MERGE iMagazine Exclusive Feature:
DR. AMELIA COLE
BEYOND THE TITLES
The Marriage, the Ministry & the Woman Behind It All
With Pastor Danny Cole
Interview and Editorial Feature by Sherri D. Motes Jones
Senior Editor | MERGE iMagazine
There comes a time in life when the question is no longer simply what you’ve accomplished, but who you’ve become along the way.
For Dr. Amelia Cole, that question carries the weight of 40 years of marriage, motherhood, education, ministry, and the experiences that have shaped her faith and perspective.
Some seasons were fulfilling. Others were difficult. And as she shares, some lessons only became clear with time.
Alongside her husband, Pastor Danny Cole, she co-founded Marriage Oneness, a ministry that grew from their own experiences navigating the challenges of marriage. Their work includes the PASSION Framework, developed from lessons learned through their relationship and conversations with other couples.
Now retired after 20 years at the University of Memphis, Dr. Cole is embracing a season that allows her to continue meaningful work while rediscovering the woman beyond the responsibilities.
In this MERGE exclusive, she opens up about marriage, personal identity, the importance of boundaries, and the freedom to grow into a new chapter without losing sight of what matters most.
THE CONVERSATION: 01 | THE JOURNEY THAT SHAPED HER
MERGE: When you look back over your life, what experiences stand out as the ones that shaped you most?
DR. AMELIA COLE: I’ve been through a lot of seasons. Some were beautiful, some were hard, and some I didn’t understand until much later.
Marriage has probably shaped me more than anything. Danny and I have been married for 40 years, and we have literally grown up together. We’ve had good years, difficult years, raising a family, building ministry, working, going to school, and trying to figure out who we were becoming along the way.
Education also shaped me. I went back to school at different stages of my life, eventually earning my doctorate. I spent 20 years working at the University of Memphis. Ministry shaped me. Motherhood shaped me. Becoming a grandmother changed me too.
But I would say some of my greatest growth came from the seasons when things did not happen the way I thought they would. Those seasons made me look at myself differently. They made me depend on God differently. They taught me that I could love people, serve people, and still have to learn who Amelia was.
I’m still learning her.
02 | BEYOND THE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
MERGE: People know you through so many roles. Away from all of those titles, who is Amelia?
DR. AMELIA COLE: Amelia is actually pretty simple.
I love my family. I love being with my husband. I love my grand babies. I love to laugh, travel, enjoy life, and have a good time. I’m a woman of faith, but I’m also very human.
For a long time, so much of my identity was connected to what I was doing. Wife. Mother. Employee. Student. Ministry leader. There was always something that needed to be done and somebody who needed something.
Now I’m enjoying getting to know Amelia without all the assignments attached to her.
I retired this year after 20 years at the University of Memphis, and retirement has given me permission to slow down a little and ask, “What do I actually want this season of my life to look like?”
And I like the woman I’m discovering.
“Now I’m enjoying getting to know Amelia without all the assignments attached to her.”
— Dr. Amelia Cole
03 | THE STORY BEHIND MARRIAGE ONENESS
MERGE: How did your own marriage experiences lead you and Pastor Danny into helping other couples?
DR. AMELIA COLE: Honestly, our marriage ministry came out of our own mess.
The first year of our marriage was a match made in Heaven, a fairy tale story. But, years two through four of our marriage were rough. We loved each other, but we didn’t really know how to be married. We were trying to figure it out, and we didn’t have the tools or the kind of guidance we needed.
Then in our fifth year of marriage, we got into a good church home, and that changed so much for us. We were taught how to enjoy marriage, not just stay married. We also had mentors who walked alongside us. We could watch other married couples, ask questions, and see what a healthy marriage could actually look like.
That made a difference for Danny and me.
After that, something interesting happened. We became the Assistant Directors of the Marriage Ministry at a megachurch, and people started coming to us. Couples would share what they were going through, ask us questions, and look to us for guidance.
That’s when we began to realize that what God had taught us through our own marriage wasn’t just for us. Even the difficult years had given us something we could use to help somebody else.
And really, that’s how this ministry began.
04 | THE CONVERSATIONS COUPLES AVOID
MERGE: In your work with couples, what is something you think people need to talk about more openly?
DR. AMELIA COLE: Disconnection.
And sometimes couples don’t even realize how disconnected they’ve become.
You can live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, raise children together, pay bills together, go to church together, and still be lonely in your marriage.
I think we need to talk more honestly about that.
We also need to talk about intimacy beyond sex. Can I tell you what I really feel? Do I feel safe with you? Do you know what I need? Are we still curious about each other?
