David Goodman,  International V. P. T-Net

How to make weddings uniquely warm and personal making maximum disciplemaking impact in your community and church.

Contrary to what one might think, weddings are one of the most strategic disciplemaking opportunities within the church. Yes, they can be a pain to facilitate from an administrative point of view, but . . .

if you ascribe to the theory
that people are most open spiritually
in times of crisis and significant life change,
 then all the turmoil that goes on
around these showcase affairs
qualifies many of the participants
as prime candidates
for change.

Let’s start at center stage. If only a good marriage was as easily realized as the gauzy perfection of the Bride and Groom portrayed in that expensive wedding album that will soon be gathering dust in a corner somewhere.

There's Mom watching the proud father of the bride march her daughter down the aisle . . . watching perhaps her two greatest sources of frustration . . . and greatest objects of affection. Dad, looking light on his feet this evening, is feeling even lighter in his pocketbook and with that comes increased stress in all of his relationships including his primary one with God.

Across the aisle, almost forgotten in all the excitement, are the parents of the groom who are trying to reconcile their son’s spiritual awakening with all they knew about him before he went off to college.

Then look at the bridesmaids, beautiful in expensive dresses they will never wear again, balanced on the right with the same number of groom’s men who can’t believe their friend is taking the plunge. In the congregation, mixed in with familiar faces, is an assortment of cross-town visitors rubber-necking at this "anachronistic" church and out of town guests many of whom have no clue what to call you when they give you that obligatory congratulations on “one of the most beautiful weddings ever.”

These occasions warrant a good deal more attention than they sometimes get
from a strategic disciplemaking pastor.

If we are honest,
with all the other demands
on our time,
we sometimes
mail these services in.

A Strategic Opportunity to Impact Your Community

Yet, on the list of church events that establish goodwill in your community and define your church reputation, weddings have to be at the very top of your list. They draw a significant number of people who otherwise would never darken your doors. Whether or not these people are seekers, their collective impressions of your church will often define the community impression of your church and directly influence the rest of your evangelistic activities. No, I am not suggesting you give an invitation or weave “The Four Laws” into your message. I am suggesting you emulate God’s personal attention and love by designing a service that is unlike any other they have ever seen.

I want to outline some processes that will endear you to church families and enhance your church reputation within your community. At most, it will cost you the energy it takes to evaluate and tweak existing procedures and perhaps add a little time to your wedding preparation. This can make a significant impact on the participants and the congregation. It takes a little more effort, but I will make it as easy as possible by sharing several manuscripts and the rationale behind them. Some of this may be original, but much of it I have gathered here and there.

First, I will walk you through an approach to a personalized service and supply you with a full manuscript that you are free to use without attribution. Then in part two we will walk through the preparations and processes leading up to this service to try to maximize disciplemaking impact.

How My Thinking About Weddings Changed

When I began doing weddings, I would include the traditional mini-sermon on marriage. Over time I started to feel the prime opportunity to get these points across is in premarital counseling not when they are standing in front of you worrying about every thing other than what you are saying. And . . . I got as bored with it as everyone else.

Adding to the boredom factor was the fact that weddings seem to involve the same generation of families within your church. Whoever has kids that age will be attending each other’s family weddings thus requiring you to prepare numerous variations of your wedding sermon or just inviting them to join you in reciting your favorite anecdotes.

So, I decided to get rid of the sermon. In its place, I substitute a more lengthy personalized charge to the bride and groom.

That enables me
to cover the same ground in fresh ways
and establish better rapport
with everyone involved.
Believe me,
nobody complains
about the missing sermon.

The Rationale

This is not as difficult as it would sound. I still recycle many elements in my charge, but it is the personalized context that people hear. Moreover, some of these elements you will receive from the bride and groom themselves. Here are the prime components:

1. Start the service with tributes to the parents of the Bride and Groom. If you ignore everything else I say, please incorporate this! It is pure magic. After you do this, the rest of your service is a lock because you have already addressed the elephant in the room and created an atmosphere for healing. Why?

