Developing a Healthy Congregational Marriage Ministry

Developing a Healthy

Congregational Marriage Ministry

At this time of year, people and organizations often do planning for the upcoming year. This is also true for congregations that are starting a marriage ministry or building on one they have already begun.

Priscilla Hunt and Greg Hunt, Ph.D., Certified COUPLE COMMUNICATION Instructors, are experts in the area of developing a healthy marriage ministry and are sought out as consultants by local congregations that want to develop programming for couples. The Hunts are Certified Specialists in Marriage Enrichment, and they are trained ThriveSphere Facilitators. Plus, they are Seminar Directors for Prepare-Enrich.

Priscilla is the Executive Director for Better Marriages: Association for Couples in Marriage Enrichment (ACME), a non-profit since 1973 whose aim is educating couples for vibrant, lifelong relationships. Greg is a consultant and author. He has provided pastoral leadership to local congregations for 33 years. Also, Priscilla and Gregg have been married for 33 years and have been involved in marriage education and marriage enrichment since they said “I Do” in 1976.

In the article below, Priscilla and Greg share their insights on how to develop a healthy congregational marriage ministry. If you are connected with this type of ministry, we think you will find the article helpful.

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The case for congregational attention to marriage enrichment is easily made. The Bible provides a strong rationale for it, and historical and sociological research shows a strong and direct correlation between the condition of marital relations and the condition of society as a whole. Healthy marriages promote healthy families; healthy families promote healthy communities; healthy communities support our ultimate interests in a healthy global village. The opposite is also true. The ripple effect of failed marriages flows like a tsunami across the landscape of our time.

The church, if it is to be serious about its part in the redemptive purposes of God, has an essential role to play in support of healthy marriages. Given the far-reaching impact of marital relations for good and for ill, the development of an effective marriage ministry can be seen as a strategic investment of great importance.

Strategies That Have Limited Effect

The case for congregational attention to marriage enrichment can be made easily, but actually creating an effective marriage ministry is another matter. Congregations have failed, largely, to develop ministries that make a substantial difference.

Consider these popular approaches to marriage ministry:

1. Event ministry. Many churches offer an occasional or annual sweetheart banquet

or retreat or seminar or sermon and check off their commitment to marriage

ministry for the year. One event, however effective, does not a marriage ministry make.

2. Annual emphasis. Some churches feature marriage and family in their annual

calendar of activities. In a coordinated effort, they provide preaching, teaching,

and training related to the subject. This more sustained and multifaceted attention

to marriage beats approach #1, but it still leaves a long portion of the year

unaccounted for and lacks the kind of ministry roots that make a long-term

difference in couples’ lives.

3. Counseling ministry. One of the more significant innovations in recent

congregational history (late 1960’s, early 1970’s) has been the development of

counseling ministries to work with individuals, couples, and families on the

problems that ail them. Such an approach allows a church to offer something year-round

to those it serves. It also gets at deeper, more systemic issues that impact

emotional, spiritual, and relational health. This approach has clear benefits, but it

has clear limitations as well: the counseling approach is limited in the number of

people it can serve, and it is problem-focused rather than proactive and preventive in nature.

4. Small group ministry. Whether a Sunday School class or some other form of

small group, great benefits derive from having couples in sustained, significant,

biblically-centered relationship with other couples. To the degree that authentic

relationships form, these groups can provide a potent source of wisdom,

encouragement, and support for lifetime love. The fact of the matter is that any

marriage ministry worth its salt will have a small group component. Nonetheless,

having a small group component does not automatically produce a positive

marriage effect—witness the number of groups where members are shocked to

learn that a couple in their midst has filed for divorce.

What’s Missing?

The four approaches just mentioned aren’t bad. Each of them makes a positive contribution to the concern for healthy marriages. The problem is that none of them, on its own, has the power to produce the outcomes that a marriage ministry should produce. An effective marriage ministry should stem the tide of divorce and help couples build healthier, more satisfying lifetime relationships.

Consider the following characteristics of effective marriage ministry:

1. Proactive. Therapeutic intervention isn’t enough. The best way to promote

healthy marriages is to begin working with couples as love blooms, guiding them,

supporting them, and equipping them from the start. While not ignoring couple

problems, an effective marriage ministry seeks first to help couples build on

strengths and add new strengths to their relational repertoire. A mature marriage

ministry will have a pre-marriage and newlywed strategy. It will have an ongoing

program of marriage education for couples at every stage of their relationship.

Highly respected as resources in this regard are COUPLE COMMUNICATION

www.couplecommunication.com) and ThriveSphere, the Collaborative Marriage

Inventory www.ThriveSphere.com from ICP, as well as relationship assessment

programs of Life Innovations – Prepare-Enrich (www.lifeinnovations.com).

2. Holistic. There are many different activities that a marriage ministry can do and

services it can provide. A ministry’s real potential lies in its ability to create an

integrated strategy, one in which all of the pieces work together in synergistic

fashion. Banquets, retreats, worship emphases, workshops, Bible studies, marriage

enrichment groups, mentoring programs, pre-marriage and marriage counseling,

wedding support, divorce recovery and re-marriage support, nearly-wed/newlywed

ministry—all of these and others can become interlocking pieces of the marriage

ministry puzzle. Also worth noting in this regard is the value of collaboration

between the marriage ministry team and other teams shaping the ministries of the

church. Holistic marriage ministry isn’t done in its own little silo; it becomes

integrated into all that the church does.

