Trading Places Blog Tour | Les and Leslie Parrott

The One Year Bible Blog is participating in Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott's blog tour for their new book Trading Places: The Best Move You'll Ever Make in Your Marriage.  A blog tour is a unique opportunity for blog owners and readers to learn more of the inside story of a book through thought-provoking questions from the bloggers and answers from the Parrotts.  Below is my Q & A with Les & Leslie:

Question #1:  Greetings Les & Leslie from a blog that has 6,400 people in 55 countries reading through the Bible together in a year.  I’ve appreciated your ministry, books, and the video you two put together for your most recent book Trading Places.  I am curious what you might say to people who struggle to find time to read books like yours, which are obviously good books.  I personally encourage people to read the Bible daily as their priority, but also see great value in Christian living books like yours.  How would you recommend people prioritize their reading lives?

We love this question.   We know exactly what you mean.  In fact, “time” has been the number one issue in our own marriage – causing us to eventually do two years of research on the topic that eventually became out book, Your Time Starved Marriage.   We couldn’t find a single book on the topic so we felt compelled to write one. 

In Your Time Starved Marriage we show you how to reclaim moments you’ve been missing together as a couple.  We reveal things like “the most important minute of your marriage.”  And we also show you how most couples have varying “time styles.”  Some of us are “Planners.” Some are “Accomodators.”   Or “Dreamers. And so on.  You can take the free online assessment to discover your own time style at www.RealRelationships.com. How does this help?  It reveals how each of you process time.  It raises your level of awareness.  And awareness is half the cure.  Awareness of each other’s “time style” brings more sensitivity and grace.  It brings more empathy!

So, what do we say to people who struggle to find time to read books like our latest, Trading Places.  We say, you might want to start with Your Time Starved Marriage.  And you might want to take it slow.  Don’t make it your goal to finish the book by a certain date.  Make it your goal to gain new insight that you can put into practice. 

You may also discover that once your read your daily passage of scripture that you take another few minutes to read a book you value.  After all, you’re already settled and in a place where you can focus.  But if that doesn’t work for you, you may want to listen to a book like Trading Places in its audio format.  Our CD version of the book is read by us.  And we did so for busy commuters who just can’t find the time to read it. 

Question #2: Also, your book is fantastic for married couples, but I’m thinking singles would get a lot out of it too as they look toward potentially being married someday.  Do you find some singles read your books?  How would Trading Places be beneficial for singles to read?

Absolutely. While Trading Places was designed for couples – with accompanying his/her workbooks – empathy is for everyone!  Especially for singles who are wanting to be as ready for marriage as possible. 

It always pleases us when we are doing a marriage seminar somewhere around the country to discover that we have single people in the audience.  It’s never too early to learn the important skills of marriage – skills like trading places.  And, by the way, we welcome singles to take the free online assessment that accompanies trading places at www.RealRelationships.com.