Model Happiness: Why Dating is Important to Your Church Culture

Model Happiness: Why Dating is Important to Your Church Culture

Helpful Articles: Family Issues

By Tim Popadic
It makes sense that couples who create more “couple time” appear to foster higher-quality and more stable marriages. Recent reports indicate that couple time is indeed associated with higher levels of satisfaction in the areas of communication, sex, and marital commitment for both husbands and wives. But have you heard this: “Wives who spend couple time with their husbands at least once a week are 3.5 times more likely to enjoy above average levels of sexual satisfaction, compared to wives who have couple time less than once a week?” Likewise, “Husbands who spend more couple time with their wives are 3.3 times more likely to enjoy above-average levels of satisfaction, compared to their peers who have couple time less than once a week.”
When Pastors capture this notion of helping couples become intentional about increasing couple time, they are essentially helping them increase their happiness and sexual satisfaction. And happier couples are more motivated to make an impact in their workplace, communities, and homes. I’ve heard through the years that the churches with the best (happiest) marriages end up having the best youth groups, best choirs, and best outreach programs. They’re also far more generous. Yet all too often the least resourced programs in our churches are the ones targeting marriages.

So how can you get things moving?
Here are a few key ways:

1. Create a Date Night Culture: Create out-of-the-box Date Night Events or moments within your community that model what it means for couples to be intentional with each other. This can be a church-wide event or a “take home” Date Night in your bulletin.
    
2. Post Visual Reminders: Through email and social media send your couples messages to remind them to be intentional about spending time together. It’s safe to assume that they need it, and the visual reminder can also serve as a great springboard to meaningful conversation between them.
    
3. Invest In Your Leadership: Budget for your staff and volunteer staff to go out on Date Nights every month. This not only provides a healthy model for your church and the people the staff serves, but it’s an excellent way to use your resources. Remember, if your leaders are “happier” in their marital relationships, then your whole program will be “happier”.
    
4. Date Your Spouse: Like your staff you also need to be a Date Night advocate. Don’t just say you want to champion marriage in your church. Start by championing your own marriage first.

Ultimately, the Church should be “the place with the happiest marriages.” Instead it has become “the place with the busiest marriages.” Let’s do something about this and start modeling “happy”. IT’S TIME TO GET YOUR DATE NIGHT ON!
Copyright © 2014 by Tim Popadic. Used by permission.

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Tim Popadic
@TimPopadic
Creator of Date Night Works & Date Night Comedy Tour
Pastor, Author, Marriage & Family Therapist, and Relationship Advocate
For more info go to DateNightFlorida.com and find some great Date Night Resources.