What The Church Gets Wrong About Marriage-Full Transcript
Hello everyone, welcome back to season three of Still Becoming One.
Kate Aldrich:
Oh, that makes us sound like a trendy TV show.
Brad Aldrich:
Yes, well, hey, we made it past season two.
Kate Aldrich:
I don’t know if that makes us what happens. Usually things die after season six. So, guys, we have another couple. Oh, come on, we got this.
Brad Aldrich:
So we are in our third year now of doing Still Becoming One. And we’re really excited to be starting season three.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, it is exciting. I didn’t even realize it was season three. But it is a new year and I think, no matter who you are, whether you embrace that new year start or kind of rubs you the wrong way, it does sort of a Christmas, feels like it wraps things up and yeah, it’s just a new, different time in life. So here we are.
Brad Aldrich:
I love it I’ve. I don’t love resolutions because I just find they’re very usually surface level and don’t help a lot. But I’d still love the like blank slate, start of a new year kind of thing, right, and just the opportunity to kind of okay, we’re going to do this again and we’re going to start over, and I think that can be a really positive thing.
Kate Aldrich:
I wonder if that’s like a personality thing or whatever, because I don’t feel like I’m wired that way. I feel like Christmas wraps it up, but I have to remind myself it’s a new year. I feel like it is a continuation. I feel like it’s yes, we have milestones and things that change and, and you know, we’re going through that in life with launching kids, or we’re in that phase we’ve launched to to more of be launching the next two years. It to me, those things sort of feel more like markers than the new year in January, but I don’t know.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, I mean, some of it is probably a business mindset, right Like that. You know it. Calendar year ends and you know that kind of stuff, but I think some of it for me is just I don’t know. I think I’ve always had some goals, at least I again I don’t like resolutions, but I’ve had some goals usually that I do think about of like, okay, in 2023, we’re going to, and now in 2024, we’re going to and just kind of stopping and looking at where we’ve been, and that helps me.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, that I do try to do. I can’t say I’m always great at it, but trying to look back and see all the ways God has provided because, because there are lots of things to look back on and see that were difficult. So, yeah, I can join you in that, for sure, for sure. But I, yeah, but I don’t know. I still feel like the markers of change are what make me look back, but maybe I should. I don’t know.
Brad Aldrich:
And part of it was. I’ve made a habit the last couple of years of taking a pause the first week of the year to spend some time with God and just reflect and I think that’s been really positive for me in just kind of starting out well. That gives me a space to like, do some goals and, you know, reflect. I spent some time last week reflecting on just how far we’ve come in the last year.
Brad Aldrich:
For those of you who’ve been following you know we launched out from our church ministry to doing Aldrich ministries and still becoming one full time a year ago Right. Yeah, so while we’ve been doing it for quite a while, it became our full time job a year ago. And you know, just reflecting on how God’s grown us how he’s helped us to meet some goals, yeah, and just starting to make some pretty exciting. I’m excited about the plans and goals for the next year too.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
That we can’t talk about yet, but I’m really excited to Our top secret season three. Top secret, season three.
Kate Aldrich:
There’ll be no previews apparently.
Brad Aldrich:
Well, there’ll be some eventually, right, but we’ve got some exciting things coming and definitely things that you’ll hear about on the podcast as we kind of start rolling out this year.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, okay. So, guys, some might be new to me. No, just kidding, that would be bad, no.
Brad Aldrich:
But you know, one of the things that we’ve been talking about is actually doing this series. We you know, just came off of our Advent series. Yeah. We had some fun kind of talking about some hard emotions of Advent right and like we think of Advent and this time of happy and everything’s wonderful, but I think we tried to highlight much of the messy that actually happens in that time.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, well, and I think it accurately, as we said, reflects what the world was going through then and is always still going through now, because Advent is actually our posture in life, because we are anticipating the second coming and waiting for that. So, yeah, I just think it’s a really relevant thing to kind of talk about.
Brad Aldrich:
But for sure.
Kate Aldrich:
As we go into this new year and, you know, close the holiday season for our family and you guys are doing the same thing. I don’t know what that looks like for you, but for us it’s, you know, everybody’s back in school, the boys are back at college, all the decor is put away Like it is just a very interesting time and definitely there are markers of like.
Kate Aldrich:
This is different than it was a month ago and those are, I think, exciting and fresh and new, as you said in some ways, and also they are sort of bittersweet in ways too.
Brad Aldrich:
For sure.
