MarriedPeople Spotlight: GracePointe Church

We have amazing MarriedPeople partner churches. These marriage champions are taking the MarriedPeople resources and doing things that are above and beyond anything we dreamed about.

We want you to meet them. So once a month, we’ll spotlight a different church that is impacting not only the marriages in their church, but in their community. We want you to meet people from churches of all sizes, large and small, in various types of communities, whether urban, rural or suburban, with budgets big and small and volunteers plenty or scarce. Regardless of how different these churches may be from yours, we think you’ll find some relevancy to where you are.

We gave them a list of questions to find out more about their church, their team and their ministry. This month, we would like to introduce you to Archie Rish at GracePointe Church in Douglas, GA.

Church: GracePointe Church (Douglas, GA)
MarriedPeople champion: Archie Rish

Size of your church: 300

Approximate number of married couples: 55

Describe the area you are in: Rural

Tell Us About . . . You and Your Team

I am full-time on staff as the Discipleship Director.

How did you get involved in marriage ministry? It’s part of my job, but I also wanted our community to know that our church is FOR MARRIAGES. I grew tired of seeing the church seeming to only offer help for marriages in a crisis.

How many people are on your marriage ministry team (including you)? 4

How did you recruit your team? 
I asked a couple to be our hosts at the first MarriedPeople Live event we put on. Since then, they have become our forever host for our marriage team. Also, I am current working to expanded the team and grow our MarriedPeople ministry.

What are the demographics of the couples in your church? Mostly young marrieds and parents with kids

Tell Us About . . . How You Use the MarriedPeople Resources and Strategy

What resources do you use from MarriedPeople? The Strategy Pack which includes Larger Group Experiences, Small Group Resources, Date Nights and the monthly MarriedPeople E-ZINEs. The MarriedPeople book has also been helpful.

How do you use them? In what settings? Events, small groups, Sunday morning worship service. (We just did a four-week series to kick off MarriedPeople at GracePointe.)

How do you communicate with your couples? Handouts, bulletin, verbal announcements during service, emails, church website, couples using social media

Does your marriage ministry have a social media presence? No, we mainly use our church website. However, the couples in church use social media to talk about the events.

Do you encourage/invite couples from the community to your marriage events? Yes

How do you reach couples outside your church? Church website, word of mouth, individuals using social media

What has been on really great thing that has come from using MarriedPeople? Because of MarriedPeople, we have been able to watch couples celebrate each other again and take a date for the first time in years. There’s also been a build up of excitement in our community about GracePointe Church being “For Marriages.”

For our first Date Night, we asked local restaurants to donate coupons to place in the bags for a little surprise for couples. Some offered free appetizers, discounts and some even paid for entire meals. We put these in bags for couples. We had one unchurched couple who decided they were going to give the Date Night a shot, so they showed and received a bag with a free meal. The impact of the free meal and the conversation that was sparked by the MP Date Night sheet was incredible for the couple. It’s stories like this that remind us that we picked the right tool for our community when we picked MarriedPeople.

What has been your biggest success so far? We have begun to see couples from our community show up for our MarriedPeople Events. The couples in our church are blowing up social media with pics/post about the events and it causes a buzz. “Word of Mouth” or “Word of Facebook” really creates much talk and much interest in our church and why we do what we do.

What has been your biggest challenge? 
Recruiting a team. I struggle with asking someone to join a team to work events that are created for them. In my previous job, I was an event planner and in that role I wanted every person, even the host to feel like VIP guest at the event. By nature, it’s hard for me to recruit due to the fact that I want every couple to show up and feel like a VIP guest to the event.

Give us an example of how you took a MarriedPeople resource and “made it your own.” We have taken the Large Group Experience and total customized it. We don’t have live music. We provide food—anything from a dessert buffet to a full out dinner. Also for Large Groups, we have replaced the video message with a live couple on stage who share their story.

We host our date nights in drive-thru form. A couple travels through our parking lot, grabs a Date Night Bag and they’re off to a night of adventure. Many times our bags are filled with candy, coupons, etc.

If MarriedPeople could equip you with one resource, what would it be? I don’t know. I am loving what you guys already provide!

Thanks, Archie, and the awesome team impacting marriages in Douglas, GA!

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