A lot of couples are functioning. They’re getting everything done. But they’re not necessarily connected.
That’s where our language about moving from roommates to soulmates came from. Sometimes couples don’t need to give up on their marriage. They need to find each other again.
“A lot of couples are functioning. They’re getting everything done. But they’re not necessarily connected.”
— Dr. Amelia Cole
05 | THE PASSION FRAMEWORK™
MERGE: What led you to create the PASSION Framework, and how did it come together?
DR. AMELIA COLE: The PASSION Framework came out of seeing the same things over and over again.
Couples would come to us saying they had a communication problem. But once we started talking, communication usually wasn’t the whole problem.
Sometimes they had stopped being intentional. Sometimes there was resentment. Sometimes intimacy had changed. Sometimes they were so busy with children, careers, church, and life that the marriage had been pushed further and further down the list.
Danny and I understood that because we had experienced seasons of that ourselves.
I wanted something couples could actually use. Something they could come back to and say, “Where are we struggling? What have we stopped doing? What needs attention?”
That became PASSION: Purpose, Awareness, Service, Seek Intimacy, Investment, Oneness and Nurture.
It gave language and structure to what we had been living and teaching for years.
THE PASSION FRAMEWORK™
- P — Purpose
- A — Awareness
- S — Service
- S — Seek Intimacy
- I — Investment
- O — Oneness
- N — Nurture
06 | CONNECTING THE EXPERIENCES
MERGE: You’ve worked in education, studied business, and served in ministry. How do those experiences connect to what you’re doing now?
DR. AMELIA COLE: For years, I probably saw them as separate parts of my life.
Now I don’t.
Working in higher education taught me how organizations work and how to deal with all kinds of people. My business education taught me to think differently about building something sustainable. My doctorate stretched the way I think about education and how adults learn. Ministry taught me that people are more important than programs.
Now I can see how all of it connects to what Danny and I are building through Marriage Oneness.
I didn’t leave one life and start another one. I brought what I learned with me.
07 | A NEW SEASON OF PURPOSE
MERGE: What’s most important to you in this season of your life? Where are you putting your time and energy?
DR. AMELIA COLE: Marriage Oneness has a lot of my heart right now.
I finally have the freedom to give more attention to the work Danny and I have been doing for years. We’re working with couples, developing programs, expanding the PASSION Framework, creating resources, speaking, and looking for ways to reach couples before their marriage reaches a crisis point.
But something else has my attention too.
Women.
Especially women who are accomplishing things, carrying families, leading, working, serving everybody else, and somewhere along the way have lost touch with themselves.
That speaks to me because I understand it.
So this season feels like an expansion. Marriage is still very much part of the assignment, but I also feel a responsibility to help women remember that they are more than what they produce and more than who needs them.
08 | THE NECESSITY OF BOUNDARIES
MERGE: What have you learned about taking care of yourself while still being there for others?
DR. AMELIA COLE: I had to learn that everybody cannot have access to all of me.
That was hard for me.
I’m a giver. If somebody needed something and I could help, my natural response was to help. But there is a cost to always being available.
I’ve learned that rest is necessary. Boundaries are necessary. Saying no does not mean I don’t care.
I also had to stop feeling guilty about enjoying my life.
I worked hard. I raised my family. I served. I went to school. I worked full time. I did ministry.
Now I can sit down.
I can travel. I can spend time with my husband. I can enjoy my grandchildren. I can have a day where I don’t accomplish anything impressive.
And I’m okay with that.
“I can have a day where I don’t accomplish anything impressive.”
— Dr. Amelia Cole
09 | LEADING WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF
MERGE: You talk about leading without losing yourself. What does that look like for you personally?
DR. AMELIA COLE: It means Amelia gets to be in the room too.
For years, I could tell you what everybody else needed. I knew what needed to happen at work, what needed to happen in ministry, what my family needed.
But what did Amelia need?
That question took me longer to answer.
Leading without losing myself means I don’t disappear behind my responsibilities anymore. I can serve without abandoning myself. I can love my family without making myself invisible. I can walk in purpose without being exhausted all the time.
I wish I had understood that earlier.
But I understand it now.
10 | LOOKING BACK ON THE DIFFICULT SEASONS
MERGE: Was there a time in your life that felt like a setback, but you now see differently?
DR. AMELIA COLE: There were several.
There were times I wondered why certain things were taking so long. Why I was still working when I felt there was more I wanted to do. Why some opportunities did not happen when I thought they should.
Looking back, I needed that time.
I needed the education. I needed the work experience. I needed the life experience. Even in marriage, Danny and I needed some of the years we went through before we could sit across from another couple and really understand what it means to fight for connection.
