Why Don't We Help Marriages? What the Church Gets Wrong Series-Full Transcript
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Still Becoming One.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, welcome back.
Brad Aldrich:
We’re glad that you are here, and excited to continue our what the church can be doing about marriages better.
Kate Aldrich:
We are still diving into that. I was thinking about our week, though. Anything exciting happening this week? I don’t think so.
Brad Aldrich:
Not really, nope, this is you know pretty typical winter. So yeah, it just is.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, yes and no. Last week was actually not very typical, and it was more. Again, I’ve dubbed us mini Seattle. It rained most of the week and it was just a quagmire of mud, so yeah, but it’s cooler again this week, so it feels a little bit more like winter here in Pennsylvania. Yeah that’s good so we are headed away this weekend.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, I know that’s gonna be a lot of fun. Yes, just the two of us for two days, so we try to do a weekend away or send our kids away and we stay home, sometimes Twice a year. That’s our goal. This year we’re doing one weekend and one more extended trip, since it’s our 25th anniversary this summer.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, this year is 25 years.
Brad Aldrich:
So we’re going and celebrating that, but we’re doing a much needed just weekend us away this weekend, so that’ll be a lot of fun.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah, we’re looking forward to that. So, yeah, I’m already like, woke up this morning it’s Monday and I was like is it Friday yet? Not quite I know, but I’m ready, I’m ready. How do we get fast forward to Friday?
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, I haven’t figured out that button yet.
Kate Aldrich:
It’s probably good that there isn’t such a button. I would probably use it way too many times. So the only way to Friday is through the rest of the days.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s right, so got a lot of good stuff too.
Kate Aldrich:
So yep, that’s true. We would miss a lot of life if we had that fast forward button.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s the truth, so well yeah, today was our.
Kate Aldrich:
What do churches do? Right, like we talked on a lot of subjects that the church struggles with and does causes a lot of harm with. But then I think there is an also huge part, which you’ve always been passionate about, when we had one flesh marriage of how the church misses just being a space to educate and help marriages know what marriage should look like.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, this is kind of a personal frustration of mine. I had really felt called toward helping the local church a little more than a decade ago now and just praying through it and just trying to seek out what churches were doing to help marriages like ours grow, and I was just really, really discouraged that most churches that I looked at and honestly at the time I looked through hundreds of, like some of the largest churches in the country and just looked at what are they doing?
Brad Aldrich:
and the majority of them, their marriage ministry consisted of premarital mentoring and divorce care. And guys, there’s a problem, right Like yeah, if we say, oh, we’re going to help you get started and we’re going to help you if your marriage ends, and that’s our idea of marriage ministry, I think we’re missing something.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, it’s like what’s in the gap?
Brad Aldrich:
Literally nothing, that’s everything, every part of your marriage is in that gap.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, right, but I mean, what are the churches doing in the gap? Nothing, and that’s why we have divorce care, yeah, not, don’t misunderstand me. Divorce is going to happen anyways, and I’m not saying that if your church has a program, then yeah no, it’s sure, Sure Care is really an excellent program, absolutely Important, right so? But it’s also not knocking at we certainly aren’t knocking premarital.
Brad Aldrich:
We think it’s really important to do any of it.
Kate Aldrich:
Both of those are needed.
Brad Aldrich:
Right.
Kate Aldrich:
What we’re saying is we’re creating where’s the middle? You’re creating a scenario where the end is very much needed because you’re not actually helping marriages in that middle Right.
Brad Aldrich:
And I think this is a known problem. I do know there are some excellent organizations out there that are trying to pay attention to this, trying to give churches some resources. And yet it’s hard because I think a lot of pastors as we’ve been talking about don’t know what they should be doing.
