Russian 
English 
Chinese 
Dutch 
Arabic 
Spanish 
Portuguese 
French 
Italian 
German 
Japanese “Jesus also was invited, with his disciples, to the wedding.”
John 2:2
Whom God Has Joined
Christian Marriage Preparation
Fifteen Lessons on what to settle before the wedding: sex, money, family, faith, how you fight and forgive, and the service itself. Each ends with questions you answer apart, then talk through.
15 Lessons · for both of you · $179
In the niche: Juan de Flandes, The Marriage Feast at Cana, about 1497. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Who the course is for
If your church asks you to prepare
Many pastors meet an engaged couple three to eight times, and Catholic dioceses run programmes of their own. The course gives you the conversations to have at home between those meetings, and a one-page letter at the end telling your pastor or priest what the two of you have covered.
If you come from two churches
A Catholic marrying a Baptist, say, or an Orthodox Christian marrying an Anglican. Where your churches differ, the Lesson sets out each one’s teaching in its own words and sends you to your own pastor or priest for an answer. Lesson 12 is about choosing where the two of you will worship.
If one of you is new to the faith
Lesson 1 assumes nothing: it starts with what Christians mean by marriage and where that comes from in Scripture. Lesson 12 is about praying together when one of you has prayed for years and the other has just begun.
“Whatever he says to you, do it.”
John 2:5
The fifteen Lessons
Before writing the course we read 321 posts by engaged and newly married Christians. The troubles they raised above all were sex, how they treat each other, faith and church, family, and money, and each has a Lesson of its own. Every Lesson answers one question from Scripture and the churches’ own teaching. Parts 2 to 4 are named for lines of the vow. Lesson 1 is free to read.
Part 1
Before You Promise
For early in the engagement: what marriage is, whether you are ready, and what changes with your parents.
Lesson 1
What God Joins
What are we entering when we marry?
Free to read
Lesson 2
Deciding, Not Drifting
How do we know we’re ready, and what should make us stop?
Lesson 3
Leaving and Cleaving
What changes with our parents when we marry?
Part 2
For Better, for Worse
How you talk and listen, what to do in a fight, how to forgive, and what Ephesians 5 asks of a husband and wife.
Lesson 4
Speaking the Truth in Love
How do we talk so that each of us is heard?
Lesson 5
When You Fight
What do we do in the middle of a fight, and after it?
Lesson 6
Forgiving and Being Forgiven
How do we forgive each other, and how do we rebuild trust when it breaks?
Lesson 7
Submit to One Another
What does Ephesians 5 ask of a husband and a wife, and who does what in our home?
Part 3
To Have and to Hold
Sex in marriage, the past each of you brings to it, and children.
Lesson 8
The Marriage Bed
What is sex in marriage for, and what should we expect?
Lesson 9
The Past You Bring
What should we tell each other before the wedding?
Lesson 10
Children
Are we open to children, and when, and how?
Part 4
For Richer, for Poorer; in Sickness and in Health
Your household’s money and its faith: praying together, where you worship, and caring for each other in sickness.
Lesson 11
For Richer, for Poorer
How do we run one household’s money?
Lesson 12
A Household of Faith
How will we pray, and where will we worship?
Part 5
The Wedding
The vows in each tradition, the readings and prayers, and the first year after the wedding.
Lesson 13
The Vows
What exactly will we promise, and what does each line mean?
Lesson 14
The Readings and the Prayers
Which Scripture and prayers belong in our wedding, and who chooses them?
Lesson 15
The First Year
How do we keep the promises after the wedding day?
“Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the water pots with water.’ So they filled them up to the brim.”
John 2:7
How each Lesson ends
Every Lesson ends like this: four to six questions and one thing to do that week, on a page you can print.
Talk it through
From Lesson 12, A Household of Faith
- When did you last pray aloud with another person, and what was it like?
- What time of day could we pray together for five minutes, every day?
- Where will we be on the first Sunday after the wedding, and on the Sunday after that?
- What does each of our churches require of us, and what have we not yet asked?
- What is one thing about my faith you don’t understand, or a question you have not asked me?
- When you are sick, what do you want from me, and what would you rather I left alone?
