My question today is, should the local church be the main support for marriage and family issues? I think back to when Kathy and I were married. Pastor Mitchell did not put us through pre-marital counseling sessions. We worked out a date with him and he gave us a book on sex to read as we got closer to the big day. Pastor Mitchell married us and he signed our marriage certificate. He was available to counsel us if we had marriage or family problems. And we made it for 40 years until death did us part.
So what is a Fellowship church to do to encourage and support marriage and family? First, I think that the pastor and his wife set an example of what a Christian marriage looks like. This is one reason why a guy needs to be married to pioneer a church. Another thing we can do is preach on marriage from time to time. Pastor Mitchell worked out a plan where he would preach on marriage at weddings.
One other thing that might work is to have times set aside where couples or single adults get away, like a retreat. Either a marriage retreat or something like that that people can plan for and look forward to.
I am beginning to think that it is pretty self-centered and selfish to ask the church to do something that we can easily do ourselves. Jesus took his busy disciples apart for rest and reflection. But never for marriage counseling. The Bible speaks very little about this whole subject. It's like the Bible writers didn't think that marriage was so hard that it needed their help.
The biggest thing our Fellowship can do is to have examples for people to imitate. Kind of like discipleship for marriage and child raising. Couples working on their marriages can be a reference point for couples working on issues in their marriages.
We can cultivate a culture of discipleship. Can we also cultivate a culture of marriage?
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