Our churches are full of married couples, but this sacred relationship is often overlooked, aside from pre-marriage counseling or marriages in crisis.
How can church leaders regularly and consistently invest in strengthening the marriages in our communities, and help couples develop healthy communication to prevent those crisis points?
Church of the City (COTC), with four campuses in Tennessee, has been using The Marriage Course for the last five years to engage with couples in all phases of their marriage journey. ChurchSource caught up with Community Life Pastor Brad Harris to learn what the pastoral team and the married couples at COTC love about The Marriage Course.
Easy to lead, easy to participate in
COTC runs The Marriage Course for seven weeks twice a year (fall and winter/spring), promoting it to the congregation for about two weeks before it starts. The course offers a flexible and private atmosphere as it’s done all online and any discussion happens between the couple only, not the facilitator or other participants. It is a way to help people in their marriage before a crisis presents itself.
When couples sign up for the course, COTC gives them the books they’ll need, along with some fun extras:
They run the course on Zoom, meeting once a week, so that couples can treat it as a weekly date night. They start the course each week at 8 pm, so couples have time to put the kids to bed, and settle in.
Each week, one of the pastoral staff starts the Zoom call at 7:30, and is there to welcome couples as they join the call, chat with them about their week, and get to know them a bit. At 8:00, they give a short welcoming statement, letting people know what to expect, maybe connecting with something from the weekend sermon series, etc. Then they play The Marriage Course video, pausing at the designated discussion points in the video. During the pauses, couples privately discuss a question or go through the exercises in The Marriage Course Study Journal.
The COTC team sends out a link to the video the next morning, in case life gets in the way and some couples missed the video. That email also includes a bit of humor, information about the next session so they know what to expect next week, and an invitation for them to reply to the pastoral staff if they need care. They regularly get couples responding to this invitation with, “we’re in crisis, can we talk?” Or “This session brought up something that we’d like some help to work through.”
One thing Pastor Brad and his team appreciate about The Marriage Course is that the course materials do all the heavy lifting of the teaching, and the leader running the course simply has to find time to engage with those who want some extra guidance dealing with their issues.
“As much as we love the connection when people come to the church and we get face time with them, for The Marriage Course, it just makes it so much easier for the couples when we host it virtually,” says Pastor Brad, “They fire up their computer for 90 minutes at night once their kids are in bed, vs. a 3-4 hour time commitment if they had to get a babysitter, get dressed up, and drive to and from the church.”
Biblical and solid, but not churchy or cheesy
Created by the ministry team at Alpha, Pastor Brad says The Marriage Course “shares Alpha’s DNA, and is not overly churchy, with no hyper-spiritual language.” Pastor Brad shared that people from their church who have attended the course felt confident inviting neighbors and coworkers sign up for the course, because of the gentle way Christianity is presented. The course is based on biblical principles, but includes a lot of solid social sciences research as well. “At the end of the session, couples are invited to pray. There is some Scripture in the material, but it’s not every other sentence. The bottom line is, it’s approachable for those who aren’t followers of Jesus, with no insider language.”
The COTC pastoral staff also appreciate Alpha’s commitment to high production values, that the material is not only solid and biblical, but it’s also not cheesy or poorly made. Pastor Brad shared that couples are often shocked at the quality of the videos. “Getting the simple, tech stuff right, and with excellence, is what really sets this course apart,” he shared. The accompanying discussion journal for couples is filled not just with blanks for writing notes, but with charts and activities for couples to respond to the video, compare notes, and work through disconnects and challenges.
The course is structured so that all the discussion is just between the couple, and not with the rest of the group. Pastor Brad says this drastically increases participation, because it provides a level of privacy and safety, that participants are only sharing their thoughts with their spouse (and in their own home).
Connects to the heart of the church
COTC is a large and growing church. Pastor Brad and his team love that The Marriage Course helps them connect with people who might otherwise feel lost in the crowd on a Sunday morning. “When I’m in the lobby between services greeting people, and I recognize someone from the course and I’m able to single them out, let them know that I remember them, and ask how they are doing, people feel seen and known by a pastor. It means the world to them if you recognize them and make that connection.”
Pastor Brad also sees the value of connection with other couples in the course. “Change happens in relationship. It’s so important for people to be connected to each other, so we encourage people to join a small group. But going from our huge Sunday gatherings, to a small group setting in a living room with 12 people is a big jump. The Marriage Course, our women’s ministry, our teen ministry, and Alpha are a great middle ground for people to meet other people in a smaller, but not super small, group.”
Simply put, The Marriage Course is an easy yet impactful way for churches to help their members cultivate strong marriages at every stage, as well as engage with people outside their church walls who want to invest in their marriages.
“The return on our investment is so high every time,” Pastor Brad concludes, “I can’t imagine ever not doing this.”