Kate Aldrich:
Right and even I will say, which is phenomenal, it’s really only been the past 15 years that even these organizations have been doing really good stuff. Not just books, which I want to say have their place, and certainly you can do a book study at a church. But people writing marriage books, that’s not actually what we’re talking about. That’s not, in my opinion, hitting the ground, working hard with couples inside the church. Those are much more geared towards individual marriages, reading them and sometimes, yes, you can do a study. But we’re talking about churches having something for marriages Once you’re married right, once premarital is done, and having marriage enrichment, marriage education marriage encouragement, yeah right.
Brad Aldrich:
I mean we come from that theory and we’ve said this multiple times is we do not think any couple gets through marriage unscathed, right Like there’s always stuff.
Kate Aldrich:
Something’s not right.
Brad Aldrich:
There’s always challenges, there’s always times where we need some help. So where’s most of our first place to turn when we need help is to the church Right. And if the church just says the answer is, oh, all you have to do is do a better Bible study, or, you know, you have to pray harder or you know all the things that we’ve been talking about already. They’re certainly missing something.
Kate Aldrich:
Right.
Brad Aldrich:
Right, like if every couple is going to need help along the way and we are made to feel bad because we need help. I think the church is doing damage by saying you’re not normal because things aren’t good.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, let’s just stop a second and the whole pray more, read your Bible more. That is truly an answer. That, of course, praying and reading our Bible is never a bad thing. So they’ve got us on that right. It’s never a bad thing. But when a church is saying that, I believe they are most always saying it because they don’t know what else to say. So I don’t know what else to tell you, so I’ll just tell you to pray and read the Bible more. And so many people have been invalidated and hurt, with that being the only answer I’m gonna tell you. Most people are coming to you with a challenge. They know praying and reading the Bible more is going to be an answer you’re going to give them, so they’re not coming for that right.
Kate Aldrich:
So like stop hurting people by saying that it is a given.
Brad Aldrich:
Well, that’s putting it on them of you’re doing something wrong.
Kate Aldrich:
True unless we’re talking about people who really are very new believers and don’t have any knowledge Well, but even established believers.
Brad Aldrich:
I mean, we know I’m not gonna say the organization here, but we know of a organization doing marriage intensives that really base their whole intensive around teaching people what scripture actually says about marriage about how we’re supposed to love each other.
Kate Aldrich:
well, which is needed because it is so needed A lot of people don’t know that, but that’s different than praying and reading the Bible.
Brad Aldrich:
We were surprised by when we went through some of their program. We were surprised a little by it because in many ways it was simple, right, it was basic knowledge. But I think so many people were just floored by better understanding of what scripture actually says of how we should treat each other in marriage. So I think if it’s the first time hearing it, sure that does do a lot of changes. Scripture is powerful.
Brad Aldrich:
So, I certainly can see that. But it is this thing where it’s like okay, how is that going to change next time we’re in an argument? And the gritty of what that looks like.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, no, I think that’s really good and of course there can be, as you said that, knowledge of what the Bible says about marriage, but that’s not even what you’re saying when you’re saying read your Bible and pray more.
Brad Aldrich:
No, but I think if a church, if that’s all they know to do and they wanna start with a marriage class or group, that’s just that man. That could be some help.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah yeah absolutely no, it’s good stuff.
Brad Aldrich:
If your answer is okay, well, let’s figure out what scripture is Great, let’s start there right, and I think there can be blessing, there can be help.
Kate Aldrich:
Absolutely. Yeah, no, 100%. I wasn’t knocking that by any means. I’m just saying the blanket statement is not helpful.
Brad Aldrich:
No, I think across the board. If it’s like that’s all you’re giving, okay, go read your Bible and you’re gonna learn more. I think that’s probably missing something.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, you’ve just shut down the conversation. You just effectively kept them from coming back and asking you more questions which you don’t know the answers to either.
Brad Aldrich:
So that’s what you want.
Kate Aldrich:
But is it really what you want? Because it’s not gonna strengthen your congregation. If you strengthen marriages, you strengthen every other ministry in the church. Obviously there are still singles in the church and we honor that. But if you strengthen marriages, you strengthen childcare, children’s ministry, youth ministry. If you strengthen marriages, you strengthen whatever it is you have in your church that are ministries.
