From Dance Floor to Divine Purpose: Michelle's Journey to Marriage Ministry

In 2007, Michelle Small and her husband, were thriving ballroom dance instructors in Oregon, coordinating hundreds of weddings from their 11,000 square foot event space. They had built something successful. But God was planting seeds for something far more significant.

That year, they launched a dance workshop with a provocative title: "Why Can't He Lead and Why Won't She Follow?" On one occasion, what was supposed to be a four-hour dance lesson became something entirely different. "We never got from the chairs to the dance floor," Michelle recalls. "We spent all four hours deeply immersed in the intricacies of what it means to lead and follow and obey and submit."

That workshop revealed something profound: people were hungry for deep conversations about God's design for marriage. Michelle didn't realize it then, but that day marked the beginning of a ministry that wouldn't fully materialize for another eighteen years.

When Faith Gets Tested in the Valley

Michelle's faith journey began early. She accepted Christ at eleven and fought to attend a Christian high school despite her parents' reluctance. But like many believers, she went through seasons where faith took a back seat to career and daily life.

Then came the valleys. In 2006 and 2007, Michelle experienced two miscarriages. The second one nearly broke her. "I spent a lot of time crying and praying and being upset and going down a dark path," she admits.

Standing at her bathroom mirror one day, Michelle faced a fork-in-the-road moment. "God is God, and He has purposes, and I don't always get to be privy to what those purposes are," she remembers realizing. "I either needed to stay dark and dismal and despairing, or I needed to realize there is a purpose and a meaning and a reason."

That surrender changed everything. It wasn't about understanding God's plan—it was about trusting Him when His plan made no sense. "It was a surrender of everything that I thought I was going to have, everything that I thought my life would entail," Michelle explains. "I didn't have to know, or understand His why, but I have to move forward."

The Ministry That Wouldn't Let Go

Michelle and her husband left Oregon in 2014, thinking they'd left dance instruction behind. Life took them through what Michelle describes as "lots of hills and just as many valleys." But in January 2025, God brought those workshop memories flooding back.

For two months, Michelle and her husband Chris, spent eight to twelve hours a day in prayer, contemplation, and creation. By July, Followed by Faith Ministries was born—a marriage ministry focused on strengthening covenant marriages before they fracture.

The vision is clear but countercultural. Michelle sees a gap in how churches approach marriage: "They offer a lot of groups when marriages fall apart. There are men's groups and women's groups... but there just really is not solid marriage ministry where both the husband and wife are able to be together and explore strengthening their marriage."

She's identified something troubling in church culture: an unspoken code that says, "We're Christian, we're members of this church, we don't have problems because we have God." This mindset, Michelle argues, isolates struggling couples and prevents good marriages from becoming great ones.

Living Faith Without a Safety Net

Launching a ministry without a steady paycheck requires a different kind of faith. Michelle's husband has applied for five jobs he's perfectly qualified for—all resulted in rejections. "In our minds, that's been God saying, 'No, I've got this. You just trust in Me,'" she reflects.

This season has forced Michelle to lean on Scripture in tangible ways: "The lilies are clothed, the birds are fed and housed, and how much more does your Father love you? So I don't need to be worrying about where food comes from."

It's also pushed her beyond the private, personal faith of her childhood. "The Lord has been prompting me to communicate about Him more, to communicate about my faith and faith in general more, and to have discussions and conversations," Michelle shares. "He's calling me not to have it be private like it was in the past."

The Lesson That Changed Everything

Perhaps the most transformative moment in Michelle's leadership journey came on the dance floor. After years of running her own business and calling the shots, she struggled to follow her husband's lead during practice. Frustrated, he finally said, "Would you just let me lead? I know what I'm doing."

Michelle's response? "You are not the boss of me."

Immediately, she felt God's correction: "You've been craving a partner. I've provided a partner for you. But with that comes the fact that now you have a husband."

That moment catalyzed a mental shift from independent business owner to covenant partner. "There is order and purpose that God has put into each of us as His creation," Michelle now understands, "and life is going to be a lot easier if we accept that and use that as our direction rather than fight it."

A Message for Fellow Leaders

Michelle's advice to Christian business leaders is rooted in her own journey through abundance and scarcity: "Trust God. On the days where there's seventeen cents in the bank account, trust God. And on the days that things seem to be overflowing with abundance, trust God, because He is the provider."

She challenges leaders to let their faith shine visibly—not as performance, but as testimony. "You don't know what seeds you're planting, and you don't know what watering of encouragement you're doing to other people's faith," she says. "So it is important to let God shine."

For Michelle, the journey from dance instructor to marriage ministry leader wasn't just a career pivot. It was a complete surrender to God's timing, purposes, and design—even when that design looked nothing like what she'd planned.

And that surrender, she's discovered, is where real leadership begins.