by Ted Lowe | Feb 23, 2017 | Outreach, Training
by Ted Lowe
Why should churches have a marriage strategy?
Potential Answer One: Because marriage is the reflection of Christ and the Church.
If this is the case, then shouldn’t the church do everything in its power to ensure that reflection makes Christ and the Church look really great? Marriage is important because it points to something even more important; how much God loves His people.
Potential Answer Two: Because marriage greatly impacts children
As I have visited churches all over the country, one thing is clear: the church cares about kids. Just check out the kids space/wing/facility/amusement parks of most churches. One of the best gifts we can give a child is helping their parents have great marriages. Or if that child isn’t in a two-parent home, then we can still surround them with adults who have great marriages.
Potential Answer Three: Maybe the church shouldnt help marriages.
A lot of churches aren’t doing anything proactive to help marriages. Maybe that’s because they subconsciously or consciously think it’s not the churches place or area of expertise. Maybe we should continue to leave it up to professionals like counselors and/or parachurch organizations.
While I can’t argue potential answer three as a good answer, I have and do argue the case of potential answer one and two. But the answer I think is the best, is none of the above.
Why should the churches have a marriage strategy?
I think this is the best answer: Because marriage is a spiritual issue.
Of all three biblical purposes for marriage: functional (Genesis 2:18-25), sacramental (Ephesians 5:22-33), and transformational (Ephesians 5:15-33), the purpose of transformation seems superior to the other two purposes. This purpose of marriage and the purpose of the church is the same—to make people more like Jesus and draw them closer to God. It makes sense really.
When marriage isn’t working, it robs people of their best possible relationship with God. If you are passionate about children and their faith, then empowering marriages is a must. Family is the platform on which God builds faith. Faith affects family. Family affects faith.
What’s your answer to the question: Why should the churches have a marriage strategy?
Ted Lowe is a speaker and the director of MarriedPeople, the marriage division at Orange. Ted is the author of two books—one for marriage ministry leaders (Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last) and one for married couples (Your Best US: Marriage Is Easier Than You Think). He served for almost 10 years as the director of MarriedLife at North Point Community Church. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with his four favorite people: his wife, Nancie, and their three children.
by Ted Lowe | Feb 21, 2017 | Faith
A few years ago, my wife Nancie and I hosted a Q & A luncheon at a youth pastors’ conference entitled, Married and in Ministry. The room was packed. Not because of us, but because of the topic.
As couples asked questions, I wasn’t surprised to hear that they were too busy and that it was taking a huge toll on their marriage. What did surprise me were their reactions to some basic suggestions on how to change that. We mentioned things like boundaries and they responded with things like, What do you mean by boundaries?
Then we brought up the absolute necessity to date. For many, it was if we had suggested they take a trip to Disney World . . . every week. Date night? Who has time for that? We have people in our church who need us, who have real issues. We are out of the house most nights of the week doing ministry, taking our own kids to their activities.
I’m thinking to myself, how could such obviously smart people be so reluctant or even unknowledgeable about the need to take time for their marriage? As we passionately tried to give them permission to do so, we could tell some of them weren’t buying it.
As we were debriefing afterwards, Nancie wasn’t as surprised by their responses as I was. She reminded me that making marriage a priority when you are ministry is basic to us. Why? Because we’ve had the unbelievable, and UNIQUE blessing of being surrounded by great marriages our entire marriage.
From day one of our marriage, we’ve had couples around us who modeled date night and have held us accountable to it. She reminded me that day—and I have been reminded many times since in my interactions with pastors—that people in ministry need people to encourage them to do, among many things, date.
So whether you are a dating pro or haven’t been on date since Reagan was in office, I have a little challenge for you. Go out on a date. Remember what it was like to have fun with your spouse, and not just decompress from ministry or debrief about your schedules.
If the date works, then send some of the couples in your church on the same date. Maybe start with your staff and volunteers and then move to a churchwide challenge, maybe even provide childcare. Bottom lineif you like the date, share the date.
Why date night? Experiences and laugher and affirmation all have one thing in common: they connect you as a couple. And connection is what dating is all about it. Date nights are not about to-do lists or solving all your issues. They’re about enjoying your marriage. And as Proverbs 5 illustrates, maybe one of the best ways to protect your marriage is to enjoy your marriage.
So continue or start dating. It’s not extra. It’s essential. And don’t forget to let us know what happened, by posting a pic with #mpdates.
