Couples Ministry

Rockaway Parish couple gives tips on best ways to build a ‘couples ministry’

MADISON  What Catholic couple — or any person — doesn’t like to have fun socializing and having laughs with friends and neighbors, while playing games, eating food, singing, dancing or watching football?

Everyone likes a great get-together — just the type of activity that can attract Catholic couples of all ages to a parish or local couples ministry, especially when promoted using fun titles, such as “St. Pat’s Beer, Burgers and Bonding,” “Pot Luck Praise” and “Surfin’ Turfin’ V-Day Mass.” But, as those names suggest, these events also include opportunities for participants to deepen their faith and relationships with God and each other, to worship and to become better spouses and parents in their faith journey. Offering this suggestion and others for starting a couples ministry was Mike and Faith Rose, a married couple from Sacred Heart Parish, Rockaway. They spoke Feb. 17 about “Building a Couples Ministry” at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard here.

“Some couples are turned off by a word like ‘ministry.’ So don’t invite them to an event with the word ‘ministry’ in the name. They are more likely to get involved with an activity that has a non-threatening name like ‘Super Bowl: Faith, Food and Football.’ That is something that they would be doing anyway, so we are capitalizing on it,” said Mike Rose, who along with Faith, spoke about their two-year-old outreach — not affiliated with any local parish — which meets once monthly in their Rockaway home.

That evening, the Roses, young adults, who have been married 10 years and are expecting their fifth child in August, spoke about their couples ministry, which provides a relaxed community atmosphere, where couples socialize and pray with and learn from like-minded couples, who ultimately build more joyful marriages, raise more Christ-like children and build families who will benefit the Church throughout the world. This dynamic grassroots outreach, which includes Catholic couples from many nearby parishes, has been growing by word of mouth and by personal invitation, said Mike Rose, who speaks at parishes and other groups about chastity, pro-life, manhood, fatherhood and family.

“Couples ministry is the most effective way that the Church can ensure that couples stay together. It gives them life skills so that their marriages can survive. It helps them make sure that Jesus is at the center of their marriages and families. It also provides an opportunity to make disciples,” said Faith Rose, a stay-at-home mother, who home-schools her children. “Couples ministry helps make us good spouses and kids. Our couples say that it’s such a blessing,” she said.

With the assistance of a slide presentation, the Roses offered the following suggestions about starting a couples ministry:

• Be creative. The Roses have held get-togethers for the Super Bowl, St. Patrick’s Day and Christmas and have hosted game nights, wine-and-cheese nights and even something that resulted from “out-of-the-box” thinking: ballroom dancing lessons. All their meetings start with casual meet and greet. Also, they hold events like a coffee house for the women and a poker night for the men to give the women and men opportunities to bond separately as women and men, Mike Rose said.

• Don’t forget God. The Rose’s events also include a “focused session,” which might include a faith-formation lesson or discussion of a topic relevant to family life. They make time for prayer, such as the rosary, Lectio Divina or one-on-one intimate prayer — sometimes aided by playing music or passing around a candle, he said. The Roses combine fun activities, such as a St. Valentine’s Day dinner with a Mass in their home, which is celebrated by one of their many priest friends. Some events take on an entirely reverent tone, such as their Holy Thursday Seder Service.

• ‘Check in’ with participating couples. Get to know about their journeys in their family relationships and walk with the Lord. Many engaged and married couples approach the Roses with difficult questions, seeking Church truths and advice on topics that they might be timid about broaching with a priest or even secular friends, Faith Rose said.

• Remember the “little ones.” Include children in many of the spiritual and social activities of the couples ministry. For those events designated exclusively for the adults, give the children a separate activity in another room or hire a babysitter, she said.

• Invite all couples, including those that are older or younger; those who are married, engaged or discerning marriage; and those who have or do not have children.

“Discerning and engaged couples want to see married couples in love with each other and the Lord. Likewise, young couples help re-energize the relationships of older couples,” said Mike Rose, co-owner and executive vice president of The Diversified Companies, a marketing organization that helps low-income seniors. “Our couples learn from each other and learn ways to help one another.”

• Ask what couples want from couples ministry. These questions could include, “Would you come to an event like this?“ “What day would be best to meet?” and “What topics would you like to cover?” Schedule events that fulfill the needs of the group, Mike Rose said.

• Be flexible and understanding. Many couples will decline your invitation to an event. Others will say “yes” and back out. Others will attend an event and never return. A few couples will form the core of the group, Faith Rose said. Leaders of the couples ministry have to be flexible, when their best-laid plans can go awry. Once, the Roses scheduled a ballroom dancing session, only to have couples cancel one by one. So, they switched the activity to a game night, Mike Rose said.

• You cannot do couples ministry alone — not as a wife, husband, couple or group of couples, but only with the Lord, Faith Rose said.

After the Roses’ presentation, Cindy Costello of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, Sandyston, a married mother of five who is Marriage Ministry Coordinator in Family Life ministry at St. Paul’s, told the couple, “What you are doing — the Holy Spirit has inspired you. You are lighting fires and those fires are burning here tonight.”