How to solve the marriage crisis in your church

Our desire at Grace Marriage is to help you protect your own marriage and the marriages of those you shepherd. We talk with church leadership on a consistent basis and hear their experiences. In this post, I want to help you know how to solve the marriage crisis in your church.

marriage-crisis

Make a difference

We know a marriage crisis causes a range of emotions that leak into other areas of your ministry. You feel sad. You feel ill-equipped. You feel frustrated. Not having a vision and plan to thwart the marriage crisis with a solid structure for marriage enrichment and wellness is dangerous
for your people. The outside world should watch vibrant, grace-filled, life-giving marriages inside the church, and in response be drawn to Jesus. There is no better picture of Christ and the church than a marriage covenant.

Couples who live in a performance-based relationship set themselves up for failure. A proper understanding and extension of grace will prevent the relational chasm that precedes crisis.

There’s a way

Here is incredible news: YOU can protect and invest in the marriages in your church starting right now. Churches in the United States and beyond are providing a structure to help couples have amazing marriages. We want to assist you in this priceless goal with a proactive approach to strengthen marriages in your church.

We provide the structure and accountability needed to focus on prevention. Our model is a positive and encouraging wellness approach that is ongoing and designed for all couples. It’s not just another video series or book study. Grace Marriage provides a structure in which couples grow stronger with each other and with the body of Christ. You will create a venue where grace, investment, and community are the norm.

Allow us to come alongside your ministry and support all the couples in your church as they strive to strengthen their relationships and love Jesus more through marriage.

“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

2 Corinthians 9:6

Set your vision

Before you cast a vision for your married couples, take inventory of your own relationship. As a church leader, you’re likely dominated by your schedule and your spouse feels it. We have numbers on this:

  • 80% believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families.
  • 35% of church leaders report the demands of the church to deny them time with their family.
  • 22% of ministry leaders’ spouses report the ministry places undue expectations on their family.


What if you made a shift in vision and practice today that set your marriage on a trajectory of growth? What if you really fought to have an “imitate me” marriage? Ask yourself the following questions to get started:

  1. Are there any obligations that you could prune from your life to move toward a more balanced life? A good practice is to (on at least a semi-annual basis) list all your responsibilities and pray for God’s wisdom on what, if anything, to cut out.
  2. Is your time with the Lord, exercise, hobbies, relational time with your wife and children, or sleep affected by the demands of ministry? What steps can you take to gain more margin and balance?
  1. Does your spouse feel isolated or dominated by the work of the ministry? This week, set aside one-on-one time to talk through this. It’s much better to discuss this proactively than address it in the heat of the moment when frustration and tension are present. Talk about how you can prioritize one another not only to have a lasting marriage, but also a lasting ministry. Make a commitment to take steps forward this week in protecting your own marriage. Now, let’s talk about your church. Ask yourself…
  2. Does my church really have a vision for what a Christian marriage should look like?
  3. If that vision has been articulated clearly before them, has it been kept front-of-mind?
  4. Based on our other church ministries, have we allocated time and resources to strategically engage and encourage married couples in an ongoing way? Are we able to help them navigate the seasons of life effectively? If the answer to these questions is “No”, what are the steps that you could outline even this week to begin casting this vision? What could you do to make marriage wellness a part of the DNA
    of your church?

The stakes are high

The Barna group reports that Christian marriages are just as likely to end in divorce as non-Christian marriages. That is not a favorable statistic. We need to show the world that we are different by giving them a picture of Christ through our healthy, thriving marriages. The chasm between that statistic and the ideal is very wide. With all the responsibilities of a church leader, it can seem impossible to add a strong marriage ministry in the mix.

80% of churches spend $0 on marriage ministry. 72% of churches have no marriage ministry.

*Based on statistics from communio.org

Coming alongside the church leader and the church is the passion of Grace Marriage. Guiding you through the ways to proactively strengthen marriages is our purpose. Crisis prevention has proven to be three times more effective than intervention in marriage, so we want to prevent the Lenny and DeeAnne scenario.

Here’s the simple process that allows you to add an ongoing structure for marriage in your church:

  1. Give us a call! We’d love to tell you more details and we can customize a plan for your church.
  2. After deciding to launch groups, we will help you train your team, provide ongoing support, and create your launch strategy.
  3. Launch groups and watch how grace and intentionality bring new life to marriages.

Grace Marriage Mission

What’s your strategy to reduce marriage crisis and see couples thrive? Download your free guide for how to reduce marriage crisis in your church and let us know how we can help you.