Write your answers separately first. Then read them aloud to each other, and talk.
This week: pray together for five minutes every evening. Thank God for one thing, pray for each other by name, and say the Lord’s Prayer together.
Whom God Has Joined · Lesson 12
Cana in the wedding service
Jesus did his first sign at a wedding in Cana, and the churches still read it, or recall it, when they marry a couple. Lesson 14 takes you through these readings and the others each church uses.
Orthodox
John 2:1–11 is the Gospel at every Orthodox crowning, read after the Epistle from Ephesians 5.
Catholic and Methodist
Cana is one of the Gospels a couple may choose, in the Catholic Order of Celebrating Matrimony and in the United Methodist list of wedding readings.
Anglican
The 1928 Prayer Book opens by recalling that Christ “adorned and beautified” marriage “with his presence and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee.”
Every church the course quotes marries a couple before God, for life. They differ on what marriage is (Catholics call it a sacrament, Orthodox Christians a holy mystery, most Protestants a covenant), on divorce and remarriage, on marrying someone from another church, on contraception, on living together first, and on how to read Ephesians 5. The course gives each church’s teaching in its own words, with equal weight, and leaves the decision to your own church.
Church documents quoted in the course
- Catholic The Order of Celebrating Matrimony, described in our own words
- Orthodox Isabel Hapgood’s Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (1906)
- Anglican The Book of Common Prayer (the American edition of 1928)
- Lutheran The Common Service Book (1918)
- Methodist John Wesley’s Sunday Service of the Methodists (1784)
- Reformed and Presbyterian The Westminster Directory for the Publick Worship of God (1645); the Book of Common Worship (1906)
- Baptist and non-denominational Edward Hiscox’s Star Book for Ministers (1878)
- Scripture The World English Bible
Where the teaching comes from
Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible, and every other quotation is linked to its source at the end of its Lesson. Besides the churches’ own service books, the Lessons quote these writers:
Tertullian
Wrote two short books to his wife in North Africa, about the year 207. Two Christians who marry, he said, are “of one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same service.” (Lesson 1)
John Chrysostom
A preacher, later bishop of Constantinople, whose sermons on Ephesians, late in the fourth century, told husbands and wives that “a house is a little Church.” (Lesson 12)
Augustine of Hippo
A bishop in North Africa who, about the year 401, asked why marriage is good, and answered that it is not only for having children but for the companionship of man and woman. (Lesson 1)
Martin Luther
Married Katharina von Bora in 1525. Four years later his Large Catechism told Christians to “put the best construction” on what they hear of a neighbour; Lesson 4 applies it to husband and wife.
The price
Pay once
$179
for the whole course
Three payments
$65
a month, for three months
Christian Pure Members pay $161.10, or three payments of $58.50.
One purchase covers both of you. After you buy, your course page gives you a link to send your partner, and each of you has your own login.
What you get
- Fifteen Lessons in five Parts, with Lesson 1 free to read
- Talk it through at the end of every Lesson, with a page to print for each
- “Our wedding service”, a planner for your vows, readings, prayers and order of service, to finish with your pastor or priest
- A one-page letter for your pastor or priest, saying what the course covers
- Two logins, one for each of you
- A short video for each Lesson, added as each one is made
Questions and answers
Does it replace our church’s marriage preparation?
No. No church will accept it in place of its own preparation, so do theirs too. The letter at the end of the course tells your pastor or priest what the two of you have covered, but it is not a certificate.
Is it counselling?
No. It teaches, and the conversations are between the two of you; nobody else reads your answers. Lesson 2 names what should stop a wedding until you have had help, such as abuse, an addiction or pressure to marry, and says who to call.
How long does it take?
About eight to ten hours in all. Each Lesson takes about eight minutes to read and about half an hour to talk through.
Which traditions does it cover?
Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed and Presbyterian, Baptist and non-denominational, each in its own words and with equal weight.
Can we do it if we live apart?
Yes. Each of you has your own login, so you can each read the Lesson and write your answers where you are, then talk them through on a call.
“This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
John 2:11
Whom God Has Joined
Christian Marriage Preparation