Brad Aldrich:
I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I have worked with people who end up feeling like they need to, or are asked to, step down from leadership positions in other church organizations because they need to focus on healing their marriage, because things have been going on so long, and that’s honestly. That is just a sad state of where the church is ignoring their role in helping Christians to grow.
Kate Aldrich:
Interesting Did you? Was your nuance that the couple thinks they need to step down, or the church says the couple needs to step down? Because that’s a whole thing I could talk about.
Brad Aldrich:
I’ve had both right. I have had spouse. It’s often coming from the spouse. The spouse is like how are you still on the elderboard if this is how you’re treating me?
Kate Aldrich:
Like that kind of thing happens. It’s fair.
Brad Aldrich:
And it is fair. It’s like, hey, maybe I need to take some time to work on this first right. Like so sometimes it’s a time thing, sometimes it’s a you know, here are some issues that are coming to the surface. Other times I have seen, you know, things come out and the church go. Okay, we don’t want you serving anymore.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
Which that can be the right answer, but then also can be a really, really hurtful answer at the same time.
Kate Aldrich:
Correct and it gets a really sticky. I don’t wanna shoot off on this too much, but it gets really sticky if there are specific reasons that the marriage needs worked on, and they’re not necessarily equal in the marriage.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s right.
Kate Aldrich:
And then you’ve asked both people to step down. For example, brad and I work with a lot of people struggling with unwanted sexual behavior and I wanna be very cautious to not say that is always the man, by any means.
Brad Aldrich:
No, we’ve worked with opposite as well.
Kate Aldrich:
Correct. However, we have heard a lot of your spouse is struggling with unwanted sexual behavior, so now you both have to step down and that’s a really, really hard thing to hear and to help someone else process through Cause. It’s like wait a second, which right. It’s like I’m not the one struggling and yet the church has put all of this stress on. Well, if your spouse has unwanted sexual behavior, you’ve obviously contributed Right, and so there’s a lot there that I think is Completely off base and wrong and wrong, and so we won’t go off on that today, because I think that could be.
Kate Aldrich:
I could just rant about that for a while.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and I think we need to be aware of those times that goes more into the how churches hurting us correct. I think you know for us. Look, we want churches to have a fantastic Premarital. Yes, we want churches to love and support those who are going through divorce for one reason or another, because it’s so important. But, man, if you don’t have anything in between, what would it look like for you, whoever you are, yeah to go.
Brad Aldrich:
Maybe I can be part of that. And it doesn’t mean you have to have your marriage, I’ll figure it out, nope, right. It doesn’t mean you have to be the marriage you know, champion of, like we’ve got this to go and lead a Place of saying, hey, let’s get a group together to go through some material and let’s learn together.
Kate Aldrich:
I think you could be a marriage champion and not be a marriage expert perfect right marriage perfect. I think you’d be a champion, even if you’re struggling like I know. This is important. I want good things for my marriage.
Brad Aldrich:
That’s good.
Kate Aldrich:
I would love to go back for just a second though, because I feel like the premarital part, which, again, that could be a whole other podcast, but we don’t often do that well, and I think that Points to the fact that we’re not going to talk about the important topics in marriage Well for the married couples, we can’t even have the conversations Pre-marriage well, no, exactly, and so what would you? Say that has to look like.
Brad Aldrich:
Well, it’s got to start somewhere of people being vulnerable in the church, that the church is Strong enough and God is certainly strong enough to deal with the fact that we don’t have to put a smile on and pretend everything’s fine in our marriage every day. When we just argued in the parking lot. Mm-hmm right and and I know those things happen like you’ve been arguing the whole way to church. No, that never happens and then it’s like, okay, we’re walking in, so let’s smile and tell everyone we’re fine.
Kate Aldrich:
What did our old lead pastor used to say?
