By Anna Keller
Lamar Duke, interim pastor of First Baptist Church, Greenville, since December 2014, has hosted marriage vow renewal ceremonies at several of the churches where he’s ministered, but said he’s never gotten as big of a response as he did most recently.
“A few Sundays ago I preached a sermon on family, and the church announcements were all about the Valentine’s Day lunch taking place after church Feb. 15,” Duke said. “So I decided we’d have an opportunity for people to renew their wedding vows that Sunday morning also. I had no idea that on Feb. 9 — the next day — the same-sex ‘marriage’ thing would be such an issue in the state of Alabama.”
February 9 was the first day same-sex “marriage” was legalized in the state.
Showing convictions
“Initially, I thought it would be a nice thing to do before we had the Valentine’s Day lunch together, but it turned into something more as the status of our state changed,” Duke said. “It was a way for us to show our convictions with passion, but we weren’t trying to rub anyone the wrong way.”
Fifteen couples signed up to be a part of the vow renewal, including Chip and Jennifer Shealy, who have been members of the Butler Baptist Association church for 15 years. They were inspired to participate in large part because they wanted to make a public statement to show their commitment to their four young children. Both Jennifer and Chip’s parents were divorced after several decades of marriage, and the Shealys want to ensure that their kids know that won’t happen to their family.
“Because of our families we are very intentional and honest with our children regarding fighting and forgiveness within our marriage, and how we forgive each other the same way Jesus forgives us for the sins we commit all the time,” Jennifer Shealy said. “We wanted to take that a step further by having our children see and hear those vows and understand that God intends marriage to be between one man and one woman for a lifetime.”
The renewal took place during the Sunday service Feb. 15, following a short sermon by Duke about the church being the bride of Christ.
Laura Mullins, along with her husband, Brad, also participated in the vow renewal. She said, “After the hymn of invitation, (Lamar) asked the couples who had signed up for the vow renewal to come up, and he took it from there. He called up each couple by name and announced the year they got married. At one point we all said a great big ‘I do’ and Lamar said he wanted it to be heard in Montgomery and Washington — everywhere — to let them know we were setting an example for a godly marriage.”
Each husband who participated in the renewal was given a copy of “The Five Love Languages,” by Gary Chapman, and each wife received a long-stemmed red rose.
Duke said, “I joked that the women could read the book and let the men know what their takeaways should be.”
With couples ranging from 10 to 63 years of marriage, there were a total of 527 years of marriage represented at the vow renewal.
When Duke first brought up the idea for this event Feb. 8, he said he could think of three main reasons for couples to be a part of the renewal: to thank God for marriage, to affirm biblical marriage and to say to your spouse that you’d do it all over again.
Jennifer Shealy said she and her husband were surprised at how much being a part of the renewal meant to them.
“What started off as a sense of obligation to our family and to our church has really blossomed into something deeply spiritual for us,” she said. “As Chip said, the first time we married was just about us but this time the vows were about a commitment to those four children watching and to our church, sending the message to the world that this is what God intends marriage to be. In many ways it meant more this time than it did almost 16 years ago.”
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