SEATTLE -- Pastors from more than 60 Eastside Christian churches signed a pact recently, during the height of the wedding season, that aims to help engaged couples start their marriages on a solid foundation.
The Greater Eastside Community Marriage Agreement is the latest of 14 such pacts signed across Washington state since fall 1997, and it is expected to have the most signers.Participating mainline and evangelical churches in seven cities across Lake Washington will commit to work toward building "strong and joyful marriages" by offering premarital counseling, post-wedding mentoring and other training.
Among the participants will be some of the area's largest congregations, including Overlake Christian Church in Redmond and Cedar Park Assembly and Eastside Foursquare Church in Bothell.
Unlike previous agreements in other communities, the Eastside pact is intended to be less rigid and more upbeat.
The bottom line is the same, however: reducing the rate of divorce, which claims an estimated one in two couples nationwide.
Instead of a list of requirements for engaged couples to be married in a particular church, the agreement is more a statement of convictions, according to the Rev. Dick Leon of First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue.
"It's saying, this is what we believe about marriage. Out of that, we hope to welcome couples into a dialogue," said Leon, who co-chaired a committee that drafted the document.
The statement affirms that marriage is a holy union established by God "for the welfare and happiness of the human family and that marriage works best when God is at the center of our lives and our relationships."
The pact also states that marriage is intended to be a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman and that Christian congregations have the responsibility to foster lasting marriages and strong families.
Participating pastors also will agree that sex is "so good and so powerful that it can only be fully expressed within the bonds" of marriage.
St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Medina will see little difference because of the pact, said the Rev. Ann Lukens, a member of the planning committee.
"By canon law in the Episcopal Church, we always provide premarital counseling," Lukens said.
But the agreement may lead St. Thomas to "beef up our course offering" to help couples and families build strong relationships, she added.
Some engaged couples needing a wedding location in a hurry will thumb through the phone book, "simply looking for a church that'll say 'yes,' " Lomax said. "With this agreement, there may be less of that."