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Preface

by the Archbishop of York

When the Archbishops’ Council decided to commission the Weddings Project just five years ago this was one of the best decisions we ever made. At the time it was a shot in the dark. It could easily have turned out to deliver just one more Church report, confronting beleaguered clergy and congregations with yet another depressing set of statistics, with a few ‘if only’s tagged on to the conclusion. What we have here instead is dynamite.

Gillian Oliver and her team have been on tour conducting roadshows to share the findings of the project throughout the Dioceses of the Church of England. Clergy who have been to these have felt affirmed, challenged, informed, and inspired to go out and put these ideas into practice.

What is remarkable is that we should be so surprised and energized by something that, underneath, we all knew already. When I was a Vicar of Holy Trinity Tulse Hill we had plenty of enquiries about getting married – even in our Primary School Hall where we worshipped for ten years as we were fundraising to repair our Parish Church. Thank God we managed to restore Holy Trinity Church beyond its former glory. In those days couples came to see me in our home. There was no vestry! At Holy Trinity we did our best to make the process of preparing for weddings as personal as possible. I think we did quite well. But reading this book makes me think how we might have done things differently. I am sure many of you will come to the same conclusion.

This is a wake up call. People want to be married in church. They may be tongue tied, especially the men, when it comes to saying why, but beneath their search for ‘the right venue’ and whatever they may say about wanting a ‘proper’ wedding, there is a recognition that there is something important in a wedding that only begins to make sense when there is space for the sacred.

You don’t have to be particularly religious to have a feel for the sacred. Plenty of people with little or no experience of church are awestruck at those all-or-nothing moments when a man and a woman pledge themselves to each other, ‘for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.’ It is not only mothers and fathers of the bride who shed a tear when a couple take each other by the hand. But have we known what to do with this strong feeling of something special? The good news is that couples on the whole think we do a great job on the wedding day. Perhaps we have, in some small way, been helping them to open their eyes to the wonder of it all?

It may even be this same sense of awe that scares so many people off getting married – a commitment which they may not feel ready for, a burning of the boats which doesn’t sit easily with our contemporary flair for keeping options open. What I am saying is that some people get married for the same reason that others choose not to – because it is such a patently obviously big thing. Perhaps by overfamiliarity those of us who take weddings may sometimes lose touch with just how big a thing this is?

When St Paul tells us that marriage can symbolize the relationship between Christ and his people, I don’t think he is just using marriage as a sermon illustration. Marriage may, on the one hand, simply be a social institution defined by law as ‘the union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others’, but it is much, much more. Accompanying a couple through the process of preparing for marriage, being alongside them as they marry to help them draw on the resources of faith, hope, and love which God has for them, and being there for them to support them in the future – as we promise in the service – all this is a wonderful privilege. ‘A great mystery’ as St Paul describes it.

At its most profound it is not we who define marriage, but marriage which shapes us. All of us owe our existence, one way or another, to the coming together of a man and a woman. Our very existence depends upon it. I don’t mean merely our biological existence. It is our identity as members of the wider human family which is shaped by our childhood experience of a stable ‘home’. Who we are is shaped not only by genetics, but by the nurture of those who care for us as children. What an awesome process all this is! No wonder some fight shy of the responsibilities that go with it and hesitate at the idea of getting married.

It will be a surprise to many, in an age where the meaning of the institution of marriage is widely debated, that there persists such wide recognition of these fundamental, spiritual values. I am thankful for the enormous encouragement the Weddings Project has given to clergy and parishes as they seek to respond warmly and imaginatively to those who come to us at these key moments in their lives.

When thinking about ‘family values’ it is easy for the church to get into a nostalgic and pessimistic frame of mind. We should remember that at the wedding at Cana, they were amazed that the best wine, so it seemed, had been kept until last. As we spend time in the presence of Jesus we can expect great things. And remember the Church does not belong to us. It belongs to Christ and all of us are his invited guests – his invited friends. This book makes me profoundly hopeful.

+Sentamu Ebor