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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 partiuclar 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

 

Quotable Archive

Just click on a "Quotable" title below to read the review.
(The latest submissions are listed first.)

• A PRAYER TO THE CREATOR •
• A PRAYER FOR OUR EARTH •
• ON TURNING •
• Prayer for Peace •
• Pentecost •
• Second Synod of Orange •
• 7 Social Sins •
• The Homily •
• Resurrection •
• Sin Is Something that Changes... •
• AND THEN... •
• The Winter Journey of Advent •
• A Prayer For the World •
• Come Home •
• A New Psalm •
• A blessing for Preachers •
• Christmas In A Prison Cell •
• Compare Reading the Scriptures With Eating the Eucharist... •
• DOMINICAN PREACHER •
• Eastering •
• For Me To Preach... •
• Formulas •
• I Am Disciple •
• Indeed Any Sermon... •
• Jesus, Light of the World, Come •
• Lament For A Son •
• Lenten Penance •
• Litany of Non-Violence •
• Lovelight •
• Making the House Ready for the Lord •
• Money Order Angels •
• Ongoing Listening •
• On Jordan's Bank •
• Peace Prayer •
• Preacher •
• Preaching At Weddings •
• Preaching Is Dangerous •
• Preaching Has As Its Primary Purpose... •
• Seeds of Contemplation •
• The Homily Is Not... •
• The Difference Between Dead and Living Sermons •
• The Dominican Family •
• The Natural World •
• The Season of Pentecost •