Brad Aldrich:
Oh, he says we drive separately to avoid those things.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, no, because she, his wife, wasn’t always like at every service and so they drove separately for practical reasons. But he said it really cut down on the arguments on the way to church. Yeah absolutely. I love that.
Brad Aldrich:
It is a spiritual attack right, but there has to be an openness to say, hey, some of us need some help in growing. Yeah, we don’t even have to make it about hard Things are falling apart. Marriages, correct? Just hey, we want to grow marriages. What would that look like? How do you, you know, start there and I want to say well, I think the pastors out there who are listening to this need to be a part of this. They don’t need to lead.
Kate Aldrich:
They don’t need to lead it right, that’s not yeah, no, I don’t think so either. I don’t know if that relieves pressure for anyone, but whether you’re a large church, a small church, somewhere in between, I don’t think it needs to be led by. But I do think if no one else is asking the good question of like, how do we have good premarital and how do we have good marriage, growth, enrichment, encouragement you should be asking it because you want that for your congregation.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Aldrich:
So asking the question and looking around you and who are the people who are marriage positive that can help Make this be a part of your church culture?
Brad Aldrich:
Matter your size and I’ll tell you the exact challenge that that takes. If you’re the pastor, you’re the one who’s trying to go hey, I need this. Maybe you’re the small group director and you’re like okay, let’s do a marriage, small group, right? Like the challenge is you actually have to go to that couple that you’re thinking about and go okay. So, so, really, how are your? How is your marriage? How are you guys doing?
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, there’s a lot of times, the couples that you have thought are the perfect. They’ve got it all together. Everything’s fine.
Kate Aldrich:
Mm-hmm.
Brad Aldrich:
They’re just really good at hiding.
Kate Aldrich:
Mm-hmm.
Brad Aldrich:
We saw that lots when we were doing active church ministry. Yeah of you know, the couples who were even volunteering to do some things sometimes were falling apart.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, the ones who are leery of doing marriage ministry because they feel they don’t have it together enough. Probably are the right ones are often not always, always often the ones who are being honest about where they are and willing to grow, and they are, honestly, many times your better choice better choice.
Brad Aldrich:
Oh, a hundred percent. I used to when I was doing this work in a church. I would sit with couples who are interested in marriage ministry and if their attitude was hey, you know, we’ve got it all together, we’ve really figured it all out and we would love to help, I would ask a whole lot more questions, but the couples who came in and going I don’t know about this like we’ve we’ve had some stuff and I would just be like, okay, well, what’d you do to work through stuff?
Brad Aldrich:
and they would invariably go. Oh well, we really had to learn how to sit down and talk with each other, or we? Had to we had to learn how to do conflict differently and I’d just be like perfect that is exactly what we need right now not everyone no that came saying they wanted to do it.
Kate Aldrich:
We’re not a good fit.
Kate Aldrich:
No, it’s just there would, yeah, there would just be this overconfidence and often over spiritualization that would make us weary and honestly we, when Brad and I did this, we did not tell them no, we are answer, for most of them was the same. We’d love for you to go through the program we’re running, first as kind of like a co-leader, and then, oh, we’ll see where it goes from there. And that really helped us to yeah, and usually they would co-lead with us really helped us to figure out but our research is true most times those people who came over confident, over over spiritualizing were struggling.
Kate Aldrich:
We didn’t not, they did not become leaders later. Yeah, and the ones who were like really honest and worried somewhat that they struggled too much, they were some of our best we’re actually very normal amounts of struggling yeah they’re just cognizant of it.
Brad Aldrich:
So yeah, really good, yeah. So I mean just throwing out some ideas, because I’m hoping that some people out there are like oh yeah, our church needs this, we need something right you and.
Kate Aldrich:
I think a lot of times people go.
Brad Aldrich:
I don’t even know where to start, so you already said like grab your favorite favorite marriage book and just let’s go through it right, like whatever that is so five love languages, like start super easy and just go through it and see what you can learn.
