Eye to Eye Marriage – an Oklahoma City Community Marriage Initiative Leaders Rodney and Cresha Redus Leverage Connections to Expand Reach
By Amy Morgan
Leveraging connections may be Rodney and Cresha Redus’ superpower. Co-Executive Directors of Eye to Eye Marriage (E2EM) in Oklahoma City, they have opened new doors for the 25-year-old ministry since they took over its helm in 2019. Rodney and Cresha have capitalized on relationships they’ve cultivated through their decades of life, work, leadership and community service in the area.
“God moves at the speed of relationships,” Rodney said, sharing a quote from Wes Lane, founder of SALLT. “God makes the connections, and we are trying to follow the Holy Spirit and be obedient.”
Rodney and Cresha have expanded the ministry’s reach as they were the visionaries behind the Oklahoma City Marriage Resource Network. In addition to Eye to Eye Marriage’s church network, which numbers more than 18, they also began partnering with Tinker Air Force Base Chapel Corps, the YMCA, and True Dads in 2025.
Eye to Eye Marriage’s partnership with Tinker AFB Chapel Corps opens the door for them to deliver no-cost, ongoing relationship education at the largest employer in Oklahoma. The Reduses also will train a dynamic couple to teach the monthly Couple Commitment workshops as part of the Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grant funding True Dads. E2EM also pioneered a three-pronged church/ministry/nonprofit approach to teach curriculum through OKC’s North Side YMCA. Tinker AFB’s program began in 2025, while the YMCA and True Dads pilot classes will kick off in summer 2026.
Rodney is an ordained minister recognized by the National Association of Christian Ministers and holds a master’s degree in ministry with emphasis on marriage and family. He served 20 years in the United States Air Force before retiring as a Master Sergeant from Tinker AFB.
Cresha is a 5th generation native Oklahoman. A certified project manager, she earned a master’s degree in human relations from the University of Oklahoma. She’s worked on the statewide Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, the nation's longest running and most comprehensive program to strengthen marriages, and is trained in several relationship education programs.
Both are alumni of Oklahoma’s Salt and Light Leadership Training community – described as “a Signature Cohort for Christian leaders … designed to connect with a trusted networking community, provide training and tools for leadership development, and help … participants step into impact and influence.”
The couple married in 2009 and almost immediately started attending Eye to Eye Marriage’s community events. The “great community of married couples” kept them engaged as the ministry’s relationship education curriculum Walk Together changed their vision of marriage.
The biblically based resource enlarged their perspective of marriage to focus on its kingdom impact and caused them to “guard their marriage in a way we wouldn’t have,” Rodney said. After a few years, they started teaching classes to others, despite each juggling a full-time and part-time job while running their family business.
They also “saw the benefit in our own marriage and the power of generational impact,” Cresha said. “We enjoy helping couples understand the truth about marriage and its design - it’s bigger than them.”
When the Eye to Eye Marriage founder was called to a pastor position, the Reduses were on the short list to lead. In God’s perfectly orchestrated timing, Rodney’s employment disappeared just at the time they were considering the position. “When God gives you something, he makes a way,” Rodney said. “How many people can we impact now and in the future? That’s very powerful!” Cresha added.
Tinker Air Force Base Chapel Corps
Rodney dreamed of serving military personnel at Tinker AFB even before accepting the executive director position. Being retired military himself, he was acutely aware of how military life stresses marriage. “I saw how the separation for deployment and temporary duty took a toll on marriages. So many failed after being apart,” he said. “I knew what Eye to Eye Marriage is doing would be a great benefit to military families.” He characterizes his persistent campaign to connect through the Chaplaincy Office as “a slow drip.” One Chaplain seemed interested, but he was stationed. Then Covid disrupted progress.
But once again, God’s favor prevailed. The most recent senior chaplain established a positive relationship with an OKC ministry with which Rodney was also connected. Their endorsement bridged the trust gap, and the chaplain has been “all in ever since and making things happen,” Rodney enthused. Now that the assistant chaplains see the fruit of the relationship classes Eye to Eye Marriage began in fall 2025, Rodney feels confident they have “enough of a footprint to be in for the long haul,” he said.
Eye to Eye Marriage leads a Midweek Lift Couples Class at the Tinker AFB Chapel Religious Education Building on Wednesday evenings. In fall of 2025 they covered Eye to Eye Marriage’s Walk Together with four couples. In early April, with eight couples, they started A Lasting Promise:Christian PREP for Couples, described as offering “practical communication skills, conflict management, and intimacy-building exercises from a Christian perspective, suitable for premarital or marriage enrichment.” A Lasting Promise includes a PREP component. According to PREP, in “one of the most rigorous studies in the history of field of relationship education (using a randomized controlled trial: RCT), chaplain-led PREP training cut the risk of divorce for Army couples nearly in half at two years after the training.” The Midweek Lift course is free and includes dinner and onsite childcare at nocost, compliments of the TAFB Chapel Corps.
The Chaplain also asked Eye to Eye Marriage to conduct not one, but two, marriage retreats for their couples in April 2026. TAFB Chapel Corps underwrote basic costs for couples to attend the weekend events held at St Crispin's Conference Center in Wewoka, OK.
In addition to the Chaplaincy Office, Rodney and Cresha have been leveraging the Midweek Lift and marriage retreats to make inroads with Tinker AFB’s Family Readiness Center, which has been willing to allow them to leave flyers to promote their events. Rodney hopes to continue to develop that relationship. When asked what it means to serve one of the largest employers in Oklahoma (and one with which he has been so intimately connected) Rodney answered, “It is exciting! When you think about having access to such a large community – it’s a dream come true. Our whole purpose is to reach couples and strengthen their marriages. It is an honor.”
