Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Nicky and Sila Lee of The Marriage Course // Alpha International, and are talking about how marriages will still be struggling.

Nearly half of all marriages in America are experiencing difficulties. There’s a huge opportunity for churches to step in and offer proactive, structured support to marriages in their communities. Tune in to learn how to use The Pre-Marriage Course and The Marriage Course to overcome the stigmas surrounding marriage enrichment and provide couples with practical tools and biblical principles for maintaining a healthy relationship.

Create space for conversation. // The courses Nicky and Sila have developed have reached over 1.5 million couples worldwide, serving people from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds, including non-churchgoers. Their goal is to provide couples with practical tools and biblical principles for maintaining a healthy relationship. However, the most important part of the course is not what Nicky and Sila teach, but rather the one-on-one time couples have talking through a structured topic. This aspect makes the course unique for every couple, regardless of their background and situation.
Proactively offer support. // Churches must take proactive steps to support marriages in their communities. Rather than waiting for a crisis situation, we need to help people address struggles before they become serious problems. A once-a-year marriage weekend at our churches isn’t enough. Marriage health requires regular enrichment and support.
It’s normal to need help. // Using these courses at our churches helps to remove the stigma that can be associated with marriage enrichment programs. It’s important for churches to normalize the conversation around marriage support, with pastors and church leaders leading the way. Demonstrate that seeking help is a sign of strength and make these conversations a regular part of how you care for the people in your community.
Arrange a date night. // Part of The Marriage Course emphasizes the importance of creating a date night feel during the course sessions. By setting up a romantic evening for couples, it will alleviate the nervousness that many couples feel when attending marriage enrichment events. In addition, creating a welcoming environment will encourage them to enjoy their time together and return to each of the seven sessions.
Privacy over group discussions. // The Marriage Course is unique because it avoids group discussions unlike many other marriage classes. Many couples may be good at talking to other people, but not with each other. So the course provides space to encourage that one-on-one communication. Giving couples their own table and space also allows them to explore their relationship privately without fear of judgment.
Experience the course yourself. // Nicky recommends that leaders who are considering offering The Marriage Course in their church experience it within their own marriage first. Whether you run a small pilot course, or go through the course at home, the experience will help leader couples to understand the course’s impact before encouraging others to join.

Visit The Marriage Course on Alpha USA’s website or The Marriage Course to learn how to use it at your church and take a look below at the training video that Nicky talks about. Plus, don’t forget to download the unPredictions Team Playbook for this podcast episode here.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You’ve caught us in the middle of our Unprediction episodes. These are seven episodes. We’re talking about things that were true last year, that’ll be true this year. And unfortunately with this one, we think it’ll be true next year. And we think that your church should be worrying about it, thinking about it.

Rich Birch — Today we’re talking about this idea that marriages will continue to struggle this year. Nearly half of all American marriages are facing challenges. Churches must bolster, do what they can to bolster their support for church or for for um marriages. And today we’ve got experts to really help us with this conversation.

Rich Birch — We’ve got Nicky and Sila Lee. They developed the marriage course and the pre-marriage course to offer practical support to couples in person and online. They’ve run the pre-marriage course, if I’m doing my math right, at Holy Trinity Brompton in London since 1985 and the marriage course since 1996. And many couples have found their marriages enriched through these courses. At last count that I see, 1.5 million couples have taken these courses. So we are in for a treat today. Nikki and Sila, welcome. So glad you’re here.

Nicky and Sila Lee — Thanks, Rich. So good to be with you.

Rich Birch — Oh, this is going to be great. what Why don’t we start, Sila, fill up the picture there from a, like a bio point of view. What did I miss? What’s the part of the story that I, that we got to make sure we tell.

Nicky and Sila Lee — OK, the main thing is that Nicky and I have been married for 48 years.

Rich Birch — Congratulations. That’s amazing.

Nicky and Sila Lee — And um and actually, when we had um when we were developing these courses back in 1985, you were absolutely right about we started with pre-marriage. We’d been married for nine years then and had four young children. And um that was actually quite key because we had personally learnt a lot in the early years of our marriage.

Nicky and Sila Lee — We had met, fallen in love as teenagers and were not Christians. And then we had come to faith at a university mission and together, the same night, same night, same moment.

Rich Birch — Oh nice.

Nicky and Sila Lee — We won’t know till heaven who got there slightly before the other [inaudible] same moment. Anyway, that had profound impact on our relationship.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nicky and Sila Lee — We’d been doing it our own way up until that point. After that, really God came and showed us a whole different way of doing relationships. We then got married two and a half years later. And we had a lot of things to learn and we learned God’s ways of loving are good.

Nicky and Sila Lee — And we we hadn’t done any pre-marriage. There wasn’t, I don’t think there was a pre-marriage course running…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nicky and Sila Lee — …when we got married back in 1976.

Rich Birch — Very cool.

Nicky and Sila Lee — But we got some advice from some older Christian married couples and oh my goodness that advice made a difference.

Ric...

Preventing Marital Breakdown: Creating Proactive Support Systems in Your Church with Nicky & Sila Lee