Kate Aldrich:
We love having our boys home. I mean we’re getting more and more used to having them being gone, like this is the stage of life that we are moving into with all of our children, so it is gonna become more and more of that and less and less of them home.
Brad Aldrich:
Right.
Kate Aldrich:
And then the girls will join them, and so it’s just definitely very interesting. And then, as we continue to be a home with kiddos, with different stories and different trauma, it continues to be have significant challenges and significant days of exhaustion and confusion, not just for us, for our traumatized and all of our kiddos as well, and so we continue to carry, with the help of Jesus, all of that and so, yeah, so our season was a good one. Our season was, I think is, for most people, a mixed bag.
Brad Aldrich:
Oh, of course right. And I think that’s what I hear from most couples, most families. You know we joke. We get a lot of people going okay, I’ve worked through some of my story, I’ve worked through some things, but it’s holidays so we need to talk and a lot of them are like, okay, this was really good or this was better. But, there’s still emotions that come out of whether it be spending time with family or not? Either directions, there’s emotions that that creates.
Kate Aldrich:
And that actually, believe it or not, is the goal right Of coaching and working on your own health, you recognizing what is happening. Well, that’s half the battle, right? There. For parents from our perspective, who, you know, we have kiddos with some really significant trauma. They are not Like we see things happening at the holidays in them.
Kate Aldrich:
We see responses, we don’t always know what they’re pertaining to, because while we know the outline of their history, we don’t know all the ins and outs and they are totally unaware of what is happening and why they’re reacting and why they’re such, you know, in a spiral downward. And so for our adults and the people that we work with, that may seem like a non-victory, when it actually is a huge victory.
Brad Aldrich:
Oh yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
I recognize something’s happening and I need to figure out why it’s happening, what I’m feeling and how I can take care of myself well.
Brad Aldrich:
Exactly right, and man, I think that’s it’s hard to see that as a goal right.
Kate Aldrich:
To be able or to feel like that’s a good thing.
Brad Aldrich:
To see it’s a good thing, right, Because I think a lot of times we want the goal to be to fix something you know, to make it easier. Well. I and a lot of times the goal is to actually feel and recognize and have our eyes open because things are hard.
Kate Aldrich:
Right. I often talk with women when we meet. The goal of health is not the absence of it. It’s not right, it’s not. I’ll never. I will deal with what’s what I’m from my past, all these things, and then I’ll never have to deal with the dynamic again. That’s actually not the goal of health, because that would be more of a miraculous healing. Normal healing is. I understand what’s happening. I understand why my body and my brain are reacting this way, and I learned to actually care for myself. Well, that’s so good.
Brad Aldrich:
You know, I find myself often trying to avoid the word trigger Because of this exact issue, because I think in 2024, that word has come to be something, oh, we need to avoid, or we need to give a warning that somebody might be triggered and thus give them the opportunity to leave, or whatever, which can be a form of care, if it’s, you know, yeah. Of course, we can sometimes pay attention to that.
Brad Aldrich:
Like we don’t needlessly need to run into triggers, but that’s actually not what that word is supposed to be. We’re supposed to recognize that something in the world has brought up emotions that reminded us of our past story, and our past situations and that it is going to create emotions for us that we need to process.
Brad Aldrich:
So avoiding them is not actually processing those emotions. All we’re doing is like, oh nope, I don’t want to have any emotions, so I’m just going to turn it off. That’s not the point. It’s more to like go, oh yeah, ok, that thing is going to create emotions for me. So let me be intentional about carving out some space where I get to do some journaling, or I get to, you know, pray about it, or I get to think about it, and not just avoiding the triggers but recognizing that they exist so we can do something about it.
Kate Aldrich:
Right, right and figuring out what accommodations do I need, nope like, and that makes it sound like everyone will know A lot of times accommodations and what you need.
Kate Aldrich:
No one actually ever realizes that they’re happening. And so I think you know, just as we’ve kind of gone off on this, recognizing that more and more we work with couples and individuals who are finding that some of this, some of this health, these issues are surrounded by the church and how they care for people and how they care for marriages, and that is what we wanna talk about for the next couple of weeks of just what the church has missed and done poorly with marriages specifically. But I do think it’s important to recognize a lot of times it starts when people are younger and what they’ve seen or experienced as an individual, because purity culture was supposed to impact marriages. It deeply does, but not the way I think the church hoped it would right. And so we’ll be talking about current things that the church really struggles to do well for marriages, but understanding that there are things that are from people’s past that deeply impact that.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, so let’s just even start with and just kind of telling you, because I know for some of you this may be the first episode you’ve listened to, or maybe you’ve listened to a couple.
