Questions, answered honestly

No. Take 139 is a diagnostic — a structured way to surface what's underneath your conflict patterns so you can name it and talk about it with your partner, a mentor, or a pastor. It is not therapy, and it does not replace counseling.

The most common pattern we see is couples taking Take 139 a few weeks before premarital counseling, then bringing the report to their first session. The report does the work of helping you describe yourself — counseling does the work of helping you change.

About 15–20 minutes for the assessment itself. There are 5 intake questions, 10 trigger questions, 5 mechanism questions, and 5 breakdown questions — plus the final synthesis screen.

Couples typically spend another 30–60 minutes reading the written walkthrough together once both reports are paired.

Then it's working. The result is a starting point for conversation, not a verdict. Take 139 is built on self-report — the words you choose to describe your reactions — so the report reflects what you said about yourself.

If something feels off, look at the questions you answered most strongly. Those are usually the ones driving the result. You can retake the assessment from the same account, and you can write back to Chris with what didn't fit — that kind of feedback shapes the next revision.

Yes. From your dashboard you can start a new run any time. Each completed report is saved, so you can compare them — useful if you take it once now and again a year into marriage.

A single access code is good for one report. If you want to retake from a fresh code, you can purchase a new one — but you can also reload your existing report from the dashboard at no cost.

Only you. Your report is tied to your email address and a passcode you set. Nobody else — including pastors, including Chris — can pull up your report without your access code.

When you pair with a partner using the couple code, the synthesis page shows both names and both result sentences. That's the only context in which your data is shared, and you control whether you pair.

Not unless you send it to them. The reports are designed to be shareable — you can download a PDF and email it, print it, or hand it over in counseling. But that's your decision, not an automatic step.

For churches running Take 139 as part of a premarital track, we recommend the couple bring their own paired report to the first session. The pastor doesn't get a back-channel copy.

No. We don't sell your data, we don't share it with advertisers, and we don't use it to train AI models. Reports are stored encrypted on our backend, accessible only through your account.

If you want your data deleted entirely, email hello@take139.com and we'll remove your account and reports within 7 days.

$20 for a single report. $40 for a couple package (two codes, A and B — one for each of you, plus the paired walkthrough and date-night appendix). $10 for a connection add-on if you've already taken it individually and want to pair with a partner later.

Full pricing details on the pricing page.

Sit with it before you dismiss it. Take 139 is a diagnostic, not a verdict. It reflects what you said about yourself in the moment you took it, and sometimes the parts that feel "off" are the parts the Spirit is actually pressing on. Read the report alongside your partner, or with a pastor or counselor, before deciding what to do with it.

If after sitting with it the result still doesn't feel like you, you can retake the assessment from your dashboard at no cost. You can also write to Chris directly at hello@take139.com — he reads every email and is glad to talk through what came up.

Take 139 is not a consumer product with a satisfaction guarantee. It is a pastoral tool, and the discomfort it sometimes surfaces is often part of the work, not a defect of the product.

If your report fails to generate, your PDFs never arrive, or your payment goes through but your access code doesn't, write to hello@take139.com. We will fix the issue or refund the technical failure within 7 days.

Write to hello@take139.com and tell us your situation. We don't want money to be the reason a couple can't take Take 139.

Prepare/Enrich and SYMBIS are broad premarital inventories — they survey communication, finances, family-of-origin, conflict, sexuality, spiritual life, and dozens of other categories. They're excellent at giving a wide-angle scan of where a couple is healthy and where they need work. They're also typically administered by a counselor and require a facilitator.

Take 139 is narrower and self-administered. It does one thing: it diagnoses the story underneath your conflict — the trigger, the core question, the mechanism, the breakdown. The deliverable is a single complete sentence you can hand to your partner. It's designed to pair well with broader tools, not replace them.

Many pastors use both. Prepare/Enrich for the wide scan; Take 139 for the deep cut into how you fight.

Chris is a pastor, theology professor, and counselor based in San Diego. He has spent over two decades in pastoral ministry — preaching, marriage counseling, and teaching at the seminary level — and has walked hundreds of couples through premarital preparation. He developed the Take 139 framework out of that work, drawing on attachment theory, biblical counseling, family systems, and Scripture.

The framework integrates 23 peer-reviewed and ministry-tested sources, including Levine & Heller (attachment), Gibson (idolatry of the heart), Clinton & Sibcy (attachment styles in marriage), Powlison (heart change), Sande (peacemaking), and Welch (fear of man), among others — all read through a gospel lens.

It's built for engaged and pre-engaged couples preparing for marriage. It also serves married couples who want to do diagnostic work on their conflict patterns, and pastors or counselors who want a tool to assign before counseling sessions.

It is not built for high-conflict situations involving abuse, addiction, or active crisis — those need direct counseling, not a self-administered diagnostic. If that's where you are, please reach out to a qualified counselor in person.