be working on a book right now with folks on the family called a love that laughs, just helping couples enjoy life, find more laughter, engage in it. Two weeks ago, we've had, you know, terrible weather in our area. And I mean, every airport has just been hassle after hassle. And Amy and I have just decided at airports that are super stressful, we're going to have fun. We're going to enjoy it. Like I've decided TSA make that fun. You're like a pat down fun. Listen, act like you want one and they won't give you one request one. They won't give you one. But then we got to the gate and I mean, this flight's been delayed four hours and I mean, people are angry. Like they are angry, angry. And I feel for the pilots and the flight attendants and the gate. So I'm always like, I'm just not only going to make Amy laugh. Let's just try to get the whole, let's just try to lighten the mood of the whole gate. It doesn't always work. And I was watching six Marines. There were six Marines standing there, man, respectful young men. I'm going to say in their early twenties. And they were offered, you know, to go on the plane first and they did. So they took off and went on the plane. We get on the plane and here's what the pilot tells us. I'm not making this up. He said, we're going from Chicago to Springfield, Missouri. He said, the ceilings are like 200 feet. We probably won't be able to get into Springfield or no, he actually said, uh, we're going to try for Springfield pilots, exact words at the gate in the microphone. Uh, we probably won't make it. Not really what you want to hear from your pilot. He says, don't worry. We'll just go on to Dallas. So I mean, everybody, everything, tension. That's what I love about laughter. Laughter relieves tension. Like some of you've been laughing three, three to five laughs a minute. You're enjoying things right now. You're, you're, you're, your whole body is relaxing. I'm like, that's my goal. I'm gonna get this whole plane laughing. And we sit down in our seats and we don't know for sure if we're going anywhere. It's getting close to midnight. And I sit down and my tray table is broken. It has the tape on it. And so I'm like, oh, this is good. Now Amy's laughing. She knows I'm just in one of my moods and I go, this is unacceptable. I refuse to take off with a broken tray table. I'm going to go say something to the pilot. I want maintenance on board, fixing this tray table. This guy, about 60 years old, standing in the aisle next to me, and I'm not making up a word of this, leans down and he goes, if you say anything, I will get one of these Marines to murder you. And then I'll have another one, drag your dead body off this plane, relieving tension, enjoying life together.