As we celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, entering the third millennium, we pledge together to honor the Lord by committing ourselves afresh to Gods first institution marriage.
We believe that marriage is a holy union of one man and one woman in which they commit, with Gods help, to build a loving, life-giving, faithful relationship that will last for a lifetime. God has established the married state, in the order of creation and redemption, for spouses to grow in love of one another and for the procreation, nurture, formation and education of children.
We believe that in marriage many principles of the Kingdom of God are manifested. The interdependence of healthy Christian community is clearly exemplified in loving one another (John 13:34), forgiving one another (Ephesians 4:32), confessing to one another (James 5:16), and submitting to one another (Ephesians 5:21). These principles find unique fulfillment in marriage. Marriage is Gods gift, a living image of the union between Christ and His Church.
We believe that when a marriage is true to Gods loving design it brings spiritual, physical, emotional, economic, and social benefits not only to a couple and family but also to the Church and to the wider culture. Couples, churches, and the whole of society have a stake in the well-being of marriages. Each, therefore, has its own obligations to prepare, strengthen, support and restore marriages.
Our nation is threatened by a high divorce rate, a rise in cohabitation, a rise in non-marital births, a decline in the marriage rate, and a diminishing interest in and readiness for marrying, especially among young people. The documented adverse impact of these trends on children, adults, and society is alarming. Therefore, as church leaders, we recognize an unprecedented need and responsibility to help couples begin, build, and sustain better marriages, and to restore those threatened by divorce.
Motivated by our common desire that Gods Kingdom be manifested on earth as it is in heaven, we pledge to deepen our commitment to marriage. With three-quarters of marriages performed by clergy, churches are uniquely positioned not only to call America to a stronger commitment to this holy union but to provide practical ministries and influence for reversing the course of our culture. It is evident in cities across the nation that where churches join in common commitment to restore a priority on marriage, divorces are reduced and communities are positively influenced.
Therefore, we call on churches throughout America to do their part to strengthen marriage in our nation by providing:
Further, we urge churches in every community to join in developing policies and programs with concrete goals to reduce the divorce rate and increase the marriage rate.
By our commitment to marriage as instituted by God, the nature of His Kingdom will be more clearly revealed in our homes, our churches, and our culture. To that end we pray and labor with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
May the grace of God, the presence of Christ, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit be abundant in all those who so commit and be a blessing to all whose marriages we seek to strengthen.
Bishop Kevin Mannoia, President
National Association of Evangelicals
Bishop Anthony OConnell, Chairman
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Dr. Richard Land, President
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National Conference of Catholic Bishops
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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
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Committee on Marriage and Family
Life
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Southern Baptist Convention
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Dr. Robert Edgar, General Secretary
National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.*
*Signed 11/14/00; withdrew name 11/17/00
The National Association of Evangelicals, the National Council of Churches of Christ and America's two largest denominations, the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention had never cooperated on anything prior to signing "A Christian Declaration on Marriage." They were moved to do so by the documented disintegration of marriage in America and the evidence seen in dozens of American cities "where churches join in common commitment to restore a priority on marriage, divorces are reduced and communities are positively influenced," as they put it. This memo provides data on the scale of the problem as well as an overview of the progress that has been made locally when churches "provide practical ministries and influence for reversing the course of our culture."
As Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher point out in their important new book, The Case For Marriage, married people are healthier, happier, wealthier, live longer and have better sex than those who divorce or remain single. Oddly, this is news to our culture. Thus, secular evidence backs up Scripture. "The Lord God said, `It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'" (Genesis 2:18). Selected data in brief:
Some churches have developed reforms that are preparing couples for a lifelong marriage, strengthening existing marriages or saving troubled ones. Catholics created strong premarital programs, but many post-marital pioneering ministries have come from Protestants:
The core idea of the best programs, summarized in one sentence:
In every church there are couples with good marriages who really could be of help to other couples, but have never been asked, inspired or trained to come alongside another couple and share their wisdom on how to make a marriage successful.
The mentoring model is based on age-old Biblical principles. In his letter to Titus, Paul urged the older women to "train the younger women to love their husbands and children." Similarly, the older men are to set "an example" to the younger men. (Titus 2:3-6). A Marriage Savers Church demonstrates, in the area of marriage, that the pastor's task, as St. Paul instructed the Ephesians (4:12) is to "equip the saints for ministry" or to "train Gods people for service." What more important ministry or service is there than saving marriages? Who is better equipped to lead this ministry or service than married couples in long-term, happy marriages?" Luke 10:1 says Jesus sent his disciples out "two by two." Could this not be husband and wife, husband and wife serving as Mentor Couples, bringing hope to the marital darkness?
