Church leaders work to save state’s marriages

As divorce rates soar across the nation, some Alabama Baptists are partnering with other religious leaders in their communities to prepare, strengthen and restore marriages. 
   
Rod Marshall, director of counseling with the Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries, believes Alabama is experiencing a genuine marriage crisis with research revealing the sixth highest divorce rate in the nation.
   
“We live in a society that is very focused on immediate gratification,” Marshall said. 
   
“If your marriage is not making you happy, divorce may be considered. (Many couples) never get to experience the happiness that almost always follows the stressful time,” he said.
   
After Tuscaloosa city leaders realized there were 89 divorces for every 100 marriages in their county between 1999 and 2002 — a ratio far above the U.S. average of 50 divorces per 100 marriages — they began looking for ways to decrease these statistics. 
   
Two years ago, approximately 40 Tuscaloosa pastors from more than 15 denominations publicly signed a community marriage policy to minister to engaged and married couples. 
   
The event, organized by the Tuscaloosa Prayer Network under the leadership of Director William Scroggins, occurred after participants attended a Marriage Savers workshop. 
   
Marriage Savers trains  participants to mentor couples already married or those engaged to be married.
   
Earlier this year, the city’s religious leaders renewed their commitment from 2003 and added a one-man, one-woman marriage for a lifetime commitment.
   
Like Tuscaloosa, many Opelika church leaders signed a community marriage policy nearly 10 years ago and still insist that engaged couples receive marriage counseling before getting married.
   
“We felt there was a need for a community effort to strengthen marriages, and one of the ways of doing that was to have churches to insist that couples go through premarital counseling,” said Mike King, associate pastor of First Baptist Church, Opelika. 
   
“We saw this as a community commitment to marriage — a step for couples to prepare for marriage, and not just a wedding, and a step to unite churches in our area in their commitment to marriage.”
   
Mike McManus, president of Marriage Savers, a nonprofit group based in Potomac, Md., believes amazing results can be expected through this partnership.
   
“I believe that the deterioration of marriage is the central domestic problem of our time,” McManus said. 
   
“Not only are half ending in divorce but the marriage rate has fallen 43 percent,” he said. “A community marriage policy is an agreement by pastors in the city to take better steps to help couples prepare for a lifelong marriage, enrich an existing one or restore a troubled one.”
   
Marshall feels that it is the church’s job to salvage and preserve family marriages.
   
“Unfortunately, in religious circles, we talk a lot about marriage and family, (but) we don’t do much about it,” he said. “Talking doesn’t help. If we don’t take some steps to help couples be prepared before they get married and to enrich marriage, the church will begin to reflect the culture, and that’s already where we are.”
   
With 75 percent of marriages performed in the institutionalized church and similar divorce rates in churches and the secular community, Scroggins said he also believes the body of Christ has a responsibility to focus on marriage to improve the standard of living and quality of marriage in the community. 
   
If you look at the record of Marriage Savers, it has had a great impact in a large number of cities, he said.
   
After participating in the Marriage Savers program, Killearn United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Fla., with 2,600 members had no divorces in a four-year period, and Bread of Life Outreach Ministries, a black church of 150 in Kansas City, Kan., had only one divorce in five years. 
   
Several other churches have reported similar results.
   
Marriage Savers communities achieve these results by requiring four to six months of marriage preparation for engaged couples including a premarital inventory, meetings with older couples and mental exercises to help resolve conflicts. 
   
The program also encourages every congregation to organize stepfamily support groups and annual marriage retreats.
   
“We have helped 193 cities to create a community marriage policy in which (all denominations) come together and say no more quickie weddings,” McManus said. “The result is that the divorce rate has come down enough to save about 50,000 marriages since 2001.”
   
In Tuscaloosa, Forest Lake Baptist Church pastor Donald Payne said the results are not yet visible but “it’s a harvest.” 
   
“We are sowing seeds right now, and we hope to reap the benefits of that in the years to come,” Payne said. “I’m sure we will do that.”
   
McManus agreed. “The Lord is active,” he said. “If you do something to make marriages work, He gets involved and helps.”
   
Efforts in Tuscaloosa are attracting attention from the community and pastors in other cities, according to Scroggins.
   
“There seems to be a much greater awareness of the significance of marriage at the foundation of our community, and pastors seem to be more aware of the significance of preparing people for marriage,” he said. “We are praying and doing what we can.”
   
“It is strictly a Christian effort to make sure that couples first know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and secondly that they’re at least willing to consider making a commitment to the local church for membership,” Payne said. 
   
“The overall issue is that different churches have different standards and requirements for marrying couples,” he said. “A covenant policy in the community where you have one standard for all congregations makes it more difficult for a couple to take the easy way out.”
   
Some faith communities in the state have decided purposefully against Marriage Savers principles, but they have found other strategies and resources in an effort to save marriages.