3. Year-round. For a marriage ministry to gain momentum it must have a plan of

sustained activity. One thing should lead to another, and it should all point toward

the development of a marriage-enhancing culture. Pollsters like George Barna and

the Gallup organization report no differences between the divorce rates of

Christians and those of the population at large. A church with a marriage ministry

should see a different set of trends emerge within the culture of its congregation.

4. Peer-oriented. The power of peer groups has proven itself in many areas of

contemporary life. For marriage ministry this translates into putting couples with

couples in an intentional program of peer learning, support, and encouragement.

The Marriage Enrichment Group (MEG), as developed by the Association for

Couples in Marriage Enrichment (ACME; www.bettermarriages.org) is a fine

xample of this strategy. Another peer-related strategy of great value is mentoring.

Healthy, experienced couples wanting to have couple influence get matched up

with couples wanting to be influenced. A kind a marriage apprenticeship ensues.

5. Couple-directed. One of the popular approaches to marriage enrichment these

days is to involve couples in a major conference led by some well-known,

charismatic leader. This kind of event is typically designed to create a crowd of

listeners who spend their conference time taking notes, the hope being that they

will take what they’ve learned and apply it once they get home. Though there is

nothing intrinsically wrong with this approach, it doesn’t prove as effective in the

long run as a marriage education strategy that facilitates couple dialogue. The

Association for Couples in Marriage Enrichment (ACME;

www.bettermarriages.org) has excellent resources that promote couple dialogue,

and it provides leader couple training that matches up beautifully with this couple-

directed approach to marriage enrichment. COUPLE COMMUNICATION

programs of ICP, Inc. (ICP; www.couplecommunication.com) are also notable for

the degree to which they engage couples in relational skill-development teaching.

6. Missional. A congregation has within its own ranks all the couples it will ever

need for the purpose of a marriage ministry. It can create a fine marriage ministry

just serving its own. The church’s calling in Christ extends much further than this,

however, and there exists a great opportunity to use marriage ministry as a bridge

into the community. Couples across our culture are crying out for help. Everything

a marriage ministry does can be leveraged for its outreach potential. A

“missional”—that is, an externally-focused-community-impacting-evangelical-

kingdom-building—mindset should prevail. It’s also quite useful to see one’s own

ministry in the larger context of all those in the community serving the interests of

couples and families. A healthy marriage ministry looks for resources and

partnerships wherever they’re found.

Not only should marriage ministry planning be done with a missional mindset,

but marriage ministry should support the development of missional couples and

families. It’s not enough to help couples focus and work on their relationship with

each other. Looking outward with a shared sense of purpose and serving together

happens to be a foundational couple strength. In this regard, a church’s marriage

ministry works in tandem with other ministries in the church, where opportunities

for couple-related missions and ministry exist.

7. Leader-developing. Leadership is crucial. It begins with a pastor who, along with

spouse, has a genuine commitment to the ministry and who is willing to put the

weight of his or her influence behind it. If the church has the numbers and dollars

to do so, ministry potential expands with the employment of a ministry staff person

who is able to give focused attention to it. In the final analysis, however, marriage

ministry rises or falls with the capabilities and commitments of its volunteer team.

A marriage ministry is ultimately no stronger than its base of couple leaders. This

helps explain why many churches never manage to move beyond token marriage

ministry. Dependent on the pastor or some other staff person, the ministry never

develops further than the staff person’s personal capacity. A growing, increasingly

effective marriage ministry will stay in the mode of constant leader discovery,

development, and deployment. One of the side benefits of leader development is

that the leaders themselves become more intentional about the health and growth

of their marriage. Couples who might otherwise not see the need for participation

in marriage education (“Our marriage is just fine”), find it appealing to have a

positive impact on other couples and discover by accident the age-old insight that

preparing to lead is the best way to learn.

Getting Started

The development of an effective marriage ministry takes time, but with patience and a continuing commitment to the characteristics just mentioned, it can be done. Any step in the right direction honors God and has a positive impact on marriages within a congregation’s spheres of influence.

Here is one way to get started:

   1. Gain the full support of the pastor and other key leaders whose support is essential to the success of the ministry.
   2. Offer a kick-off event: a banquet, a seminar, or a marriage retreat, for instance.
   3. Use the event as an initial fishing pond to hook potential marriage ministry leaders.
   4. Form a marriage ministry team and strategize together. Make sure to assess current

and emerging marriage needs, resources, and programs in the church and

community. Affirm and build on what currently exists and develop new initiatives.
5. Keep recruiting and training leaders. Add ministries as you are able.

The variables at this point are too numerous to outline. A team can take its ministry in any of several directions, based on its unique context. The key is to remain proactive, holistic, year-round, peer-oriented, couple-directed, missional, and leader-developing in focus.

To contact the Hunts, go to: huntpriscilla53@gmail.com or huntgreg54@gmail.com

For more information on the revised CC program, visit: www.couplecommunication.com

For more information on the ThriveSphere Collaborative Marriage Inventory, visit: www.Thrive.com

Interpersonal Communication Programs, Inc.

30772 Southview Drive, Suite 200

Evergreen, CO 80439

Toll-free: 800-328-5099

Phone: 303-674-2051

Fax: 303-674-4283