By Amy Morgan

Devin Tharp serves as the Family Pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Charlotte, N.C. Prior to this position, he spent six years running the church’s student ministry until he realized he was being called toward marriages and families. He and his wife had spent eight years running a non-profit using horses to mentor children dealing with trauma and crisis. Their work at Brightside Ranch helped him recognize how often kids are broken when their families break. “Every family is founded on the marriage,” he said. “If the marriage is centered on Christ, we can change anything. Somebody has to lead the charge.” 

Devin realized trying to keep a foot in both the family and student ministry worlds was not doing justice to either. He basically “wrote a job description for the job I didn’t have yet as family pastor for all next generation ministry” and presented the idea to his senior pastor. 

At that time, Good Shepherd Church was redefining their mission and vision. The senior pastor initiated the idea of focusing their vision on marriage. “He never liked when hurting couples would come in and ask his blessing for a divorce,” Devin said. “He’d ask, ‘Where did we go wrong? How could we have helped prevent this upstream?’” Devin pointed out that at the time, the only thing Good Shepherd offered for marriage was Divorce Care. 

The church adopted the vision of a Beautiful Marriage movement in 2019 with the goal of impacting 10,000 couples and reducing divorce by 50% in seven years in the greater Charlotte area of south Mecklenburg, N.C., and north York County, S.C. (Good Shepherd draws from both sides of the state line.) 

Devin developed a website, Beautifulmarriages.org, which is independent from the church’s site.  Beautifulmarriages now reaches close to 2,000 people a month and lists date nights specific to Charlotte, as well as marriage-related content.  The church invested in signage in the Charlotte area pointing people to the site. Beautifulmarriages includes a Help Guide of steps for couples thinking about divorce. In early 2020 they hosted a few date nights, but when the pandemic hit, they had to change their plans. 

“We recognized we needed to build more of a digital presence on Facebook and Instagram, where we have 1500 followers,” Devin said. Their strategy with millennial-age couples is less content, more often. They also send a weekly text message to those who subscribe.

Now that people are willing to gather, Good Shepherd hosts several large events on campus for couples annually that include childcare. They call their date nights Couples’ Experiences, which could be as simple as a date night in a package. When they promote a resource, Good Shepherd provides 2 date kit invitation for couples. One to use themselves and another to share with an unchurched neighbor. 

At the date nights, “We plan games and activities to get people talking with the goal of 80% fun, 20% teaching,” Devin said. “We define a beautiful marriage as having serious fun.” One date was introduced with a pizza box. Couples left their children at the church and took their pizza date off site. Another packaged a conversation guide as a menu in a Chinese takeout box. A large group experience was called Happy Campers. Several couples put up a tent together on the stage, and afterward, everyone made s’mores over a fire. The event exceeded its capacity of 103 couples by an additional 3 and had a waiting list, Devin said. Devin’s pleased Good Shepherd’s experiences are uniquely curated for couples in their community.  

At least once or twice a year Good Shepherd will mail an envelope with printed coupons couples can give each other for favors like one hour alone or a free massage. They’ve mailed more than 2800 coupons. “They were very well received. It was a simple idea, but people loved it,” Devin said 

The church also began offering Re|Engage for married couples and Merge programs for those seriously dating or engaged twice a year. Devin strongly supports Re|Engage and recruits other churches in the Charlotte area to offer the program. “In the beginning, we were the only ones anywhere around hosting it. Now five others have joined us. What if we became a RE|Engage city?” He inspired a pastor of a church of 350 people to host. The first time that church offered the program, they had 40 couples sign up. 

Devin trusts Re|Engage because it’s personal and based on discipleship. “I appreciate skills-based programming,” he said, “but we don’t want that to dominate our content. I want to focus on discipleship. Is the content going to create real, authentic, open sharing? We don’t want content that looks fake. He said he and his wife share their messy marriage details as an example that Re|Enage is a safe place. 

He also vets curricula to make sure they align with Good Shepherd’s values theologically, pointing couples to the Word of God and not human wisdom. 

Offering Re|Engage consistently allows couples to become friends. He noted one team plays pickleball on Thursdays. Consistency also provides a place to refer crisis couples or those who might reveal they are struggling in casual conversation. The program is limited only by the number of leaders, usually 6-7 leader couples with 48 enrolled and a waiting list. 

Good Shepherd strives for a pastor or staff member to meet face-to-face with any couple in crisis, after which they will try to connect them to Re|Engage. If the timing is not right or it’s not a good fit, they’ll refer the couple to a vetted local counselor, even underwriting some of the cost of the first three sessions. Devin is in the process of creating a more in-depth “911 Marriage Strategy” with additional options. 

When asked how he was able to secure support from the senior pastor, Devin referenced his pastor’s 2019 vision for marriage, which he said has a trickle-down effect on the congregation, even making it easier to attract volunteers. “The senior leadership team is fully on board. Everything changes when senior staff are casting vision for marriage,” he said. “Casting the vision from the pulpit big and bold sets the tone. When people in the pews get invited purposefully by senior management, they are in. Then when you do marriage ministry well and marriages are changed, it becomes a self-filling prophecy. They’ll say, ‘I love this, and I want to do this for someone else.’ We always have three or four couples come back from each Re|Engage and be in leadership. 

Good Shepherd usually counts 1600 attendees on Sunday, and Devin spends about $12,000 on marriage programs, not including his salary. “If I have an idea we think will work, we’ll find the budget to make it happen,” he said. Many of Good Shepherd’s staff have gone through Re|Engage themselves and buy in because their marriages have been impacted personally. Good Shepherd gifts a $100 card to a local steakhouse for each staff couple on their wedding anniversary with a note reading, “Here’s an investment in your beautiful marriage.” They also enlist a group of older ladies in the church who enjoy handwriting anniversary cards to Good Shepherd couples. 

When asked what advice he’d offer a pastor or church getting a marriage ministry started, Devin said, “First pray and ask for God’s favor.” He noted everything comes back to the family and its marriage centerpiece. He refers to the book, Endgame, which presents the idea that there’s a fire in our house, and we’re putting out the smoke. “The impact of marriage ministry on the next generation is greater than that of student ministry from the former 22 years,” he said.  (He realizes he’s making that statement as a former youth pastor.) “I look at those kids who are still following Jesus and most of them were raised in homes where their parents nurtured faith. If I can impact the marriage, I can impact the whole home.” 

He suggests asking a senior pastor to read Endgame, which presents objective data to support marriage ministry. Understand pastors have limited time and resources. Help them realize marriage ministry isn’t just one more plate they are asking the senior pastor to spin. “All of that – kids, next gen, community – goes back to marriage. So, spin the plate that impacts all plates. Our job is to help senior pastors get the vision about how to impact the next generation.” 

Where to start? Devin said date nights are an easy on-ramp. “If you can get couples to do a couple of date nights a year, their marriage will get better.” They don’t have to be expensive. Devin invested $2.12/couple on a winter-themed box called Cold or Warm containing peppermints and a Hershey’s kiss. The conversation-starter question was: What would you say is really cold or warm in your marriage? It just provided an opening for couples to talk about marriage, he said. “Once you open a gate, couples will really talk.”