Does your church have a marriage ministry group?

Tami87 · May 2013

So H and I became members of our neighborhood parish when he moved in with me after the wedding. I really love our new parish and H and I have been trying to get more involved with the community but most of the parish groups and activities seem to be geared toward those who are retired or are stay at home moms. For example the only women's bible study is at 10am on a Tuesday. So we have had trouble meeting people and making friends at church. We also recently got a new priest who has been trying to make some changes and is really open to hearing feedback and suggestions from the parishioners. So H and I have been thinking that we would really love to see some type of marriage ministry group started that would be predominately for newlyweds but could also include engaged couples doing marriage prep or older mentor couples. We also thought it might be good timing to start such a group because there are quite a few new couples who are getting married at our parish this summer.

So my question is do any of you have a group like this at your parish? Any suggestions for a format that works well or any resources for starting this type of group? We would like to pitch this idea to our priest and I was hoping to get something a little more thought out together. Thanks in advance for any resources and/or advice you can give me!

monkeysip · May 2013

I didn't know of any groups like that at my old parish, and I'm pretty sure there isn't anything like that at my new one, so I can't help you there.

I will tell you, however, that they had a group like that at my old protestant church. It was pretty successful, but it was really just a social get-together format. About once a month, a couple would host a get together at their house with food, etc. and they would spend a little time with like bible study or something (I never went--I was too young--but I knew about it).

Do you want it to be more religious based, with a structured bible study/book study/theology discussion? Or do you want something more social with get togethers at restaurants/people's houses? Just some things to think about.

itzMS · May 2013

In general, I like the idea. In reality, I'd never be able to do this.

DH & I live quite literally across the street from our parish. But we find ourselves already so busy between events and get togethers with family and friends that there's no way we could commit to a group. We're not popular by any means, but adding another "activity" to the calendar would be a stretch...especially because we both work full time.

Most of the young adult or married programs fizzle out due to low attendance from what I've seen.

newlyseliski · May 2013

My old parish that my husband and I were married at has a really active young adult group that has taken a fairly large and dedicated all-volunteer committee to keep running... They have weekly meetings with a more catechetical aim (Theology on Tap, speaker series, service events, holy hours, etc) as well as a weekly sports night where people gather to play ultimate frisbee, dodgeball or volleyball depending on the season. The group is open to singles or married couples, has an enforced age range limit and has been running for almost 10 years now! I was on the core team for about 3 years... it really is an exhausting endeavor and it would have been nice if we had a dedicated support person on staff at the parish. Granted, the number and breadth of events that we have going on is difficult to build up to without that support - which the group did have in the beginning! Fundraising is also important so that you can pay speakers... we would fundraise by joining with other parish groups on some events as well as hosting swing/barn dances. If you have a group of young adults and/or married couples who are interested... go talk to your priest together and be prepared for a lot of work to get something off the ground! My husband and I live over an hour away now, so don't frequently attend the events anymore... plus our lives seemed to get exponentially more busy after getting married. We were a part of the group long enough to form a lot of great friendships with other Catholic young adults and now get together enough with them outside of the group to have maintained that sense of community! The group was well worth the time invested in planning and participating... but it can be a lot of work to start from scratch.

lalaith50 · May 2013

H and I actually tried to start something similar, which...fizzled out. Really, it ended up just being our friends. Which is incredibly sad, given that this parish has like 5000 members... really, people, no one will come to a young adult bbq that's at the parish grounds and advertised in the bulletin?! It got rather frustrating. We were doing a monthly holy hour, but then the priest who was doing it for us started getting busy/flaky and so it was hard to plan it. This parish is *very* family oriented (they have a huge school,) and we're in the suburbs, so I guess there just aren't all that many young married couples or young adults.

We were trying to model it on a parish I'm familiar with from my before I met H and moved, http://genchrist.net/genchrist/.

They do a weekly holy hour, with some praise & worship type singing, plus silent adoration, and a talk by a priest or deacon.

Here's the biggest things they have going for them (which we didn't have)

First, they're in a HUGE university town... lots of college students looking for orthodox prayer and fellowship (which you, ahem, can *not* find at the official "student parish" on campus,) and then the city itself and job situation are very conducive for people staying to work and get married once they graduate.

And secondly, they have the FULL support of the 2-3 priests at that parish, plus, they have additional support b/c there is both a single men's and single women's house that is connected and sponsored by the parish & diocese. It was started by a priest, and well, quite honestly I just think that people are more likely to come and do something when they see the priests are involved... people LOVE good priests!

coffeeismylyfe · May 2013

Our marriage prep was pretty much exactly like you described. There were four or five older mentor couples, and the engaged couples are assigned to one of them. If the engaged couple has a preference, they can request a specific mentor couple. After that, you receive workbooks and it's up to the two couples to decided how to proceed. We had dinner with our mentors once a week and discussed that weeks chapter in our book after dinner each night. I thought it was really nice, but it was also very informal and I don't know how well it would work in a large parish.

jenjlgsings · May 2013

Check out Covenant of Love. My parish just started using their program. they intersperce it with socials, talks, etc. Not a huge turn out (yet), but hopefully it will continue to grow.

What is nice is that it is a range of couples. People that have been maried 50 years to just enaged (like finace and me). Lots of good discussion and fellowship.

Tami87 · May 2013

Thanks for all of the suggestions everyone. Our priest mentioned starting a young adult group months ago in an announcement after mass and we haven't heard anything since so we are hoping that if we bring it up and again and let him know that we are interested we can maybe get something going. Or as I said maybe some type of marriage ministry group that also includes older parishioners as mentors since our parish is so geared towards seniors right now although we are definitely growing with more young couples and families. Our priest has been trying to set up a lot of events to get feedback since this is only his second year at our church. There is a boy's night out at the parish in a few weeks that my husband is planning to attend (I missed ladies night) so he is going to try to bring it up then.

As for structure I was thinking a mix of social and fellowship with either some talks or theology discussion. Part of me posting this was to see if anyone had a really successful program that we could model such a group after.

Does your church have a marriage ministry group?

Re: Does your church have a marriage ministry group?

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