Kate Aldrich:
Do you mean like as a congregation?
Brad Aldrich:
no even.
Kate Aldrich:
Just grab a couple of other couples and sit down and let’s go through it true, but I would encourage you to talk to your leadership like sure, honestly, not because I believe there is some authority that goes with that of of that, but because you want to be a part of working with the leadership, of being bridging this gap. And I’ll be quite honest when you’re working with people and if you’ve been in church and worked with people or been outside your house and worked with people, you understand people are messy.
Kate Aldrich:
You shouldn’t go rogue and just do some marriage ministry without your leadership’s knowledge and support yeah because you’re going, the chances of you experiencing someone who you’re a little overwhelmed by or unsure what to do with and needing extra help are high. Yeah, very much, and so you do want to make sure you are covered in that sense. So we would encourage anyone.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, talk with your talk with your leadership talk with your pastor and go hey, I really want to go through five love languages with you.
Kate Aldrich:
Know some other couples, sure can we do that, or whatever go and say I want to figure out how we can have enrichment and, yeah, education for marriages. What could that look like?
Brad Aldrich:
that’s how you and I started it is exactly, and we’ve run across some other really good ministries as well along our time yeah, I think on on the podcast. Somewhere we’ve mentioned that we did what’s called re-engage, which is a ministry of Watermark Community Church, correct? And you can find out more about re-engage at marriage help org. Mm-hmm.
Brad Aldrich:
We’ll put some of these links in our Google age, yeah, yeah it’s a great resource and we, you know, we really did learn a lot about marriage ministry. It’s kind of marriage ministry in a box a little bit, and you know here, or at least marriage groups in a box?
Kate Aldrich:
yeah, yeah, it’s. It is more, it’s a curriculum designed around groups. But I will say the church is super helpful in guiding you through how they design the program and how it can be tweaked it it’s phenomenal. We yeah, we really like things of watermarks and honestly we should say Watermark is one of the churches we found that is doing is doing marriage ministry from premarital all the way through.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and doing it well faithfully and intentionally yep so there there are some out there. There’s another great resource that I would highly recommend for, especially for, like, small or medium-sized churches who want to do something. It’s Ted Lowe.
Brad Aldrich:
He’s written a couple of marriage books, but he put together a group called married people mm-hmm and they actually, they actually really do marriage ministry in a box, like they will, you know, go everything from a small group to curriculum that you can do with one group, or church-wide. They do marriage events that they tell you how to put on both fun and intentional events, so they have all kinds of really good stuff. Yeah, and Ted’s a great guy and a good resource. I’ve talked with him a couple of times and just know his heart is to help these churches who want something to figure it out.
Kate Aldrich:
Mm-hmm, there’s to be more versatile for smaller.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, I would say 500 or less. Even if you have like the hundred person church to the 500 person church, I think it could work really, really well and I actually think re-engaged could work too.
Kate Aldrich:
Even if you’re only leading one group of re-engaged at a time, yeah could actually very much work. It’s is more designed for bigger large church, but I think it could also be tweaked to fit smaller as well yep, we also know Ted Cunningham, mm-hmm.
Brad Aldrich:
At.
Kate Aldrich:
Woodland Hills.
Brad Aldrich:
Woodland Hills Family. Church in Branson, missouri, they use a curriculum called marriage 911 mm-hmm and that is a little bit more of a coaching program that is like one-on-one or two-on-two in helping couples through rough patches and it is really really interesting model. I haven’t personally done that, but I’ve seen the curriculum.
Brad Aldrich:
I know the model mm-hmm and I love the idea of intentionally walking with couples who are struggling mm-hmm and even if you’re sending them for professional help, even if you’re sending them out for something else, you’re still walking with them about how do they apply it? How can the church be supporting them, how can they be praying for each other? How do they keep on the journey right like and the church is a part of that whole healing journey right which I love.
