Churches help couples prepare for their future together
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BY LIZ STINSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Deborah Swearingen was a little baffled when Clay McIlwain asked her out for a beer a little over a year ago.
The 57-year-old health and human services worker had been developing a seemingly platonic relationship with the 50-year-old McIlwain for a couple of months before he asked her out for a drink.
“Was this a date?” Swearingen asked herself.
She wasn’t sure.
Nervous, but excited, she said yes.
“I was being cool, which is unusual for me, but I was being cool,” she said.
The two ended up hitting it off as a duo.
One thing led to the other and soon enough they were engaged.
“Things just kind of took off,” Swearingen said.
The wedding planning started out smoothly — she wanted something simple, something religious, preferably at South Street Temple, where she attends service.
McIlwain, a Seventh-day Adventist, didn’t have any preferences, and he wasn’t opposed to a Jewish wedding.
Then the couple hit a roadblock. Swearingen and McIlwain found out that South Street Temple doesn’t perform interfaith weddings unless an approved rabbi is brought in to do the ceremony, which can be very costly.
Swearingen’s mother suggested the two look into getting married at First-Plymouth Congregational Church, where she is a member.
Swearingen recalled being skeptical at first, but after sifting through options, she decided that a co-officiated wedding might just work out for everyone.
“He (Clay) would’ve been fine with a justice of peace, but I wanted a wedding, and I wanted a religious wedding,” she said. “I said, ‘I want God at my wedding and if he wants to bring his little friend Jesus along, then that’s fine with me.’”
The two were married by First-Plymouth associate minister Barbara Smisek and Rabbi Michael Weisser.
First-Plymouth, which holds around 60 weddings each year in its sanctuary, is regarded as one of Lincoln’s most open and accommodating churches when it comes to weddings.
Jim Keck, senior minister at First-Plymouth, said he looks at weddings as a good way to extend his congregation’s view of acceptance and love.
“We look at this as a moment for them (couples) to begin a potential relationship with the church or a moment for us to express the warmth of the Christian church,” he said. “Will the church be a place of compassion and inclusion and spiritual depth or not?”
Weisser, who was at South Street Temple for 14 years before he left to serve as the rabbi at a Jewish congregation in New Zealand, said he believes churches should be blind to the cultural and religious differences that a couple might have.
“I’m at a place in my own spiritual development where denomination and labels of all sorts are pretty meaningless,” he said. “An open-arm welcome is far more positive than saying the person you are in love with is somehow defective.”
Not all clergy are as progressive.
Keck said that it’s important to remember that marriage means different things to different denominations, and while most Christian and Jewish congregations believe that God plays an important role in the life of a married couple, some faiths, such as the Roman Catholic Church, have certain requirements for a marriage to be considered valid.
Father Matthew Eickhoff, director of the Lincoln Diocese Family Life Office, said that when at least one person in the marriage is a member of the Catholic Church, the ceremony must be conducted by Catholic clergy and with specific traditions to uphold the sacrament of marriage in order for the marriage to be considered true and valid in the church’s eyes. But, he clarified, that does not mean that the Catholic Church views marriages conducted in other churches as not valid.
And while around half of the couples who marry in the Lincoln diocese are of different faiths, in order for a couple to engage in an interfaith wedding, it must be approved by the bishop, and only Catholic clergy is allowed to preside over the ceremony unless a dispensation from the Catholic bishop is obtained to provide for exceptional circumstances, Eickhoff said.
While individual denominations have their own marriage requirements, there is a common goal that most congregations have in mind: preparing the couples for married life.
The long road to marriage
The to-do list for a wedding can seem to be never-ending: Ordering flowers, booking a reception hall, organizing the wedding party.
Now many couples add face time with the minister to that list.
Increasingly, churches view marriage preparation in the form of workshops, tests and one-on-one meetings as an integral part of the wedding process.
Many churches in Lincoln require, or at least offer, some sort of program in which the couple must participate in order to be married.
Hannah Hotovy, 21, and her fiancé, Jeff Rutledge, 22, for example, have been knee-deep in preparation since Rutledge popped the question in February. As students at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, the Lincoln natives have made the three-hour drive from Kearney to meet with St. Theresa Parish’s Father Joseph Nemec more than five times already.
The couple, whose wedding is set for May 17, 2008, has been meeting with Nemec to discuss their relationship with each other and their relationship with God.
Nemec said meeting with couples gives him the opportunity to get to know them as people as well as help focus them on the life change they are about to make.
But before he can sit down and talk to the couple about its relationship, the couple has to take a test.
A test?
Well, it’s more of an inventory, Nemec said.
All couples who get married in the Lincoln Diocese have to take the FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding & Study).
The relationship inventory asks couples 156 questions about various aspects of married life.
Finances, children, expectations — it’s all covered.
The results are split into 19 categories that show patterns of strengths and weaknesses in a relationship.
Nemec said FOCCUS really helps to, well, focus the couple on areas that they could work on in their relationship, and it helps to open up a dialogue on certain issues.
“It’s a tool,” he said. “It gives us some structure by which we can meet and start talking about things.”
Hotovy said the inventory pointed out some of the weaker aspects of her relationship.
“It gave us the confidence we need to work on the areas that were weak to us,” she said. “We realize that we’re doing good in some areas, but it made us realize that there were some areas that we could work on as well.”
The Lincoln Diocese also requires, in most cases, that couples participate in Engaged Encounter, a weekend retreat aimed at giving them a real-life view of what married life might be like.
Eickhoff said Engaged Encounter is a great way for couples to gain a better understanding of not only their commitment to each other, but also their commitment to God and the Catholic Church.
“Some of the assessment has to do with psychological and emotional preparedness for marriage,” he said, “but once it’s established that the couple is capable of marriage, then the rest of the preparation revolves around the church and the understanding of a Christian marriage.
“The church is trying to present an authentic view of marriage and to preserve and protect that understanding,” he continued. “There are so many images and presentations in our culture of marriage that are not authentic and not Christian. They are warped views of marriage. We are trying to protect and preserve what God has established.”
First-Plymouth recently implemented a pre-marital workshop directed by Dr. Marcus Flathman, who is a psychologist at Flathman Psychological Services.
In the workshop, Flathman addresses three primary issues: Active listening, assertiveness, and separateness and connection.
Both Flathman and Keck said the workshop aims to prepare couples for some of the issues they might have to deal with when they are married without a major emphasis on the heavy, and sometime alienating, religious aspect.
“We began the workshop to show concern for the whole person, not just the spiritual,” Keck said.
Even though some couples might think they have no use for a pre-marital workshop, Flathman believes even those who are checking their watches the entire time can get something out of it.
“It often surprises me how wide of a range of things connect with people,” he said. “Someone will hear one thing and someone else will hear something else completely different that touches them … They can take it or leave it. Of course, we hope that they’re going to take some of it to heart.”
Reach Liz Stinson at 473-7254 or at estinson@journalstar.com.
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