Kate Aldrich:
Season three is where you start, friends.
Brad Aldrich:
Don’t know us. So we have been actively involved in ministry for pretty much all of our marriage. Yes, true story you were working as a youth pastor before we got married.
Kate Aldrich:
No, right after, but it was literally we got married in June. It was in December that I started, because I was still in college, but I got hired before I graduated. So it was only like three, four months before I started part-time ministry until I graduated and then I moved right into full-time ministry.
Brad Aldrich:
Right. And then you did that through my time of getting a graduate degree.
Kate Aldrich:
And through having our first kiddo, through having our first kiddo Six years. Yep.
Brad Aldrich:
I was doing music ministry for that church for a number of years. Then we then did step out of that church and into a couple of others in that place that we were a part of and eventually we got called back into. I was first a small groups pastor and then a marriage pastor. For 10 years served on church staff, and Kate did additional student ministry Right and then came on and did marriage ministry with me as well, so she was also in that role in church staff again. Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
We just stepped off of that a year ago. We did Now. So we have our own journeys, with churches being a significant part of our life? Yes, but that’s not actually what we’re just gonna be speaking about, of our journeys. Really, because we’ve had this amazing opportunity to speak to pastors, leaders and participants from around the country who tell us stories all the time about their church experiences.
Kate Aldrich:
Right.
Brad Aldrich:
And what they are hearing from their churches and their church leaders. So I think we’re gonna be sharing a little bit more from some of those stories, even than just our own observation of what we’ve gone through.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, and even it’s worth noting, there was a chunk of time that Brad didn’t mention there. So we took a break and we’re part of other churches, but Brad was leading a Christian counseling center for those years when our kids were little and I was at home with them. So it’s just a flip side, because how many times were you working with couples that sometimes churches were doing a really great job, saying we’re not really sure how to help. Here’s a great resource, go get the help you need. We’ll even support you in that way. Sometimes you were working with pastors and staff who were struggling, struggling.
Kate Aldrich:
In their own lives and marriages which is a normal thing Like I don’t wanna sit up here and make it sound like because they’re in leadership it should all be perfect by any means.
Brad Aldrich:
I just recently had a client remind me of a debriefing I did with a church split in our area back now probably 15 years ago, and they happened to mention that they were at one of the meetings that I held to try and open dialogue in this church split when I was the director of that Christian counseling center. So yeah, we’ve been a part of it all over.
Kate Aldrich:
There was a lot that you took in during that time and I think it’s worth noting, not just our church ministry, because there are all these other ministries out there that help people in the church. And I mean, when I think about your eight years there, I don’t even know what church split you’re referencing, but Brad was also a first responder in the nickel mines Amish school shooting, because we live not far from there. Now we live a little bit further, but when that happened, the counseling center that Brad was running was, I don’t know, five miles from the shooting something like that.
Kate Aldrich:
So he and a bunch of counselors were there as the boys were being sent out, Like if you know that story, it’s horrific. There’s just so much that we’ve encountered in our time in the community. And then we have our own struggles that we went through and definitely feeling like the church was not a place that we could get the help we needed. Number one we were not brave enough to ask for it, Please.
Brad Aldrich:
brave enough to ask. That’s exactly right I wanna take ownership there.
Kate Aldrich:
We were not brave enough. We felt like we would be judged. There’s lots of things there that we struggled with, but number two it also didn’t feel like a safe space to go get help.
Brad Aldrich:
Correct.
Kate Aldrich:
So own in our part but also call in the church to own their part. That a lot of couples will come to the church because they don’t know where else to go and it should be a place where they can get that help.
Brad Aldrich:
And I think that’s what we wanna start with is right. The church should be a place of walking alongside people who are hurting, and we recognize so often that people are drastically hurting in their marriages, but the church doesn’t know what to do. Right. And this is not. I’m not actually trying to find fault and say, oh, all these pastors are wrong or terrible.
Kate Aldrich:
I think it really is a place of they don’t know what to do. It’s not what they’re trained in, correct. And you say, like when people are struggling, we have been outspoken about the fact that we think there’s also a deficit in just you helping marriages in general to grow and thrive. Not just the ones that are in crisis or struggling a lot no-transcript things in the average church to help marriage in general.