Kate Aldrich:
And that one is more geared towards couples in crisis.
Brad Aldrich:
Yes.
Kate Aldrich:
And I think most churches. That’s where they get a little bit like okay, well, if we have some sort of enrichment, what do we do with the couples in crisis? And that’s why we mentioned that, because I think that is the challenge. We sometimes then have to do some sort of blending, and for smaller churches it might mean you have an enrichment program and then you refer out to counselors in your area for more crisis, because it’s going to be hard. If you have the resources and can have some mentors that can help with crisis couples, then you can have some sort of enrichment program and something for crisis.
Kate Aldrich:
But we do honor that. It’s hard for churches to. I think that’s why they stay out of the enrichment.
Brad Aldrich:
Because they’re scared of what happens next.
Kate Aldrich:
And then we can kind of pretend that the other’s not happening. But that’s part of the issue. But I understand where it feels overwhelming, but just kind of knowing that you will need a plan, even if you have an enrichment. That’s why I talk into your leadership, because you’re going to have couples. You’re going to experience couples who are in crisis.
Brad Aldrich:
And I will say, one of the things I most enjoyed doing at the church when we got the chance to do this, was just having intentional date nights that we as a church hosted a time to just come together and have fun, and I love that because it doesn’t take a ton of planning. You don’t have to do a lesson. You don’t have to teach anything. You can just come together and have a fun event for married couples and what you’re saying is marriage is important.
Brad Aldrich:
You’re communicating to everybody that we believe that marriage, that dating, that having fun together is an important part of our world and our life. And I think just having that value can be super easy so you can put on a married couple’s prom or you can just have a fun dinner for them, or you can do all kinds of just fun event. You don’t have to shove a lesson in there, even just enjoy.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, in my personal, one of the things I love to see is and I think we struggle as a church as a whole with this, which makes me sad. But if you are a bunch of smaller churches, get together and do some marriage event Right, like, pull your resources and make it something fun. But like three or four churches are coming together and it always makes me sad when churches are always very like nope, this is our camp, this is what we’re doing, and it’s like okay, but aren’t we talking about the greater good of people’s marriages and families? Like why are we being territorial? Let’s just actually work towards the kingdom and do things together, like I think, just trying to tear down some of these structures and things that keep us from actually encouraging marriages in our community and churches. Why would be my question Like why can we not do that?
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, no, I totally agree, and I would love to just go in together and have fun. And, man, if you had like four smaller churches come together you could do the event that we ended up putting on when I was marriage pastor for a large church. We did an event. This is pre-COVID, so we did an event that we had like four or five different activities going on, like we had a game show.
Kate Aldrich:
We had a dance. We sold out to that, though we had like a potting.
Brad Aldrich:
No, that’s right, Do like, do like. What was it potting? Like, make your own plant date thing. It was weird.
Kate Aldrich:
You can guess who wanted that to be there Not me.
Brad Aldrich:
We had a what do they call it Escape room.
Kate Aldrich:
We had a game show and escape room. We had a coffee house.
Brad Aldrich:
I will say, all of that took a ton of planning for one group, but if you had like, four or five churches come together and each plan one piece of that and then come together and do it.
Kate Aldrich:
That would be fun. It would be a lot of fun. It would be a lot of fun. Handles, every one of like. We just had the different environments.
Brad Aldrich:
And people just wandered around and had fun.
Kate Aldrich:
I do understand that takes. We had a larger facility, but you also could like a couple of churches there’s. In most areas there are bigger facilities and less, whether it’s another church or a community center. Like, just think outside of the box and think the greater, like how we’re impacting.
Brad Aldrich:
I guess my whole thing here is just saying we don’t have to let the fear of getting in over our heads with hard couples Stop us from saying marriage is valuable Marriage is important and we want to honor and celebrate and encourage them.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
Right. Because I think it is. You said it. I think it’s spot on that sometimes, that fear of where’s this going to go? What?
Kate Aldrich:
are we going to do with the crisis couples?
