Marriage Pastor; Innovative Systems Creator

By Amy Morgan

Derek Irvin’s career did not directly lead to his current position spearheading a thriving church marriage ministry. His first position was in outside sales, where he looked for ways to apply the innovative principles he learned in graduate business classes in entrepreneurship. As Derek and his wife attended Northview Church in Indianapolis, they were dismayed to notice marriages crumbling around them. They thought, “There’s got to be a better way.”

The Irvin’s found resources through Smart Marriage and NARME and eventually applied for funding to found a Community Marriage Initiative in Indianapolis. Missy counseled individually through her practice, the Marriage Center of Indiana.

They held monthly luncheons and community workshops but after several years they found satisfying government requirements for funding restrictive and focused instead on hosting and speaking at marriage intensives for couples in crisis. 

Derek and Missy have led a marriage intensive weekend every other month since 2014 and in 2019 created Hopeful Tomorrows Intensive Weekends (hopefultomorrows.com). Since Derek started on staff 17 years ago, Northview Church has grown to 10 campuses across Central Indiana, with 11,000 people attending each weekend. A church of that size can leverage the sheer number of members to make a real impact on areas of need. Derek convinced senior leadership to dedicate a significant portion of the 2022-2023 generosity initiative to invest in the marriages of the communities they serve - raising awareness and support of all things marriage – from pre-engaged couples all the way to and through those in crisis. The church agreed to his proposal and in March 2022 dedicated $1 million to marriages and allowed Derek to focus exclusively on marriage ministry. He likens ramping up his church’s marriage effort to that of leading a well-funded start up and credits his ability to think out-of-the-box to those long-ago entrepreneurship classes.  

One key was for their efforts to be an outreach to the community. Derek felt strongly that if they built programs specifically for their church, they’d miss others in the community they were trying to attract. He believes that if the church crafts their offerings to appeal to the community, and does so with excellence, their church people will be swept up in it. 

His first order of business was to build a website that has a brand and identity like a community marriage initiative. The website needed to stand alone – community members would not believe it was for them if the church just added a tab to the church website, he noted. He hired a web designer to create Bettertogether.us, naming their marriage efforts, Better Together (powered by Northview Church). 

He admits building a good website is expensive. He overcame the cost obstacle by reminding church leadership that any time a church builds something for the community there are costs – architects, materials, land. He noted that he also wanted to build something, a website, and it would be less expensive than a physical building. 

With the website under their belt, Northview Church identified four main areas of focus.  

1) helping singles choose a dating partner wisely

2) helping engaged couples build a strong foundation 

3) helping married couples stay connected 

4) helping those married and struggling find help and hope 

Derek believes helping married couples stay connected (marriage enrichment) is the area on which it is most important to do well and focus most attention, “but is where churches do the least,” he said. “For many couples, it’s not that things are bad, it’s that they are really busy. Busyness causes drift over time. It’s slow and subtle. We go from being soulmates to being teammates to being roommates. Anything we as a church can do to help couples stay connected over time is going to be huge in preventing future crises.” 

Leading marriage intensives six times a year for almost a decade has given Derek plenty of experience working with couples in crisis. He noted that people are bad at assessing levels of dissatisfaction – both for themselves and their spouses. “They’ll go from, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine … to I’m done, I can’t do this anymore.” He asks them to rank where their marriage (on a scale of 1 to 10) is and noted the husband’s number is often higher than his wife’s. I tell them, “You don’t get to average the numbers. If you are a 2, and you are a 6, you are both a 2. It is hugely powerful to acknowledge where you are. So many couples get to that point too late, and one person just checks out because couples are so bad at knowing where they are.” 

Prevention is so much easier, better, and cost effective before the marriage is on fire, he said. 

Derek’s mantra for having an awesome marriage: Connect daily, date weekly, get away regularly. 

Everything Northview Church programs for marriage is designed to help people accomplish those goals. Since Derek implemented the marriage program, Northview Church has scheduled 100 date nights this year across 10 campuses. 70% are held on one of the campuses because they can offer low-cost childcare. The other 30% are adventure dates like SUP, canoeing or biking. Others are offered through community partnerships like a popular fencing class. They joke with couples, “We can teach you conflict resolution skills, or we can give you swords.” Another bonus for the church, date night events utilize campus spaces at times they would otherwise be unoccupied.  Northview church kicked off their campaign with a headline event featuring Michael Jr. that engaged 3000 people via simulcast to all the campuses.  

The website displays every event on an easy-to-find calendar. Derek hopes that couples develop a habit of looking at Bettertogether.us to make their weekend plans because there is always something fun going on. He also wants the events to be really fun, not just “church fun.” 

“I want people who have never gone to church to pick our date nights over other fun community events. Our date nights don’t open in prayer or a worship song… they are just intended to have fun together as a couple. We have plenty of groups and workshops that will help them to build a God centered marriage, but first we create a space to get to know them,” he said. 

In one weekend alone, Derek noted three date opportunities within 15 miles of each other. One offered music bingo, another partnered with a company that sells knives to hold a food prep date at a business, another campus offered square dancing. Another time they enlisted a professional survivalist to hold a date night in the woods where he taught how to make fire with a bow, after which the couples built a bonfire and roasted S’mores. Derek titled that date, Light My Fire. 

