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PREACHING AT
WEDDINGS
Try to avoid:
- giving advice or admonition to
the couple, or to the family and friends who have
gathered to wish the newly married well;
- praising the glories of married
love or bewailing the divorce rate in our culture
- drawing a heavy-handed
theological connection between marriage and the
church, since it has bee affirmed already in the
liturgy and, when badly handled, can be painful to
those in the church who are not married;
- telling personal stories about
this or other couples unless it is absolutely clear
that they illuminate a dimension of grace in the
scripture of the day.
Try to include:
- conveying a sense of the
uniqueness of the individuals who are entering this
particular marriage;
- celebrating the grace of God in
the joys and strains of marriage
- assuring the couple, without
targeting them, of the real but nonintrusive support
of those present, and of the church;
- exploring ways in which this
marriage bears a particular witness to the grace of
God.
---David J. Schlafer, "What Makes This
Day Different: Preaching Grace on Special Occasions,"
(Boston: Cowley Publications, 1998.)
Page 44. ISBN 1-56101-156-8
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