#50: Covenant, Not Commitment: How the Clapp Family Built a Marriage Worth Staying In
From The Ordinary Family by Coleman and Abby Housefield
June 4, 2026 · 1h 5m
About this episode
Rick and Laura Clapp share insights on building a strong marriage and family life after years of parenting and coaching.
What does intentional family life actually look like after 32 years of marriage, six kids, two international adoptions, and a whole lot of earned wisdom? In this episode, we sit down with Rick and Laura Clapp — coaches, parents, and longtime mentors to the Housefield family — for one of the most substantive conversations yet on the podcast. Rick is a faith-driven executive coach and strategic retreat leader. Laura is an assessment coach who spent years as a full-time mom before channeling her seminary training and life experience into coaching individuals and couples. Together, they’ve built a family and a marriage that is honest, intentional, and deeply rooted — and they hold nothing back here. They open up about what it took to keep their marriage strong through the chaos of six kids under ten, how they navigated two adoptions from Eswatini, Africa, and why the teenage years nearly broke Laura’s perfectly structured systems — in the best possible way. They get into the real differences between a commitment and a covenant, why laughter has been one of their most underrated marriage tools, and what it felt like when their adult kids came back with feedback they didn’t ask for but…
People in this episode
Hosts: Coleman Housefield, Abby Housefield
Guests: Rick Clapp, Laura Clapp
Topics covered
- marriage
- parenting
- family life
- adoption
- coaching
- intentional living
Keywords
- marriage
- parenting
- adoption
- coaching
- family
- intentional living
- commitment
- covenant
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Housefield family
Places: Eswatini
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