Another of the Reduses assets are Cresha’s generational roots in Oklahoma City. She draws from her lifetime of friendships as she strengthens connections among those with a heart to lead and serve their community. One such friend invited her to join the Salt and Light Leadership Training community, from which she graduated in 2019. The faith-based nonprofit takes a cohort of four dozen individuals through a nine-month leadership enrichment program every year. “It’s an opportunity to raise our level of influence and support one another as we follow Jesus’ call in our workplaces and city,” Cresha said. After completing the course, she inspired Rodney to join the following year.
When asked what caused her and Rodney to think beyond most CMI’s traditional church partnership model and pursue secular organizations, Cresha credits the prompting of another friend they enlisted to help them expand their execution after being awarded a CMI grant. “She helped us think about our strategy of partnerships,” Cresha said. “Everything we’ve done has been based on our sphere of influence. Our churches were the low hanging fruit. We already have most of their trust, time and relationship – they understand our heart. So, if they can, they’ll help us make the next connection. Then we’ll work to build trust with that group” (as they move outward.)
One of the surprising things Cresha and Rodney learned is that “some non-Christian organizations are often as willing to work with us as we are to work with them,” they said. To the CMI leader who might feel like non-church partnerships are out of reach or not a good fit for them, Cresha and Rodney would say, “Change your paradigm when it comes to non-Church partners. They are only out of reach if you choose to make it such. As Christians, we are called to spread the good news of Jesus. The unchurched or unreached people are the people we are after. Your method would not necessarily be direct but indirect through the way you honor the Lord through your life and how you conduct business through your core values. There are many non-Christian organizations that are doing good in the world. Our passion is to recognize the good they are doing and join hands with the hope that in the process of doing good together our core Christian values will win them over in time.”
YMCA
This strategy came to fruition as Eye to Eye Marriage developed a partnership with the YMCA. Cresha shared a booth at a community event with a YMCA leader, which prompted her and Rodney to wonder what would happen if they could connect the seven YMCAs in Oklahoma City with a nearby church to teach relationship education through a partnership among them all.
The first task was to find one YMCA willing to work on a pilot program. Once again, God opened the door with a connection. Unbeknownst to the Reduses, the pastor of Unity Christ Center North West was already familiar with Eye to Eye Marriage. He had been attending their annual Sweetheart Ball for years. He also happened to be on the board of North Side YMCA, located in his church’s neighborhood. When the Reduses reached out first to the YMCA, they realized the staff there already knew Eye to Eye Marriage because of the Sweetheart Ball invitations the pastor had shared. It was an easy conversation to loop him in, and the three-pronged relationship was solidified.
Their first pilot starts in May 2026. North Side YMCA agreed to be the host site and provide free childcare for the class. The YMCA also will offer free membership during the two-months duration of the class for up to 10 couples who attend for two-hours weekly, with a discount for future membership. They’ll also waive a couple’s $105 application fee. Unity Christian Center will enourage a couple to lead the class and provide the meal for the participants. Eye to Eye Marriage provides the A Lasting Promise curriculum, trains the couple and provides operational and marketing support. They’ll send postcards to married residents surrounding the YMCA and the church and recruit participants through the ministry’s 11,000 followers on social media and 1000 newsletter subscribers.
Cresha and Rodney’s hope is the pilot will prove successful and be scaled to the OK County’s six additional YMCAs.
When asked what advice they would give others who want to replicate the example of Eye to Eye Marriage, the Reduses said, “It’s a journey of building slowly and organically through sometimes unexpected relationships. Be very intentional and patient, because you must trust God to orchestrate and direct your path in building the right relationships in your communities. If we are faithful in what we are called to do, in time, God will do what only He can do. One partner, in particular, took four years to secure, while others that we did not expect were solidified in just a few weeks.”
True Dads
In 2025, Eye to Eye Marriage also was greatly favored as Cresha leveraged her previous employment connections with OKC non-profit It’s My Community, which received a five-year federal Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grant to serve fathers. In this grant cycle, the True Dads program included a marriage component. The grantees already knew Cresha, so they invited Eye to Eye Marriage to deliver the relationship education curriculum.
Cresha and Rodney will lead one of four supplemental workshops once a month that the fatherhood teams (dad + supportive person) served by True Dads can choose to attend. Eye to Eye Marriage’s goal aligned with True Dads ie: to move the participants’ desire from living together or being boyfriend/girlfriend to getting married, Rodney said.
“Many are interested, but they are afraid or don’t have knowledge or role models,” Cresha said. “No one is speaking about healthy marriage.” Because this is a federal grant, the Reduses will utilize current proven curriculum and tools used to strengthen relationships for decades.
Content includes:
What is marriage – statistics and trends in OKC
Good examples of healthy relationships, with tools and skills
A road map – which includes the opportunity to be married at no cost in an OKC church or venue.
The five-year, renewable contract with True Dads will begin in June 2026.
After such an accomplishment, it’s appropriate to ask how the Reduses measure a win.
“A win is gaining a new friend or the trust of someone who has a similar heart and values, who wants to help/bless people/couples for the good of the community where we serve,” they said. “A win is connecting with someone or an organization at a deeper level who ‘gets it.’ We measure impact by the continued relationship and trust built, by the collective celebrations we get to enjoy together, by the referrals they make to others on our behalf, and, of course, by the lives being transformed as acknowledged by testimonies, feedback, and repeated attendance at our community events.”
