A few years ago our church ran a pre-marriage course – a few weeks of ‘what to expect’ for couples to invest in their marriage before it began. It was advertised through the church website and in the Sunday services as a way to get prepared for marriage using good Biblical principles.
The first evening came around and, as my fiancé and I were also nearing our wedding date, we joined in. Looking back after 10 years of marriage, this was a good idea. It’s strange to me that so often we will invest years in training for a job or some hobby – but so many don’t give a moment’s thought to the idea that marriage may actually take some preparation – there may actually be some skills to learn as we embark on the journey. Anyway, I digress.
It wasn’t long until I noticed that there were several couples I’d not seen before. It was a big church and I just assumed I hadn’t met them yet. The course included a dinner each week where we were served by some of the church members during which there was time to chat to the other couples. To my surprise it turned out that a few of the couples weren’t part of the church – they’d heard about the course from friends and advertising – and even more surprisingly…they weren’t even Christians!
Why the surprise you may ask? Well, my assumption was that a pre-marriage course at a church – based on Biblical principles – wouldn’t at all be something that would attract non-Christians. But it did and The Lord used it! And here, in our church for several weeks were couples who were wanting to invest in their marriage and were open to hearing the Gospel – and hear the Gospel they did. Since then I’ve done marriage preparation with several couples and then conducted their wedding ceremony, and seen how marriage can be a fantastic opportunity to minister to couples.
Another great opportunity that running a pre-marriage course presents is that those serving the participants also had weeks of interaction with these couples – practically showing the attitude of service that the Lord Jesus would have us demonstrate. This is a great way to meet, and love, non-Christians very practically, pointing them to Jesus.
Here is a great place to start: https://www.themarriagecourse.org/host/the-pre-marriage-course
Previously: Launch Pad #19 Leaflet Your Community
