The main reason this ministry exists is to help to reveal and reflect the heart of Christ within marriages. Not only do we work at strengthening marriages, but we join forces with those who do this, as well. That includes you. Even if your marriage is not very healthy right now, there are things you can do to, prayerfully, improve your marriage. You can also help others in their marriages too.
Tips for Strengthening Marriages
Some of these tips are fun; others are more difficult. But the goal here is to help strengthen marriages. So, here are 12 tips that you can glean through to help you in your marriage:
• “Start each day with a kiss. Decide to begin the day with love.
• “Accept differences. Try to remember that once you thought your spouse’s idiosyncrasies were cute. Your chances of changing them are slim, so decide to live with them.
• “Be polite. Are you more polite to co-workers or store clerks than you are to the one you love? Practice good manners at home.
• “Harsh words and actions have no place in your home. Choose to be kind.
• “Smile often. Put on a happy face and let it determine your disposition. Remember how meaningful the glances were which you once gave each other.
• “Laugh together. Find something daily to share a laugh about. Life is complete with laughter.
Plus:
• “Do what your spouse wants before being asked. Anticipate your spouse’s needs and jump right in to help. Put his or her needs before your own comfort.
• “Listen. You don’t have to solve problems, just be an active listener. Turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, and give your spouse your full attention.
• “Call your spouse. Check in with each other throughout the day —just to say Hi or I love you.
• “Apologize. Almost as good as I love you is I’m sorry, forgive me. Marriage isn’t a game where you keep score. It’s not important who’s right.
• “Pray for your spouse daily. Don’t let a day go by without praying for your marriage, your spouse, and your family.
• “End each day with a hug. Decide to end the day with love.”
These tips come from Erroll Stephens, written in a former Crosswalk.com article titled, “24 Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage.” Use them and perhaps even share them with others.
Also, for Strengthening Marriages:
The following are some marriage tips we gathered from Smartmarriages.com and some we came up with ourselves. If together we can help improve and even save one marriage, it could have a positive effect on families for generations. Please join with us in strengthening and helping marriages:
• “Take the time to strengthen your own marriage so you can be an example to others.”
• Post marriage prayer requests on the Prayer Wall. Tell others that they can do this too. Also, we need an army of people who will participate in praying for these requests. We know of people, where they have taken on the mission to visit the Prayer wall each day (or several times a week) to pray for the ones that are immediately posted. We praise God for those Prayer Warriors —so, so needed!
• “Give marriage education books and classes as wedding, anniversary, birthday and shower gifts.”
(We do and it has made a HUGE difference! It’s nice to receive money and stuff, but investing in the couple’s marriage is a priceless gift that can make all the difference in the world!)
Also, Prayerfully Consider:
• “Ask your congregation or day care center to sponsor a date night for married couples. Include daycare.”
• “Provide information on building strong marriages at bridal showers.” Also, “at wedding parties, have each guest share ideas of what the couple can do to keep their marriage strong.”
• Go to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/marriagemissions (and “like” it, when you can). We post a pro-active marriage tip there everyday, as reminders to be intentional in investing in your marriage. Tell others about it. Also, we send out a tweet 6 days a week. You can find our Twitter page at https://twitter.com/mrgmissions. Again, share it with others too!
• “Hold a Marriage Fest in your community. Have games, food and marriage education booths.”
Your church can even do this as a community outreach.
• “Set up an email service that sends out marriage strengthening ideas on a weekly basis.”
That’s what we did and now we send them out to over 40,000 people per week. You can even re-send out our Marriage Messages or Insights. Or you can send a few quotes from them. Many pastors, counselors, churches, missionaries, and other people do this.
• “Write a letter to newlywed couples with a list of favorite marriage strengthening tips and pledge to support their marriage.”
(For extra tips, go into the topics on our web site and you’ll find lots of quotes. Also the Social Media topic has pages of quotes we’ve used, and you can too.)
• “Add a marriage education component to parenting classes” in your church and other outlets.”
Additional Marriage Strengthening Tips:
• Please consider praying for and financially supporting Marriage Missions International (perhaps even monthly). We have info about this on our web site. Please know that we are very frugal with the money that is donated. But we need an army of supporters to help with the expenses of this ministry.
• “Encourage married couples in long distance relationships to visit Longdistancecouples.com for activities to keep them connected during their time apart.”
(Also, we have several articles with links to additional ideas posted in the Assorted Marriage Issues topic of our web site.)
• “Discourage spouse or marriage bashing conversations or jokes.”
Don’t participate and don’t do it yourself. This type of talk chinks away at the integrity of marriages. It’s NOT funny, in the long run, when you consider the damage it can do.
• We also need an army of encouragers. On our web site, go into the topics God leads you to, and find a comment that is left under any of the articles. Pray for that person and leave a comment that can encourage them in some way. They and we would be eternally grateful!
In conclusion, please help us to strengthen marriages so more married couples will reveal and reflect the heart of Christ in marriage. It’s an important mission. It’s one that is near and dear to God’s heart because marriage is a living picture of Christ’s love for the church. Joined together Christ brings victory!
Steve and Cindy Wright
Filed under: Marriage Messages