Brad Aldrich:
So and I think that’s a historical issue is that we have focused on church growth in the areas that are the most visible, rather than the most helpful. Right, so okay so think about?
Brad Aldrich:
well, think about the you know who gets hired, as a church is growing you know you have a. You have a church and you’re gonna start with the. You know the pastor, just them right. Obviously that’s gonna be helpful and so that’s the lead pastor, and and then maybe they get a secretary somewhere, or an administrative person kind of thing. But then the second pastoral hire is pretty often, well, exactly what you got hired for as a second pastoral hire is as a children and youth ministry, right? I?
Kate Aldrich:
yes, I think you’re right and we were talking about this earlier. I do think some churches go right to associate pastor. It’s one or the other, but I will say if it’s an associate pastor, usually he’s over children and he has to execute it, but that he has to make sure it happens that somebody’s volunteering for it, right? Yeah, or they hire the youth and children pastor and he’s required to also preach, and Okay give us that time Can we just take a minute to think about what I just said.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s not, that’s not possible for a human.
Brad Aldrich:
What you just all of that gave them right, Right, I don’t care how big your congregation is. So that second person right is is meant to be upfront or help with all the kids, right?
Kate Aldrich:
It’s usually or both times and then the third hire.
Brad Aldrich:
I think in most times is the music ministry. Yeah. Now look, I am not knocking all of those. Things are so important and I am the first to say that I think most pastors are totally overworked. All right, there is no such thing as a part-time pastor. The amount of work that goes into every sermon, every message is a ton. They’re pulled in so many different directions. So I’m not knocking that that. You know they’re doing a lot right. So then we go to them with.
Kate Aldrich:
You know, a couple’s marriage struggles Because nobody else don’t know what to do because are you gonna send them to the music pastor or the youth pastor?
Brad Aldrich:
Well, correct you right. And this is where, personally, I believe that we should be having a marriage pastor as that third pastoral hire, like that should be the thing that, yes, maybe they’re in charge of premarital, maybe they’re in charge of you know a bunch of different things that are all about leading healthy lives, and my defense of this is I have seen so many times that what happens when we don’t pay attention to marriages is you get a fallout in somebody’s marriage, whether it be a key volunteer or a pastor, and what that does is rock that whole area of ministry for them.
Brad Aldrich:
So your, you know leader of your deacons team or your leader of your usher’s team ends up Getting a divorce and needs to take a backseat because nobody’s paying attention to or helping in their marriage.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, yeah, I actually thought you were gonna advocate for it for being second Surprise guys.
Brad Aldrich:
Okay, but you know what doesn’t do that. Okay, this is a personal one. There was a period of time as we were trying to do both small groups and some marriage ministry, where we were asked to do marriage ministry without any help with children and youth. What? Where? Where there wasn’t child care offered, where there wasn’t, and it’s almost impossible to do marriage ministry without something present for the for the kids.
Kate Aldrich:
It’s what comes first though the chicken or the egg? The family? Well kids, or the kids bring the fan Right, right. So I get that you know they’re.
Brad Aldrich:
They’re, both are needed, right, they’re, both are absolutely needed and yeah we honor that like.
Kate Aldrich:
That’s hard for most churches in America. They’re not at a size we’re. Supporting three pastors is something people can do, but I think it’s a challenge to think about. You know, having healthy families and yes, there are lots that there are singles in the church. We’re not trying to say they don’t have a place they absolutely singles come from parents at some point. So, like having healthy families, which is starts with a healthy marriage that trickles down into the children, you. That is what is going to benefit every single ministry in your church?
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, absolutely, and we tend to trickle it up Instead through the kids, because, well, let’s be honest, they scream loud enough, literally right Like they they. They can’t be unattended. They. You have to have something for them For the adult ministries to be effective. So it’s understandable, but we’re actually putting so much time, resources and money into children when that’s actually like right the parents or something.
Brad Aldrich:
It’s the trickle down not try to trickle it up which doesn’t actually work and I’ll tell you, I think, exactly why some of this happens right in Again. I have so much respect for senior pastors because it’s such a hard job. But well, let me go around the bow and bend on this. You know, kate and I do our coaching Entirely online, so we use video.
Brad Aldrich:
So that we can see people around the world, and one of the questions I get all the time is like well, is that as effective as meeting people in person? Or what’s the positives, what the negatives, and man, that’s a whole done a podcast or you did experience 2020 with us, right?