I don’t romanticize difficult seasons. Some things were just hard.
But I can look back now and see that God was doing something in me while I was waiting for Him to do something for me.
11 | TWO PEOPLE. ONE SHARED VISION.
MERGE: What has working and building a life alongside Pastor Danny taught you about partnership?
DR. AMELIA COLE: Partnership sounds beautiful until two people have different ideas about how something should be done.
That’s the part the book can’t teach you.
Danny and I love each other, but we are two different people. We don’t always think alike. We don’t always move at the same pace. Sometimes one of us sees something before the other one does.
Forty years of marriage has taught us that oneness is not sameness.
We’ve had to learn when to speak, when to listen, when to push, when to give each other room, and when to say, “Okay, maybe you were right.”
And yes, both of us have had to say that.
That is partnership.
It’s choosing the relationship while you’re building the vision.
“Forty years of marriage has taught us that oneness is not sameness.”
— Dr. Amelia Cole
12 | THE ROAD AHEAD
MERGE: What are you looking forward to next, both personally and with Marriage Oneness?
DR. AMELIA COLE: I see Marriage Oneness reaching more couples outside of the traditional counseling or ministry setting.
I want marriage education to become something couples do before everything falls apart.
We want to continue developing the PASSION Framework, creating experiences for couples, partnering with churches and organizations, and training and educating couples through different stages of marriage.
Personally, I also want to enjoy this season.
That matters to me.
I don’t want to spend retirement recreating another version of the job I just retired from. I want to do meaningful work, but I also want Danny and me to travel, enjoy our family, laugh, experience new things, and enjoy the marriage we’ve spent all these years building.
I believe there is more ahead.
I’m just not interested in rushing through this part to get there.
13 | THE LEGACY OF CONNECTION
MERGE: When you think about the people you’ve worked with, what do you hope they carry with them?
DR. AMELIA COLE: I hope people can say something changed because we crossed paths.
Maybe a husband understood his wife differently. Maybe a wife found her voice. Maybe a couple decided to have one more conversation instead of walking away. Maybe somebody learned something in premarital education that saved them years of unnecessary hurt.
I don’t need everybody to remember my name.
I would rather know that something we taught stayed in their home.
And if healthier marriages create healthier families, then that impact can keep going long after Danny and I are gone.
That would mean something to me.
14 | THE LAST WORD
MERGE: Before we close, is there anything else you’d like MERGE readers to know?
DR. AMELIA COLE: I would probably say this: give yourself permission to change.
I’m not the same woman I was at 25. I’m not supposed to be.
There are things I believed about myself years ago that I don’t believe anymore. There are things I tolerated that I wouldn’t tolerate now. There are things I was afraid to do that don’t scare me anymore.
And there are things I used to think were important that just aren’t that important to me now.
Life has taught me that you can love God, love your family, honor what you’ve built, and still become somebody new in the process.
I’m 40 years into my marriage. I’ve raised children. I earned my doctorate. I spent 20 years at the University of Memphis. I retired this year. Danny and I are still building Marriage Oneness.
And I still feel like there is more of Amelia for me to discover.
I think that’s a beautiful place to be.
MERGE | FINAL REFLECTION
Dr. Cole’s journey reminds us that the roles we fulfill and the responsibilities we carry are part of our story—but they do not have to define its entirety.
Her words challenge us to look beyond what we do for others and consider what we may have overlooked within ourselves.
What needs your attention? What deserves a boundary? What part of your life have you put on hold while making room for everyone else?
Perhaps the next chapter doesn’t require another title or achievement. Perhaps it begins with giving yourself permission to grow, reconnect, and enjoy the life you’re building.
This Is How I Merge.
ABOUT DR. AMELIA COLE
Dr. Amelia Cole is a marriage educator, author, speaker, and ministry leader. Alongside her husband of 40 years, Pastor Danny Cole, she co-founded Marriage Oneness, through which they provide marriage education and resources for couples.
A three-time University of Memphis alumna, Dr. Cole holds an EdD, MBA, and BBA. She is co-author of The PASSION Framework™ and retired from the University of Memphis after 20 years of service.
CONNECT WITH MARRIAGE ONENESS
Website: www.dannyamelia.org
Social Media: @marriageoneness365
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Editorial Note: Interview questions have been refined by MERGE for clarity and conversational flow. The responses attributed to Dr. Amelia Cole are retained from the supplied interview text used to prepare this feature. The introduction, section headings, pull-quote selections, PASSION Framework presentation, and final reflection are MERGE editorial elements. Images used by permission of the featured interviewee.
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