This episode features Brad in conversation with Pastor Jamus Edwards. Jamus shares his honest journey of early in ministry prioritizing church over his own marriage, and how embracing an intentional marriage ministry in 2012 became a game changer for him, Annie, and their entire congregation. The conversation explores why most churches are heavily invested in children and youth ministry but leave marriage ministry out of the equation entirely, and why that gap is costing churches more than they realize.
(adapted from Podcast content)
The Missing Piece in Your Church’s Family Ministry
Most churches have a full-time children’s director. Most have a youth pastor. Most have budgets, programs, events, and buildings designed specifically for kids. But ask those same churches what they are doing intentionally and consistently for the marriages of the parents sitting in those pews, and you will most often hear silence.
That is the gap that far too many churches have quietly accepted as normal. And it is costing them more than they realize.
If the Marriage Is Not Healthy, Nothing Else Works
Children and youth ministry is valuable. It is worth investing in. But it is supplemental. It comes alongside the family. It cannot replace a healthy marriage at the center of it. When mom and dad are not doing well, what happens on Wednesday night for an hour and a half is, in practical terms, all for nothing.
One church leader put it plainly: “If the marriages in our church do not work, nothing in our church works. Our youth do not work. Our children do not work. Our finances do not work.”
He was right. Healthy marriages are not one ministry among many. Other than the Gospel, they are the foundation that every other ministry is built on. When you strengthen the marriage, you strengthen the family. When you strengthen the family, you strengthen everything that flows from it including your children’s ministry, your youth ministry, your small groups, and the overall spiritual health of your congregation.
Why So Many Churches Miss This
The pressure to build for children and youth is real and relentless. Families expect it. Buildings are designed around it. Staff positions are created for it. And somewhere in the rush to meet those expectations, the marriage itself gets quietly left out of the family ministry equation.
Some church leaders avoid the topic because of insecurity about their own marriage. If a pastor/minister is not prioritizing their own relationship with their spouse, leading the church to do so can feel hypocritical. That is not a comfortable thing to admit, but it is a real dynamic worth naming honestly.
The good news is that repentance is always the right starting point. You do not need a perfect marriage to lead your church toward better ones. You just need to be willing to own the gap, start now, and lead by example going forward.
What a Thriving Marriage Ministry Actually Looks Like
A thriving marriage ministry does not require a massive budget or a new staff position. It requires vision, intentionality, a gospel-centered framework, and a willingness to put the right tools in the hands of willing couples.
The pastor does not have to run any of it. The church leader’s role is to cast vision, communicate from the pulpit that marriage matters, and trust lay leaders to carry the ministry forward. Many church leaders who have launched this kind of ministry find that they are actually less busy with marriage-related crisis counseling afterward, because proactive investment prevents crisis before it starts.
The Theological and Practical Case
There is a theological reason and a practical reason to make marriage ministry a priority in your church, and they are inseparable.
Theologically, marriage is the one human relationship God uses to represent the relationship between Christ and the church. To preach the gospel faithfully is, by definition, to care about marriage. A church that neglects marriage ministry is missing one of the most tangible expressions of the gospel it has been entrusted to preach.
Practically, healthy marriages produce everything else a church is trying to achieve. Kids who are more inclined toward Jesus because mom and dad are. Families that are discipled holistically, not just in segments. A congregation that is healthier, more connected, and more resilient.
If marriage is the relationship where God says the gospel is most visibly on display, it is hard to imagine a biblically valid reason to leave it out of our ministry strategy.
A Simple Place to Start
You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin. Start by acknowledging from the pulpit that marriage matters and that your church is going to invest in it. Find a gospel-centered marriage resource. Put it in the hands of a few willing couples and cultivate it from there.
The couples in your congregation are waiting for someone to say this is a priority. They are waiting for a safe, grace-filled place to work on their marriages without shame. They are waiting for their church to meet them where one of the most important and most difficult parts of their lives actually happens.
That someone is you. And it starts with one decision to make marriage ministry a real, consistent, ongoing part of what your church does.
Grace Marriage exists to make that step as simple as possible for churches of every size. Visit gracemarriage.com to learn how your church can get started.
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