Brad Aldrich:
So that’s a whole nother podcast episode. I could give you lots of reasons for that, but one of the things that I say when people talk about positives is one of the positives that I see all the time is this reality of pastors Love, the safety of online Coaching? Well, because there’s. They’re not gonna meet anyone. They’re not gonna meet one of their congregation in my waiting room.
Kate Aldrich:
Okay, they’re not one.
Brad Aldrich:
so right, exactly right, they’re not gonna like have to, you know, explain to somebody else why they’re there. They get to have it a hundred percent private and they can even refer other people to me and not have to say, well, yes, I see Brad too, or you know, yeah, we’ve been seeing Brad and Kate for a while, you like? They don’t have to say any of that, they can just come and get some help. Okay, so we see lots of pastors.
Kate Aldrich:
Can I just can I just put a little bug in here, though? That that is so great and I’m thankful that we have that niche for people. However, we currently attended church where the lead pastor and the associate pastor and Even, I think, the worst leader.
Kate Aldrich:
Many people from stage have been open that they see counselors Correct and that they now they’re not up there given the counselor’s name. That’s fair enough that they would like to keep that private, but they are open about their own journey with figuring out their own health. So I was just like to put a little bug in there. It is not a sign of weakness. Every single one of us has things we have to work through. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care how fabulous your parents were. Every single one of us has things, and I think pastors who are willing to be open with that journey If it’s nothing more than just I see one, I have things to work through.
Kate Aldrich:
You’re opening up your congregation to realizing this is a beautiful, healthy thing that you can do. I agree.
Brad Aldrich:
I agree, so anyways. So there we go. All right, so my roundabout of where I was going anyway is I think one of the reasons that we don’t hear about marriage from pastors often is because they’re struggling in their own marriage and they know that their spouse is sitting in the front row hearing whatever message is they’re gonna preach and. That they’re struggling themselves, so then they don’t preach it.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and then somebody comes to them and goes oh, what do I do for help? And they are also in this place of struggling and they don’t know what to do either.
Kate Aldrich:
Yep, and we’ll get into over these next couple weeks some of the things that end up happening as a result of that. Yeah, but let me just speak to that like my heart breaks for those pastors. I’m not sitting here pointing a finger, I my heart breaks and I I honor that. They are in a very hard place. They give of themselves so much. They’ve probably had the same church teachings about marriage that the rest of us have. Oh yeah.
Kate Aldrich:
Have done some great damage. So, like there’s a lot there and they’re not expected to have a perfect marriage, I don’t think anyone should expect that of them. That’s wrong and you’re putting pressure in a place that’s it’s Unwarranted, correct. But I do think pastors should be fighting for their marriage, not fighting in their marriage, although we all do that for it fighting for it and figuring out when they hit roblox, like what are we gonna do our marriage?
Kate Aldrich:
Because, honestly, their marriage is more important than their ministry, because their marriage is their ministry to their families, even if you only have a spouse and don’t have children, like that, actually figuring that out is more important than Tending to the flock. You have correct if you’re married. If you’re not married, that’s a different story and Paul kind of talks about that and how that has less Responsibilities in it. But once you are married you have a responsibility to your family correct.
Kate Aldrich:
So I honor that. It’s hard, but it is also a place, pastors, and we know Because we’ve been in this place where Brad’s been the pastor and I’ve been the pastor’s wife. I’ve been the pastor and Brad’s been the pastor’s husband.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, yes and We’ve had where that’s been. We’ve been really good and we’ve been fighting for it and we’ve had where that’s not good and we were not doing a good job of fighting for it. Thankfully, when we were fighting for it and doing well, guys, we were in the place of the marriage pastor and so this series that we’re just starting now is really about what the church gets wrong about marriage and where some of that creates harm.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah. Right and really our goal is not to condemn but to hopefully bring some encouragement of how to do it better.
Kate Aldrich:
And for all of you out there to hold your church to a standard, like you know what. It’s time for some of these things to not happen.
Brad Aldrich:
Correct.
Kate Aldrich:
And it’s time for some of these things to be a discussion and to be a how do we make this different and you, as a congregation, have a voice in standing up for what marriage ministries do we have?
Brad Aldrich:
Or you should.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes, well, another like it is time for us to walk confidently in God’s plan for marriage and to have the local church. And I’m talking, we are not talking about any specific church.
Brad Aldrich:
No.
Kate Aldrich:
We’re talking about Big C church Like that. This would be a place Correct, and so it is our desire no matter if you’re a congregation of a house church with 10 people or a mega church with 10,000 people or more that that would be.
