Love is in the air

There are many aspects of being the pastor of Grace Church that I thoroughly love and enjoy (there are also some things I do not love nor enjoy but we will save that for a different blog posting). One of my favorite aspects of my ministry here is helping to prepare young couples for marriage and then being a part of that special day in which they “tie the knot.” I don’t take this part of my ministry for granted. It isn’t easy! Current statistics tell us that the divorce rate inside the church has reached near the same levels as those outside the church. Marriage is tough. David Hocking wrote a book entitled, Bad Marriages Take Time; Good Marriage Take More Time. He’s right. I like to define marriage as this: “The art of two incompatible people living together compatibly"!

Currently I have the joy of working with several couples to help prepare them for marriage. These include:

• Kelly Early and Shawn Kroeck (getting married in April)
• Danna McClain and Khyle Keener (getting married in June)
• Abigail Krantz and Matthew Lauris (getting married in June)
• Megan Weber and Phil Wilkerson (getting married in July
• Teresa Fisher and Steve Detz (getting married in September)

For each of these couples, I will have had a pre-meeting which is followed by 6 sessions together. During these sessions we look at many aspects of marriage including:

• Predictors of marital success
• Reasons for marriage
• Biblical love
• Three stages of marriage
• God’s purpose in marriage
• The role of a godly husband
• The role of a godly wife
• Temperaments and acceptance
• Communication
• Handling conflict
• Insights into intimacy
• Affair-proofing your marriage

Our final session together is set aside solely for discussing their wedding ceremony. In most all of the weddings that I officiate, my wife, Laura, is the coordinator. Though she has been working with the bride to be for many weeks prior to the wedding, she also joins us for this final session together. It is a wonderful feeling to lead a couple in saying their vows after spending all of this time getting to know them better and showing them from the Bible what marriage is all about and how wonderful of a treasure it really is.