Podcast Episode #240
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Discussions on pastors and weddings as well as what to watch for, what to have prepared, and what to avoid.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- If you’re in the South and getting married on a Fall Saturday, prepare for possible low attendance.
- You really don’t know your spouse until you’re married and living with one another every day.
- Premarital counseling is a great way to use older couples as mentors in your church.
- From my perspective, me doing a wedding is an endorsement of the marriage.
- Weddings are theological events.
- You need to know a couple’s expectations of you as their wedding officiant.
- I don’t recommend pastors setting a specific wedding fee.
- I don’t think couple realize how many hours go into a wedding from the minister’s point of view.
The nine key issues regarding wedding that we cover are:
- Your personal beliefs.
- Make counseling a requirement.
- Get to know the couple.
- Share Christ with them.
- Understand the expectations for attendance.
- The issues of the financial charge.
- Make the ceremony personal.
- Work with the wedding coordinator.
- Know your limitations.
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
This episode was very timely for me. I agreed to perform a wedding ceremony for a couple on fairly short notice, but after meeting with them I have some serious concerns. Do you have any advice for how or when to step back and tell a couple that you can no longer, in good conscience, perform their marriage? Is this ever an option?
Isaac,
I have performed a number of weddings and have always insisted on extensive pre-marital counselling. If possible, encourage the prosepctive couple to engage in a quality servey. I have used Prepare Enrich and have found it to be very useful during this process. If you have determined that there are some issues that need to be addressed, can they be resolved in a relatively short time? If not, and there are deeper spiritual concerns that cause you to hesitate, express these the couple. You may need to withdraw from consideration if you feel that the issues involved are too extensive. Hope this helps.
Thanks, Scott! I’ll check out the Prepare Enrich material. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t agree to a wedding on such short notice. I made an exception, because I know the family well. But I am regretting that decision.
Thom,
I begin by stating that I am a long time follower of your work and have no intention of changing my opinion of you because of something I read today in your post.
I began reading your insight concerning the racial divide in our country, but did not get far without reading something erroneously stated. You listed a number of incidents that you felt had contributed to our present problem. among the places you mentioned was Ferguson, Missouri. Since that incident is postulated by many as the inception of “black lives matter,” and the mayhem that has grown from it, I do not believe we should add to the confusion by somehow implying that it was racial in any way. The full weight of the Obama administration was brought to bear against an innocent policeman, only to reach the conclusion that Michael Brown was responsible for his own demise. Instead of being portayed properly, as a thug and young criminal, he has been made the “Hands up” hero of a misguided and politically movitated generation of young people.
Please reconsider that list and correct its validity.
John A Smith
Hi! Thom, thanks for this post. Now a day our members are no more concern about the spiritual aspects of the prospective spouse and many of them have no interested in counseling as required by the church. What may your advice in this instance? I need your help as a marriage counselor at my church.