Christian marriage seminar lures 960

Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona/June 23, 2006
By Stephanie Innes

Nearly 1,000 people from across the United States will be in Tucson this weekend for an increasingly popular Christian workshop that focuses on strengthening marriage.

The Weekend to Remember drew 350 people in 2004 and 730 in 2005. This year, 960 people have registered, said organizer Ron Wheat, who added that he believes the increased interest stems from a growing desire to curb the divorce rate among Christians.

Marriage "is in the worst state it has ever been in, and people are looking for answers," he said. "The divorce rate is an embarrassment — it's the same for those who go to church as it is for the unchurched."

Ever since a 2004 survey by the California-based Barna Research Group showed that born-again Christians divorce at the same rate as those who do not report having a born-again experience, Christian groups across the country have been increasingly offering and emphasizing marriage-strengthening programs.

The Weekend to Remember is sponsored by a national Christian organization called Family- Life, a division of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

Those attending spend nearly 19 hours learning about what is described as God's "perfect plan for marriage." The conference, at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa, starts this evening.

"Marriage puts two people together with different expectations and different ways of doing things," said Bob Peterson, a member of Mountain View Baptist Church on the Northwest Side. "When you start living together, you realize things you didn't know about the other person." Peterson has been doing local outreach for the Weekend to Remember.

Peterson and his wife, Judy, attended their first Weekend to Remember after 30 years of marriage, when Bob Peterson thought he had nothing new to learn about marital bliss.

"We talk about falling in love, but love in a marriage takes work — it doesn't just happen," he said. "Once you are past the warm fuzzies, you have to work to keep going. We talk about the fact that love is a verb, not a noun."

One of Tucson's largest Protestant churches — Pantano Christian Church, on the East Side — is sending a contingent to the program, as are several other local churches, Peterson said. Some registrants are people who have divorced but are considering reconciliation, he said. Others are engaged to be married. Some have been married for decades.

Many, such as 24-year-old Rosa Notheis, are newlyweds. Notheis, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, has been married for a little over a year. She'll attend the Weekend to Remember with her husband,

Benjamin. At least four of their friends also are attending. They heard about the workshop at their church, Fellowship Bible Church, on the East Side.

Although the couple already had premarital counseling and followed a workbook titled "Before You Say I Do," they're looking forward to learning more.

"If you want to get better at something, you have to put in the work," Rosa Notheis said. "Our marriage is the most important thing besides God."

The Weekend to Remember dates to 1976. Peterson said organizers have been praying for higher attendance, and he said he believes God has helped the program to reach so many people. Organizer Wheat emphasized that while people do not have to be Christian to attend, the focus is biblical and not psychological.

"We talk about the threats to oneness and the biblical blueprints for marriage," he said. "It's hard, just like accepting the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ is hard."

FamilyLife supports a prohibition of gay marriage to protect marriage between a man and a woman. But Wheat does not think the surge in registrations in the program has been fueled by national and local attention on the institution of marriage, which some view as being threatened by a movement to allow same-sex couples to legally wed.

"We don't have a political agenda whatsoever," he said. "We are concerned with exposing people to the biblical plan for marriage."

Critics argue that events led by groups such as FamilyLife are inherently discriminatory in that organizers oppose same-sex marriage and call homosexual relations sinful.

But organizers counter that the weekend's workshop does not talk about homosexuality.

A Weekend to Remember in Phoenix earlier this year sold out a month early and attracted a capacity crowd of 950, and organizers hope to hold two Phoenix conferences next year.