There’s an old African proverb that presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton adopted for the title of her book. “It takes a village to raise a child.” It’s an idea that many people would agree with. However, the communal history of the phrase, along with the Big Brother approach that Clinton espouses in her book, obscures a more historically accurate and scientifically proven truth: it takes a married mother and father to raise a child. In fact, the optimal situation—emotionally, medically, psychologically, even economically—for a child or an adult, male or female, is in a married household.

The age-old institution of marriage is the perfect, most stable situation for children. Their physical and emotional needs can be met by a mother and father who are legally and socially responsible for their well-being. In fact, studies from the social sciences show that marriage provides stability not only for children, but for the husband and wife as well.

Sadly, as our present culture proves, many people—even inside the Church—do not know what a healthy marriage relationship looks like, or how to function in one. We live in a culture of divorce and cohabitation that is breeding subsequent divorce and cohabitation, at ever-increasing rates, in the next generation because today’s young people never learned the life skills required for a successful marriage relationship. To our shame, Christians haven’t done much better than the rest of society. It’s no surprise that we’re losing our witness, our saltiness, as Christians in our culture.

The world looks at the state of our marriages and concludes that we’re no better off than they are. We need to take an honest look at our marriages, on every level, and do what we need to do to strengthen the institution of marriage in our churches and communities. But where to start?

In order to help pastors and lay leaders in the church find the resources and materials they need to address marriage strengthening and enrichment in their churches and communities, Wisconsin Family Council is hosting Marriage Impact Conferences: How the Church can reduce divorce and strengthen marriage. Last week we held two conferences and they were very well received. One attendee, a pastor, said “I would have paid three times this amount. This is exactly what I needed.”

The conferences are designed to give pastors and lay leaders practical information that they can bring back to their churches and implement at whatever level is appropriate for their church and community. As part of the conference materials, we’re releasing our fourth SALT Ministry Resource Kit, the Marriage Strengthening Resource Kit. The kit, like the conference, is designed specifically as a practical resource for church members, or a pastor, to find and implement marriage strengthening curricula that fits their congregations’ needs.

Learn why you should be concerned about the state of marriage in our culture, what resources and expertise are available, how other churches have addressed the issues and how to implement marriage strengthening initiatives and/or programs in your church and community.

We are hosting three more of these day-long conferences, two next week at Calvary Memorial Church in Racine on Tuesday, May 6 th and Crossroads Church of God in Milwaukee on Thursday, May 8 th. The fifth and final conference will be held at Walnut Hill Bible Church in Baraboo on Tuesday, May 20 th. Give us a call at 888-378-7395 to register or visit us online at www.wifamilycouncil.org to print off and mail in a registration form. The cost is $20 for registration, lunch and materials. Please let your pastor and the ministry leaders in your church know about these conferences!

The message is out—we need to be doing everything we can to strengthen marriage, especially in the church. If the church, the Bride of Christ who knows the Truth about God’s design for marriage and family, does not get involved in strengthening the institution of marriage, who will? Marriage is the very foundation of society—the institution responsible for raising the next generation. Rather than it taking a village to raise a child—it really takes marriage to raise a village.

This is Amy Lewis sitting in for Julaine Appling, reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”