Ted Lowe is a speaker and the director of MarriedPeople, the marriage division at Orange. Ted is the author of two books—one for marriage ministry leaders (Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last) and one for married couples (Your Best US: Marriage Is Easier Than You Think). He served for almost 10 years as the director of MarriedLife at North Point Community Church. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with his four favorite people: his wife, Nancie, and their three children.
by Ted Lowe | Jan 24, 2017 | Outreach
by Ted Lowe
In 2001, we started creating quarterly, one-night marriage events at our church. I knew one of our biggest hurdles would be to make the event appealing to the men of our church. Notice, I said the men of our church, emphasis on church. Because I never dreamed that a marriage event would be a good place for our regular attenders to invite their non-church going or non-believing family, friends, and neighbors . . . especially if they happen to be male. Why? Because, typically, its men who don’t want to talk about their marriages.
But as church leaders, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge men for their lack of want to. One study showed that marriage ministry is perceived as boring, outdated, and preachy. When that’s the case, why would men want to attend? That study is about 10 years old, and for the last decade, I have watched church leaders from all over the country change how they approach marriage ministry. The unexpected benefit: people who they never dreamed would come to their church, come to their church. Why?
Two main reasons:
1) People told me countless times that it is easier to ask someone to a marriage thing on Saturday night, than to Sunday morning church.
2) People don’t have to love Jesus to want their marriage to work. So people’s desire to have a better, good or even great marriage, often trumps many of their hesitancies about church.
When you combine those two powerful reasons with a great marriage event at your church, you can often have a great impact on the marriages of church AND your community. Here are six ways to make marriage events the best entry point into your church.
- Think masculine. Ask yourself each step of the way, Will our marketing and programming appeal to women AND men?
- Think non-believer. As you share what the Bible has to say about marriage, remember not everyone knows the Bible. They may have never heard phrases like, “two becoming one.”
- Think fun. Nothing disarms a crowd like humor, so use humor but keep it classy.
- Think less for more. Often when you teach less, people learn more.
- Think application. Help people to easily practice the biblical principle you presented at your event. Give couples just one go and do they can actually do.
- Think, now what? Many marriage events are filled with five years worth of content with no, now whats. What if you flipped this on its head by giving couples one principle with one application and many now-whats, like the date of your next event, date night ideas, small groups, counseling, etc.
I never dreamed marriage events would be the best place to invite a 34-year-old man who hadnt been to church since he was 12, but the attendees at my church schooled me on that one. In this case at least, I love it when I’m wrong.
To see how churches are living out these two reasons and six ways, go to MarriedPeople Leaders to join our closed Facebook page for church leaders. Yes, it’s a closed group, but ask to join and we will let you in.
Ted Lowe is the Director of MarriedPeople, and the co-author of Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last for marriage ministry leaders and the author of the newly released, Your Best US, for couples. Follow Ted on Twitter @tedlowe.
Ted Lowe is a speaker and the director of MarriedPeople, the marriage division at Orange. Ted is the author of two books—one for marriage ministry leaders (Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last) and one for married couples (Your Best US: Marriage Is Easier Than You Think). He served for almost 10 years as the director of MarriedLife at North Point Community Church. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with his four favorite people: his wife, Nancie, and their three children.
by Ted Lowe | Jan 19, 2017 | Resources
by Ted Lowe
At MarriedPeople, we believe there is something special that happens when you get 10-1,000 couples in the same place at the same time. It provides opportunities not only to empower the couples in your church, but also in your community. We get particularly excited about well-executed, one-night events, and that’s why we provide many of the resources you’ll need to pull the event together in our Strategy Pack or single Larger Group events.
But this post isnt to convince you that Larger Group Experiences can have a big impact. While we provide art, video, promo materials, games, etc., for the night, there are some things that you’ll need to figure out—two things that can have a big effect on your attendance and budget. Those two things are:
So we want to give you some tips on how to decide what might work best for your church and your budget.
CHILDCARE
Childcare is a biggie, because it’s is a deal breaker for many couples. So you have to address it. Here are some child-care options:
- Provide onsite childcare. (This could even be a potential fundraiser for youth group events like mission trips and camp.)
- Provide a list of high-school students you would recommend.
