My wife and I are both pastors and get the opportunity on a pretty regular basis to marry people.

When we are approached by someone we don’t know about officiating their wedding, this gives us a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to someone new about our faith and our understanding of what a Christian wedding and marriage is.  About half the time in these situations, the couple decides that it’s not a good fit.  They realize that they really don’t want a Christian wedding after all, they just began talking to us because they wanted the appearance of one – the ministers, the church, etc.  The vows though, the thing that actually makes a wedding a wedding, was not something that they felt comfortable with.

As Christians and pastors, the only type of weddings we do are Christian weddings with Christian vows.  The words are beautiful and deeply meaningful to Christians and a misfit for everyone else.

I have pasted below the words of the ceremony and the vows from the last marriage we performed.  It was for a precious couple named Armondo and Jalisa.  They had been together for ten years already and had a bunch of kids, but his hands still  shook and tears rolled down her face as they made their promises to God and to each other.  It was beautiful!

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Friends, we are gathered here in the sight of God, and in the presence of this company to join together Armondo and Jalisa in holy matrimony.  We gather today to offer our blessing on this marriage and to promise our prayerful support.  This is an occasion of both great joy and deep reflection.

(Congregation/Family may be seated)

The Bible sets before you the love of Jesus Christ for His Church as an example for your devotion to one another as you journey together.  We are given good descriptions of what this love should look like.  Hear the words of the Apostle Paul:

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.”       (I Cor. 13:4-8 NIV)

Your journey ahead will not always be easy; there will be joys and sorrows.  You will have burdens to bear.  But as you practice love for one another, your burdens will be lighter, because you will divide them.  And your joys will be doubled because you will share them.

God has given us the gift of marriage so that two people can SHARE themselves and their lives with each other.  We read in Genesis: “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (2:24)  This is meant to be a lifetime partnership.

A Christian marriage is first and foremost a promise to God.  Your relationship to God is the primary relationship in your marriage, not your relationship with your partner.  This may seem like mere symbolism, but it’s not.

In a secular marriage, when one person is not feeling the love & warmth from their partner that they expect, they often WITHDRAW from offering their own love & warmth to their partner.  This makes perfect sense in a contractual type of relationship.

In a Christian marriage the love, kindness, & respect one partner gives to the other is not based on how well the other partner gives those things (though it does make things easier) because the primary relationship and the foundational promise is not with your partner, but with God and therefore is independent of how the other person acts or behaves.

The love, kindness, & respect you give to your partner is based on God’s love & kindness to you.  God gives you the capacity to faithfully love your partner even when your partner is unlovely because God loves you when you are unlovely.

Living in this kind of relationship – being loved by someone regardless of how unlovely we are or have been – is a humbling and beautiful experience that points us & shapes us towards God.

Marriage is a promise made to God and therefore NOT to be entered into flippantly, but reverently, thoughtfully, and in the FEAR of God.

I now ask you to join hands and repeat after me:

(to  Armondo): God, I promise to forsake all others, and take Jalisa, to be my beloved wife, I promise to encourage her and protect her.  To be her listening ear and her helping hand, to be her co-conspirator and her best friend, I promise to help her become the person You created her to be.  I will love her and care for her as my wife from this day forward.  God, I will keep this promise I make to you today for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death parts us.

(to Jalisa): God, I promise to forsake all others, and take Armondo, to be my beloved husband, I promise to encourage, inspire and protect him.  To be his listening ear and his helping hand, to be his co-conspirator and his best friend, I promise to help him become the person You created him to be.  I will love him and care for him as my husband from this day forward.  God, I will keep this promise I make to you today for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death parts us.

(Giving of Rings)

You will now seal these vows with the giving and receiving of rings.  The wedding ring is a symbol of marriage in at least two ways: the purity of gold represents the purity of your love for each other.  The unending circle symbolizes the vow you have made to God today, broken honorably only by death.  As a token of your vow, you will give and receive the ring.

Armondo, you will give the ring and repeat after me: Jalisa, I give you this ring as a sign of my vow to God, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I commit myself to you.

Jalisa, you will give the ring and repeat after me:  Armondo, I give you this ring as a sign of my vow to God, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I commit myself to you.

Armondo and Jalisa, you have promised your love to each other by making vows to God and by the giving and receiving of rings.  And now, since you have made these commitments to God and before these witnesses, and looking to God for divine blessing, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

Armondo and Jalisa, you are no longer two persons but one.  What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate.  Now as the first act of your life together, bow with me in prayer (can also be a time to take communion together):

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Armondo, you may kiss your bride.

It is now my joy to be the first to present to you Mr. & Mrs  ______.

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[You’ll notice that there isn’t anything in here about “the power vested in me by the state of _____.”  We encourage, without insisting, that people go and get their legal marriage taken care of in the court house before coming to the church for their wedding.  Though both use the word “marriage” they really are different things and should be treated as such.  The marriage that happens in the legal sense is just that, a packet of legal rights and obligations recognized by the state.  It might as well and perhaps should be called a “civil union.”  It is often performed in a matter of seconds in the hallway of the courthouse and finalized with signatures on a piece of paper (more pomp and circumstance can be added for more money).  A Christian wedding is about faith, and love (as understood through the lens of Jesus) and community, faithfulness to God and trust in God.  The two “weddings” or “marriages” are as different as contact law is from a baptism and in our view should be treated as such whenever possible.]