Brad Aldrich:
Important. Correct. Yep, so we’re gonna be talking about? Well, we’re just gonna be a couple of ideas of where we’re going.
Kate Aldrich:
Just a couple of subjects. We’re gonna cover a lot of things, but so we’re definitely gonna be talking about.
Brad Aldrich:
One of the things that churches unfortunately do all the time is ignore abuse of all kinds physical, sexual, spiritual.
Kate Aldrich:
Yes.
Brad Aldrich:
In marriages and we need to educate and be aware of that, because that’s causing so much harm, so much. Churches don’t talk about sex in a healthy way at all. Correct. And it tends to be talked about as an obligation versus a intimacy.
Kate Aldrich:
Well, they teeter on obligation, but it’s a joy. Enjoy it. And then we talk to the teenagers about it.
Brad Aldrich:
Right. But it’s bad Like there’s so much there so there’s that, but it’s even deeper than just like oh okay, you have to do this right or enough, or whatever that we recognize. There’s this undercurrent that is harming so many marriages because of just the unspoken messages about sex too.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah, absolutely We’ll get into some of that.
Brad Aldrich:
They that runs into and deals with how often churches are missing it when there has been an affair when there has been unwanted sexual behaviors. That kind of stuff, that when they get into that tough spot they really don’t know what to do and how to take care of people.
Kate Aldrich:
So it’s important to say that there has also historically been an imbalance and an injustice towards women, and so we’re gonna we’re gonna chat about that, because that deeply impacts marriage because there’s a woman involved and, yeah, we’re gonna travel down that road because, no matter what you believe biblically, where a woman, what role she may have in a church, it should not matter. So we’re gonna dive into that too, because it deeply impacts marriage and women when they get into marriage and men in their marriages. So that historically has been something and we’re gonna dive into it and I’m excited about that.
Brad Aldrich:
Good so, and we’re really happy to kind of look through some of the scripture of all of this as well, cause it’s something that Kate and I have dove in pretty deeply into not just what do we feel about this, but what does scripture actually say, and I think there’s some hard things right. You know, the church has turned a blind eye so often to choice issues in marriage like divorce and not paid attention to other issues that are also very scriptural, so we need to pay attention to all of them.
Kate Aldrich:
If there are subjects you guys think about that, like, oh, that one just drives me crazy that the church kind of does that about marriage. Like send us a message, shout out on social media cause. We’d love to know what the messages are that have deeply impacted your marriage, or maybe even your parents, and how that impacted you, because I’m sure there are nuanced ones that we we don’t even.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, we haven’t heard yet you know, realize. And if you are, you know, involved in your church’s ministry, if you’re involved in, you know, a church that’s trying to do this well, I would love to hear from you too, yeah, of what are you trying to do to address these issues. How are you trying to pay attention to the needs of your congregation? How are you? Walking alongside people. Yeah, when you don’t have all the resources, what does that look like?
Kate Aldrich:
And there are I want to honor. There are some churches out there cause that’s another topic we talked about is like just general care of marriages and encouragement of marriages. How are churches doing that? And there are some that Brad and I follow and know the leadership in, because they are trying to figure that out and do it well. Yeah, and so just know that there are some out there, but it is far less than it should be.
Brad Aldrich:
Yeah, and let me just say with that, I don’t think that this means the church has to do it all. Right, I think again. I don’t want to put on a pastor. Okay, now you have to be the perfect coach and counselor for every issue.
Kate Aldrich:
It’s not actually what you’re trained in.
Brad Aldrich:
It’s not, yeah, sometimes referring and then actually walking alongside the people you refer.
Brad Aldrich:
Listening well, first I hear that and then, referring Right, but I hear that all the time of churches going oh yeah, go to these people and then they never even follow up to find out how they’re doing Right, like so that happens. But I also have the other side of churches who, you know, truly engage and are regularly talking with people as they’re working with one of us, and how much that care matters, right, it really goes a long way. So, hey, there’s a lot more to talk about.
Brad Aldrich:
We’re so glad to be diving into some difficult topics, for season three, but we’re going to get into some messy things on really what the church has gotten wrong about marriage and how to do it better.
Kate Aldrich:
Yeah.
Brad Aldrich:
So join us. We’ll be back next week. That’s all for this week on Still Becoming One Until next time. I’m Brad Aldrich.
Kate Aldrich:
And I’m 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.