- Provide childcare reimbursement. This is when the couple finds their own babysitter. The church provides a detailed form (included in the MarriedPeople Strategy Pack). Couples turn in the form and the church mails them a check. This one scares churches leaders to death, but it really does work well because people can use a babysitter they trust. They can also get to ride to and from the event with no kids in the car! While childcare reimbursement seems like it would be crazy expensive, it’s not because many people don’t turn in the forms.
FOOD
People often ask us if we think they should provide food at their one-night events. The short answer is yes. But we go back and forth over whether they should have dinner and dessert, or just dessert.
Some churches offer dessert, coffee, and water. They open the doors at 7 and the event starts at 7:30. This way couples can go to dinner before the event, and have dessert at the event. Dessert is a lot less expensive and easier to pull off than a full meal.
At the same time, I have had a lot of church leaders say that providing dinner is what makes people show up. One church told me they provided dinner because it kept people from going home after work. The leader said, “If couples go home after work, many of them don’t want to get back out.” This same church also has a local restaurant that provides all the food. It’s great marketing for the restaurant, and it obviously makes it much less expensive for the church.
The deciding factors are what works best for your budget, volunteers, and community.
So there you have it: Hold their babies while they hold their forks. (Cut a brother a break, I had to do something to land this random but important plane.)
If you are planning a MarriedPeople Larger Group Experience and need help thinking through your event, our Orange Specialist, Nancy Squires is amazing. Feel free to contact her at info@marriedpeople.org. Plus we have a great community of partners who are sharing ideas and learning from another both on this blog and on our Facebook page.
Thank you for doing something more for marriages in your church and community!
Ted Lowe is a speaker and the director of MarriedPeople, the marriage division at Orange. Ted is the author of two books—one for marriage ministry leaders (Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last) and one for married couples (Your Best US: Marriage Is Easier Than You Think). He served for almost 10 years as the director of MarriedLife at North Point Community Church. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with his four favorite people: his wife, Nancie, and their three children.
by Ted Lowe | Jan 18, 2017 | Training
by Ted Lowe
If you have been following MarriedPeople, then you are probably familiar with our mission statement/tagline: Helping Churches Help Marriages. We say all the time that we want to make the church the hero. Why? Because we believe that the church has to own marriage—meaning marriage has to be part of the overall church strategy.
As we create resources, we want to make them as plug and play as possible, yet in a way that church leaders can make it their own. This is certainly true as we create resources to help you pull off what we call Larger Group Experiences. These Larger Group Experiences can be one-night events, worship services, and/or retreats.
When we initially created Larger Group Experience resources, we provided a message outline and a message written out word for word. We wanted to make the message preparation as easy as possible for the communicator, yet, once again, giving them full freedom to make it their own.
We didn’t care if the communicator used 10% or 95% of what we provided, as long as it was helpful. We still provide message outlines and written messages as part of our Larger Group Experiences, and church partners let us know it is very helpful.
BUT, a couple of years ago, some church leaders let us know an outline and written message weren’t enough. Their staff and volunteers simply didn’t have the bandwidth to prepare and give messages. So, now we provide not only the message outlines and written messages, but also a video message. This allows churches to simply show the message as a part of their program. This has made it much more doable and works well for many churches.
So if you are wondering if you should show the message or have one of your leaders give it live at your event, we say, Yes. We say yes to what works for the reality of your church.
We believe ultimately your church leaders have the most influence and credibility with your audience. We also believe that it is okay for your people to occasionally hear from someone outside your church, yet someone your church leader endorses.
The video needs a leader of your church to say, “Tonight I want you to hear from Ted Cunningham, a pastor/speaker/author. What he has to say was powerful for our marriage, and we think it will be powerful for yours too.” It’s as easy, yet as essential as that.
So, should you show a video communicator at your Larger Group Experience for married people? Ultimately, only you can make that decision.
Just remember, if you’re reluctant to do a Larger Group Experience because you don’t have a communicator, use the video. It’s better to invest in marriages by using a video, than to make no investment at all.
And most of all, trust yourself. You know your audience better than we do.
Ted Lowe is a speaker and the director of MarriedPeople, the marriage division at Orange. Ted is the author of two books—one for marriage ministry leaders (Married People: How Your Church Can Build Marriages That Last) and one for married couples (Your Best US: Marriage Is Easier Than You Think). He served for almost 10 years as the director of MarriedLife at North Point Community Church. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with his four favorite people: his wife, Nancie, and their three children.