Brad Aldrich:
Stop people from doing more, and I would just encourage you start with enrichment and just work from there.
Kate Aldrich:
Right. I thought it was really important that we also kind of talk about if you’re starting enrichment. Now, if you’re doing a book study, it’s a little bit. It’s going to be a little bit more defined based on the book, but I think a lot of churches can start their own, like what?
Brad Aldrich:
do we want this to?
Kate Aldrich:
look like, and there are a few topics that Brad and I just really feel like if you’re doing that these should be covered and if you’re avoiding any one of these, I need you to ask yourself why, right?
Brad Aldrich:
Oh, come on, there’s only one that probably they’re going to avoid.
Kate Aldrich:
Not necessarily. I feel like, anyways, but I feel like we just sometimes then are like, okay, we’ll get a bunch of marriages together and it’ll all just, we’ll just be chatty. That’s great, because community is good and fellowship is good. But we’re kind of doing a disservice if we’re not actually being the university for marriages.
Brad Aldrich:
Sure.
Kate Aldrich:
So we were thinking about. Communication has to be talked about. You have to communicate to learn about communication. Conflict Every couple has it. It’s not something to be feared, done well. It’s actually the opportunity to grow sex, which Brad is obviously thinking, that’s the topic.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s the topic and most of them avoid finances and emotional intimacy, because I think that those are things that couples are going to continue to grapple with how to do well throughout their whole marriage and so I feel like those are the topics If you’re sitting there, kind of grassroots, like, okay, we’ll develop our own, those are the five things you need to cover. Obviously, there are more, for sure, that people can grow from, but those are probably the ones we see the most need and attention for and information for and understanding for. So those would be the grassroots, if you’re developing it yourself kind of thing that we would encourage you. But I would even actually add to that, because that isn’t bringing in the spiritual component.
Kate Aldrich:
And I think there is. Like we said before, what is God’s heart about marriage for marriage? Absolutely I think that probably should also be included, because a lot of times people aren’t really sure the answer to that question. The answer to that, yeah, yeah, I love that.
Brad Aldrich:
So and look, just since we mentioned it too, because I think that getting in over your head is something that keeps people from this. You know, just totally shameless plug here. One of the things that Kate and I love doing is working with couples in crisis.
Brad Aldrich:
And so the Aldrich Ministries component of what we do is coaching. That is all through remote and look. That works for some people having remote video contact. Other people don’t, and that’s fine. We have some local resources if you’re near us, but you should be able to have some local resources too.
Brad Aldrich:
But one of the things that we’ve kept running into is people coming to us from some pretty rural places going. I don’t have any resources, we don’t have anybody else, so we’re able to see you if you have internet right and, honestly, kate and I are working right now and actually expanding and bringing on some other awesome ministry couples onto our practice, so we’re growing that side as well, and so if you’re a pastor or church leader and going, we’d love to start this.
Kate Aldrich:
But what do we?
Brad Aldrich:
do with those crisis couples. Let’s chat. Yeah, reach out to us, give us, send us an email at help at still becoming one, and we would love to figure out how we can help you on that journey.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah. So, All right. Well, this this actually concludes our what the churches are getting wrong about marriage and marriage ministry, but we’d love to keep the conversation going. If there’s anything else that you guys are like, oh, I just feel like that was something we really need to talk about, feel free to reach out to us. We would love to talk one on one about that, but also potentially use that as a future podcast.
Brad Aldrich:
Podcast topic.
Kate Aldrich:
But we really do hope this is encouraging you as individuals, you as couples and you as churches to figure out how we can be speaking into marriages.
Brad Aldrich:
Amen, yeah, exactly right. So well, that’s all for this week on Still Becoming One Until next time. I’m Brad Aldrich, and I’m Kate Aldrich.
Kate Aldrich:
Be kind and take care of each other.
Brad Aldrich:
Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate’s coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom for podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don’t forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.