One of the most exciting developments in recent years is to witness the emergence of "Marriage Savers Churches" in all parts of America. Churches of very diverse denominations -- Mainline, Evangelical, Pentecostal and African-American churches -- have virtually eliminated divorce! Christ Lutheran Church in Overland Park, KS, for example, a congregation of 1,500 people, has had only two divorces in three years, couples who did not seek help. First Assembly of God of Rockford, IL invited the McGinnises to train 14 "back-from-the-brink" couples in their church to work with troubled marriages. Local therapists learned about Marriage Ministry and sent dozens of their toughest cases to First Assembly. In three years, the Mentors, whom they call "Marriage Savers," have met with more than 100 marriages headed toward divorce, and saved all but four of them. By contrast, even Christian therapists save only 20% of the troubled marriages. Bread of Life, an inner city church in Kansas City, KS has had no divorces since training Mentors. The same is true of Killearn United Methodist Church, a congregation of 2,500 in Tallahassee. Pearce Memorial Church in North Chili, NY has had only one separation in two years. An American Baptist congregation, First Baptist of Sioux Falls, SD trained 40 couples for marriage, losing none to divorce, and worked with 10 troubled marriages, losing only one. To learn more, see "Churches"
These churches are implementing all of the reforms outlined above. How? Each has equipped couples with solid marriages to mentor other couples. According to their own marital histories, they are trained and matched to assist other couples:
I wrote a new Manual To Create a Marriage Savers Congregation with details on how to jump-start all of these reforms. The 183-page Manual has different Sections on how Mentor Couples can help at all stages of the marital life cycle: preparation, enrichment, reconstruction of troubled marriages, reconciliation of the separated and Stepfamilies. There are manageable, concrete steps to make it easy for any church to launch these ministries. Marriage Savers offers a two-day training of clergy and Mentor Couples to immerse them in how to launch Marriage Saver Churches. It is held nationally twice a year taught by the pioneers of the ministries outlined above. This training is also provided to couples and pastors in cities that adopt a "Community Marriage Policy" where clergy pledge to start all of these marital reforms.
In 1986, at my suggestion, the clergy of Modesto, CA, 95 Protestant and Catholic pastors, signed the first Community Marriage Policy® with the goal "to radically reduce the divorce rate of those married in area churches." Fifteen years later, that dream is a reality. The divorce rate has fallen 47.6%, saving about 1,300 marriages a year that would have ended in divorce in a county of 400,000 people. (See my column on p. 3 for details.) Marriage Savers, has helped create 136 Community Marriage Policies® or Community Marriage Covenants® as some clergy call them, as of February, 2001. They are in 38 states and range in size from 20 pastors in Culpeper, Virginia to 300 clergy who signed in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Most include a commitment by Catholic, Mainline, Evangelical and minority pastors to:
Divorces have plunged in 31 of 33 cities where the impact of Community Marriage Policy® has been measured with data on divorces from county courts. Nationally, U.S. divorces have fallen from 1,181,000 in 1979 to 1,163,000 in 1997, a decline of only 1.5% in 19 years. By contrast, Modesto's divorce rate plunged a remarkable 47.5% in 15 years. The divorce rate is falling even faster in newer CMP cities. In only three years, divorces plummeted by 18% in Corvallis, OR and Fremont, NE, by 19% in Chattanooga, and by nearly one-third in El Paso (from 3,176 to 2,179) and in Kansas City, KS and two suburban counties (from 1,530 in 1995 to only 1,034 in 1998), while divorces actually rose across the river in Kansas City, MO and its suburbs! Thus, divorces in both Kansas City and El Paso have fallen 22 times more than in the U.S. in about one-sixth of the time (3 years vs. 19 years), or more than 100 times faster than in the U.S.
Ours is a nation of 300,000 churches. If only a third trained 10 Mentor Couples each, there would be one million Mentor Couples! Surely, they could save half of the marriages ending in divorce. Can we make that dream a reality?
Those who created the Christian Declaration on Marriage represent 241,177 churches:
Organization
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Churches
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People
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National Council of Churches (35 denominations) |
133,370
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52,000,000
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National Association of Evangelicals (51 denominations) |
45,000
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30,000,000
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Roman Catholic Church |
19,584
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62,018,436
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Southern Baptist Convention |
40,870
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15,729,356
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Church of God (Anderson) |
2,353
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234,311
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Total:
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241,177
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159,982,103
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On the night before he died, Jesus prayed that his followers "may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." Sadly, the Christian church is splintered into scores of denominations and thousands of independent churches who never seem to be one. However, in community after community, marriage is an issue that is bonding the shattered Christian church. Clergy of all faiths have come together in 136 cities to create Community Marriage Policies that are driving divorce rates down. Each Covenant is what Jesus called a "city on a hill," sending out beams of hope into the marital darkness. Every church in America has couples who could help other couples at key stages of marriage, building a "safety net" under every marriage. God will bless our effort to work together to strengthen His first institution. Jesus called himself the bridegroom of the church.
What God has joined together, the church should hold together. This is a new vision for the 21st Century Church a noble reaffirmation of our common commitment to Jesus Christ on the 2000th anniversary of His birth.
Copyright © 2001 Marriage Savers, Inc. All rights reserved.