1. Parents sacrifice much to get their kids to the altar.

2. Parents sacrifice much to pay for the wedding and get it all together.

3. If there are any weaknesses in the parent-child relationship, preparing for the wedding will often push those weaknesses to the limit bringing all parties to the ceremony with painted on smiles and weary hearts.

4. If one or both families are from a significantly different religious orientation, those parents will have their guard way up.

2. What does this look like?

1. After the father walks the bride proudly down the aisle, give a brief welcome followed by an invocation after which all are seated with the exception of both sets of parents. It is often hard for the parents to remember not to sit down with everyone else so if there is room, instruct the mother of the bride and the groom’s parents to take a step forward when the groom joins his bride and bride’s father. They will remain behind the wedding party, but they have separated themselves from the congregation for their involvement in the “giving away.”

2. Introduce the “giving away” by explaining what it means. I like to put it in the context of Christian parents having long ago given their children back to the Lord (in a service of dedication or baptism) and here reaffirm that action because of the human tendency to take back what we have already given to God.

3. When the father answers (or both parents answer) then the father joins the mother a step back from the couple.

4. I also like to ask the Groom’s parents to give away their son because it seems logical rather than implying the bride’s family does something the groom’s family does not.

5. In rehearsal just tell the parents you will have a few more words to say to them then you will tell them to be seated. I like to make the tributes a surprise because it enhances the impact.

6. Always deliver the tributes yourself on behalf of the bride and groom and then, when done, they each turn and embrace their own parents and often give their mothers a single rose placed nearby for that purpose.

7. This element, when each is embracing their parents and then coming back to the front to continue with the ceremony, is quite symbolic as a rite of passage. They have acknowledged their indebtedness and parents, throughout the congregation, are drawn to the significance, generosity and propriety of this moment.

8. Have examples to help prime the pump when the bride and groom are writing there tributes. Always carefully review these tributes ahead of time with them. Sometimes you will help them rewrite a thoughtless or hurtful comment.

9. Occasionally, one party will not want to write a tribute citing a very difficult relationship. I usually respond that if such is the case the exercise is all the more important as a strategic opportunity to work towards healing and reconciliation. To affirm actual qualities is not to deny unfinished business. Also, be careful that one tribute does not suffer in comparison making it less than affirming for one set of parents.

10. Tributes should not be long, but are most effective when specific in a representative sort of way, i.e. “Thanks Mom for all the special surprises you would put in my lunch box as a kid” has much more impact than “Mom you were always considerate and kind and generous.”

11. With unbelieving parents and especially parents who raised their child in a very different religious environment, include thanks for any way they contributed to their child’s present faith, i.e.. “Thanks for teaching me the importance of God in my life by taking me to all those Sunday School classes…” or “sending me to a parochial school . . .” or even “for always encouraging me to ask questions and think things through . . .” In other words encourage the couple to reach out and establish any possible common ground by appreciating whatever spiritual contributions the parents made because they are often sitting there feeling like their child has rejected them as well as their faith. You want to do your best to facilitate meaningful conversations in the future.

3. Build into your counseling process the means to ensure you get the information you need for personalizing the service.

1. Ask both to fill out a form answering the question: Why do you want to spend the rest of your life with this person? What does he/she do that makes you feel special? What do you miss most about him/her when you are absent? What would you say are his/her most unique abilities?

2. Schedule an interview time to learn the specifics of their vocation and avocations. You may wish to schedule this in close proximity to when you create the ceremony so that the information is fresh. The goal here is to identify their passions and abilities. I try to discover what each person feels are their particular skills and competencies. Then challenge them to utilize those qualities that make them successful in marriage. My premise here is that this is about commitment. Moreover, if I can tie into some other area where they have experienced and practiced commitment, they will be much more responsive.

