Missional Marriage Ministry: A Pilot Study in Enlisting, Equipping, and Engaging in Missional Expressions of Marriage Ministry

Abstract

The intention of this project was to equip, mobilize and assist Christian couples to have missional impact on marriages in the community and in so doing prevent or minimize the negative impact of family dysfunction for community couples. While many churches have adopted programs in support of marriages, very few have embraced a missional orientation to marriage ministry. As a result the need for compassionate ministry directed toward community couples is immense. More specifically, the intent of this project was: to investigate whether a church could have missional impact on community marriages; to learn how to equip Christian couples for missional marriage ministry; to discover how to effectively engage community couples; to investigate the impact engaging in missional marriage ministry has on the Christian participants as it relates to their own marital health, and; to investigate how engaging in missional praxis enhances the missional consciousness of a congregation. The project methodology was to enlist, equip, engage, monitor and observe a group of participants from The Olive Branch Community Church, (Markham Ontario, Canada) in missional marriage ministry over an 18 month period. Using qualitative analysis the participants were interviewed post process and their experience was evaluated. From this assessment a model and principles of missional marriage ministry were derived. While the outcomes are location-specific certain implications from this pilot project may be drawn for other ministries. Through this project it was discovered that there is good evidence to suggest that community some couples are open to receiving marital help from a church that is missionally sensitive. This project revealed that some Christians are interested in being equipped for this kind of ministry. This project also provided data to suggest that a significant way to help Christian couples thrive in their own marriage is to engage them in missional expressions of marriage ministry and that a praxis oriented pedagogical approach is effective in gaining a deeper understanding missional ministry. Helping community couples in their marriage may open a significant portal through which the good news of the Kingdom of God can enter and transform