Tag Archive: premarital counseling

Before You Give Them the Chance to Say "I do"

wedding

Though I’ve never been a senior pastor, there have been seasons in my ministry when I was conducting several weddings each year. But that amount of officiating wasn’t enough for me to remember all that’s involved each time in officiating a wedding. Things like, how to prepare a couple for marriage and how to perform a God-honoring wedding ceremony.

While the minister’s task list isn’t as long as the wedding coordinator’s, as the minister, I was responsible for each of these areas:

•             Details of the ceremony;

•             Concise list of the couple’s must-dos;

•             And my non-negotiable counseling topics.

As in my church now, my previous church provided pre-marital counseling (a great resource, Countdown to Marriage). But even if a couple attended the classes, I still wanted to cover certain topics face-to-face with them.

After continually starting from scratch in my preparation for each pre-marital counseling meeting, I decided to develop a check list of things I wanted to discuss and accomplish in each one .

As a minister, you need a framework for your role in weddings. You need to determine conversation and decision points with each couple. You need to be protective of your time (and wedding ceremonies can be a time-killer).

Here’s my wedding checklist– it might provide a baseline as you develop your own.

Happy marrying.

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