3. Here are some examples of how to personalize the charge:

1. For a Mechanic or Someone With a Hobby of Restoring Cars   “John: you have an enviable ability to take a car engine and make it purr like it was new. I have seen the engine you rebuilt. I would never undertake something like that. But you pulled that worn and worthless piece of junk out of your car and found the parts you need, got the advice and counsel you needed and then persevered through the hard work and produced an engine that just purrs down the highway. John you now turn yourself to a renovation project even more challenging. And by that, I do not mean Jane. You know what I found when I got married, John? . . . that I had a lot of growing to do. I needed to change. Nothing made that more clear to me than how difficult it was for me to be the sort of husband God commands me to be. You have all the promises of God and the Spirit of God indwells you. Now your challenge is to take these same skills and disciplines that have served you so well and turn them toward becoming more and more the person God created you to be. It may feel at times like the Spirit of God is taking you apart the way I know you can tear into an engine. But rest assured if you hang in there and let him, he will remake you into the person God designed you to be. You have to have faith in the process. To do that you will need to trust he can put you back together again, but you also must be willing to let God speak to you through wise counsel from those who have gone before. You must be willing to admit you don’t know . . .”
    

2. For a Bride With a Gift of Music   “Jane, you are a skilled musician. I once took piano lessons in college for a semester and I realized how much time and energy has to go into practicing, and practicing, and practicing. Those exquisite notes that flow from your fingers never just happened did they? There were a lot of wrong notes before the right ones. You’ve had tutors and lessons. You’ve drilled and drilled and drilled. Out of that comes this incredible music. That is wonderful preparation for marriage believe it or not. Because now you turn yourself to a discipline that is even more demanding than music. For one thing, you are adding another variable . . . John. It is no longer you and your instrument alone together in the practice room. You may have selected John because to you he stood out like a Steinway among lesser instruments, but you will find he is far less predictable. We all are. It is hard to build a truly grand marriage. There will be many wrong notes. In addition, it will take trial and error, disciplined communication to understand each other . . . to find the right notes that make the perfect chord. And as you have spoken of wanting children you will be adding more notes to those cords which means more variables to harness and bring into harmony . . .”

4. With very young and inexperienced people, sometimes you will have more difficulty isolating these qualities because they are not yet certain what they are good at, but questions about their present occupation, their aspirations and hobbies will bring out the things that distinguish them. If they just graduated from college, then find out what aspects of that experience they took pride in and felt good about.
    

5. Another element to personalize with is their written statement about why they are marrying the other person, etc. Even if you are not going to utilize this to personalize the ceremony, it is a useful tool. Some find it surprisingly difficult to articulate these things and the act of putting it on paper is helpful for them. Even some of the most common statements can give you something to build on.

1. “Jane said . . . “when she is with you, you have the ability to make her feel like all is well with the world.” That is a wonderful thing Frank, because your commitment here is to love and serve Jane as Christ served the Church and sacrificed himself for our good . . .

2.  In preparation for the wedding ceremony included with this newsletter, the bride wrote on her sheet, “I like the way we work through problems like adults and play like children.” That was a wonderful statement to build on and talk about how they should not lose either of those. And how easy it is to mix it up! Notice, when you read the ceremony, that I don’t assume this will always be the case (even if they might) but go on to talk about what their commitment means when they DO get it mixed up.
    

6. Statements a parent or close friend makes could also be used, but make certain you clear that first.

7. I don’t feel I need to cover every aspect of the marriage commitment, but just try to get a representative sampling that captures the spirit and determination I want to see in the covenant they are making.
    

4. You would be surprised how easily you can take a few of these comments to adapt your charge for each individual. Save each new one you make and you will find certain parts of it you will want to reuse or change slightly because it fits for someone else. One thing is for certain . . . when you use their words and talk about their world everyone will pay much more attention including the Bride and Groom. A number of the couples I have done this for have told me how they will go find the video or tape recording, we give them, and listen to it on an anniversary as a way of renewing their vows.

A Wedding Manuscript

Here is a sample wedding ceremony.  I have omitted many details about music and scripture because those are so variable, but the distinctive features we have been discussing are all here.  I am providing the same manuscript in several different formats so you can either use it as a starting point or cut and paste any part of it into your own wedding ceremony.

Wedding Manuscript - Microsoft Word Version (Word 97 – 2002)

Wedding Manuscript - PDF Version (Free downloadable Adobe Acrobat)

Wedding Manuscript - Rich Text File (Access in any word processing program)

Also: Resources on the Web for Officiating Pastors Click Here