About Us

Our first recollection of each other dates back to 7th grade biology class where we were two of four people in a group that dissected the same frog. (I’ll let you guess which one of us did most of the cutting!) Now 44 years later, we have been married for 35 years. We are the parents of five great kids (ages 31 down to 13), grandparents to four active grandsons, a beautiful granddaughter, and another granddaughter due in the near future.

We love spending time with each other and our family, teaching and writing, reading, going to bookstores, and discovering beautiful places around the country. When we’re not at home, you can usually find us traveling with our two youngest children in our mini-RV.

After Jim experienced a career of nearly 30 years in emergency medicine, we are now enjoying our journey into full-time ministry at our local church.

How We Came to Write Books on Sex and Intimacy in Marriage

Several years ago, I was reading a book on God’s design for sex and intimacy in marriage and found myself desiring to share with other married women information I was discovering. Through my studying, God was showing me how He intended sex to be enjoyed and how His gift of sex had been distorted by the world. However, I didn’t know where to begin.

After much prayer and discussions with my husband and our pastor, I began putting together my own curriculum of class discussion notes, activities, memory verses, and homework that included the husbands. Then in January, 2003, I taught my first class.

Over the course of the next year, a former student asked to teach my material to her friends back home. Realizing handouts and word documents would cause legal issues, I spent an entire summer compiling information and writing articles for a student workbook.

Following this process, my new friends, Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus graciously went through the material and offered suggestions for this course. The end result became known as An Invitation to Intimacy.

Since that time, this study has been conducted in numerous cities around the country–even in Canada. Testimonials and feedback from women who have taken this class can be viewed on this site.

At the conclusion of every class I taught, and ones I would hear from other leaders as well, was tne comment, “When will there be a class we can take with our husbands?” Over the course of the next several years, my husband and I began to teach a class at church for married couples on Song of Solomon. From our efforts, Passionate Partnership was born.

These classes provide a safe place for women and married couples to come together and share their wisdom, experiences, concerns, and joys of married life, while maintaining a sense of reverence for marriage and  privacy with regards to their relationship with their spouse.

Lives and marriages are always deeply affected and blessed as they learn the truth about God’s design for sex in marriage, realize the myths they’ve been led to believe about sex, and deepen their skills in communicating with their spouse about this sensitive issue.

Both of these group studies include a leader’s guide which contains word-for-word text. A leader is not required to read every word during class times; however, you certainly can. It is scripted to help a leader move from one topic to another smoothly, as well as providing text to enable a leader to progress from one week to the next. All activities, homework assignments, and quotes from other Christian authors are an important part of these guides.

An Invitation to Intimacy: Student Workbook, as well as Passionate Partnership: Couple’s Workbook are two other resources that complement and complete these courses. These are arranged with pages for students to take notes during class, as well as articles to read and homework assignments to do at home.

Finally, numerous women would share with me how they wished their friend, their sister, and even their mother knew about the things they were learning in class. As a result, I combined the leader notes and student workbook from An Invitation to Intimacy. This new resource for purchase became known as A Wife’s Invitation to Intimacy–a book that a married women could study on her own, or with a small group of friends.

Being willing to conduct and lead group studies concerning sex and intimacy in marriage is a powerful way to share God’s message of marriage, and we promise you, you will be a vital part in ministering to marriages.

The need is great and God is looking for leaders who are willing to step forward and share His truth.

Could He be calling you as He did us? If so, we have the resources to help you accomplish His mission.

Blessings to you,

Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck