Tough Question: Will You Perform A Wedding For A Couple Living Together?

Tough Question: Will You Perform A Wedding For A Couple Living Together? 

This is a good place for a text that speaks to the issue.

There isn’t one.

I’m sorry. (Sorrier than I can tell you. Every preacher would love to have it spelled out in scriptural black and white that the minister can marry certain couples and should decline invitations to join in holy matrimony certain others.)

I recall my surprise on finding that the Bible contains no wedding ceremonies. None, nada. It is not silent about marriage, but completely mute on weddings (well, other than the fact that Jesus catered the wine for one in Cana of Galilee, but as a card-totin’ Southern Baptist, I am not going there!).

I love getting requests to join couples in holy matrimony and was excited at the opportunity to conduct my first weddings. Then I quickly learned that I have been thrown into the deep end of the pastoral-decision-making pool.  I found I had to choose–often with little preparation and guidance–whether to marry the divorced, the unchurched, and couples who are already living together as husband and wife.

I am learning that in some cases, there is no single right answer.

Sorry (again). I wish this could be a cut-and-dried thing.

Here is my policy when it comes to marriage:

1) I believe you should take each invitation separately, consider it prayerfully, and do what the Spirit within you says.

2) If you try to be consistent with a rigid policy, you will drive yourself nuts and alienate people. Remember, “the letter of the law kills; the Spirit gives life” (II Corinthians 3:6).

3) If you are a perfectionist, this is going to keep you up nights. There will be times when to marry a couple will offend certain people in your church or your community, and to turn them down is to offend another group.  Welcome to the pastorate of the 21st century, preacher. No one said it was going to be simple or easy.

Every young pastor faces this. Every. Young. Pastor. Faces. This.  You are not the first nor the last.

Therefore, seek counsel from veteran ministers on this and other subjects. I suggest you ask them to meet you for coffee (you’re paying) because you need their advice.  Do this with two or three of the most respected pastors you know.

Then, now that you are thoroughly confused–because their experience and their counsel will almost always be different–enter into your prayer room and don’t come out until you know what the Lord would have you to do.

My personal testimony on this…is much like every other preacher’s I know.

I started out strongly vowing I would not do weddings for divorced people or people living together. High standards, right?

I have since learned that nothing is simple or cut-and-dried except for those who automatically reject complexities and contexts.

Everything I’m attempting to convey comes down to the following:

1) Know the Word and stay with it.

2) Seek the Lord and obey Him.

3) Love people and look for ways to bless them.

4) Put rules before either the Lord or people and nothing good will come of it.

5) Be open to growing and changing as the Lord leads.

6) Every wedding you conduct will be an act of faith since no one has ever learned  how to predict which marriages will “make it” and which won’t.

7) If you have to choose on erring on the side of grace or law, choose grace.

To answer the question: will you perform a wedding for a couple living together? It depends. How about calling the church office, setting up an appointment and we can talk about your wedding?