“The creative team is always evaluating new and different things,” he added. Northview Church does charge a fee for the dates to cover the cost, “our goal is to break even,” he said. For example, square dancing costs $30. If we can leave the building in good shape and break even, there’s no limit to the number of dates we can offer,” he said. 

Even though Northview Church only began offering the dates six months ago, they are already starting to sell out, with average attendance of 30. “We always have something going on, and it’s growing by word of mouth. If you only do one thing (like a marriage conference) and nothing else for one or two years, you are never going to get momentum. We want to offer consistent, innovative, ‘not churchy’ date nights to get people into the top of the funnel.” 

If you are wondering how Derek recruits people to pull all the details together, the answer is that he has systemized his organization to make each date scalable. Once a successful date has been executed, the lay-led creative team will detail the steps and collect all the items in a tub needed for a campus to reproduce the date. Then a team of 8-10 lay people can replicate the event. 

From March to September 2022, at the beginning of the campaign, Derek was the driving force behind the project. In August every campus held a Marriage Vision Night on a Tuesday. Although they emailed and sent postcards to the congregation, there was no childcare available and no promotion from the stage. 850 people came out to find out how to be a part of it – That’s almost 1/10th of the congregation. 

“People have a hunger for this – everybody knows somebody who has been impacted by divorce and wants to be part of this,” he said. “We got people to the hour meeting via postcard, email, and text to explain the heart and soul of our marriage ministry. We started with the heart – why we MUST do this, sharing how people are hurting. Then we outlined what was possible with a very clear plan about what they were going to do and how.” 

The last 20 minutes of the meeting they provided people with pen and paper and expressed a clear need. “Right now, this job is bigger than one church. This team only happens if the people in this room say yes. I need all of us to do something, and I need some of you to do a lot of things.” They provided a list of ways to get involved including a one-time, “let me know what you need” commitment, to an 8-hour volunteer position. 

The breakdown: find team leaders to recruit 8-10 others to be on their team. Ask the team to run a date night 6 times a year. Teams will be given everything they need to run the date from 6:30-9:30 p.m. If they can create 8 teams per campus, that’s 48 date nights at that campus alone, without expecting too much heavy lifting on anybody alone. Each additional team can add 6 more dates a year.  

Once a couple attends a date night, Northview Church hopes they connect more deeply. They host marriage small groups at two campuses weekly on Tuesdays using the Re|Engage curriculum. They created a system where it’s possible to come every week but also go deeper, Derek said. The leader couple will share their marriage story in a raw, authentic, vulnerable way. Newcomers are invited to attend in an open group until they are ready to commit to their own closed group. There’s always a spot open. That relieves pressure for a new couple to try to fit into a group that’s been meeting as well as widens its reach. 

The bottom of the funnel where we hope every married couple will land is the quarterly Grace Marriage Workshop. The power of Grace Marriage is that it is not just a one-off event. It is offered once a quarter with new and different content at every campus with free childcare. “Grace Marriage is one of the best things they can do for their marriage,” Derek said. “Four times a year we call them to actually schedule around their marriage. We schedule around everything else in life that is important, why not schedule around our marriage four times a year?” 

This 3.5-hour quarterly workshop will help couples stay connected over the long haul. “We often refer to it as a “Get Away,” because they will feel more connected after several hours at this experience than they would normally feel after being away together for several days. Out of all the many things we offer, this is the one that serves as a dashboard for how we are doing. From the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023, we went from 145 to 200 couples participating in Grace Marriage,” he said. 

How to Get Senior Pastor Buy-In for Marriage?

Derek said the leadership team read the book, Endgame by John Van Epp and JP DeGance, which he used to introduce the vision of the connection between marriage and the church and their interdependence on each other for success. “If the church doesn’t step into this gap, who will? I really believe if we do this well, people who are far from God will come to God and become part of the church as a result of it. It will not only grow our church but grow the kingdom of God. We have lots of anecdotal stories of that happening,” he said. 

Part of the problem is that churches don’t know what to do, which is why he developed Northview’s program from scratch. 

Other Advice: How He Selects Programs: 

Derek looks for things that can be led by lay people. “We’re equipping the saints, creating a machine that lay people are owning and engaging with.” If someone is having lunch with a friend who is sharing about issues with their marriage, they can invite them to something that week where they can just show up, have free childcare and get the help they need. Instead of saying, “I think my church is having a marriage group in September, I’ll try to remember to call you.” We need a system and structure that is sustainable and enables lay people to engage with ministry. 

He referenced data analyst Matt Engel’s process of attract, get, keep, grow, multiply –– and plans how Northview Church’s marriage program will accomplish each of these functions. He evaluates each marriage program with what step in the process it is trying to accomplish with a critical eye asking, “Is it performing for me? Is this a good hire?”

• Website, advertising – that’s how he “attracts” the community. 

• Date nights fill the “get” job. 

• Grace Marriage quarterly workshops are in the “keep/grow” category as well as weekly Re|Engage meetings. 

• Becoming One, which utilizes SYMBIS, targets engaged couples, who take an assessment and meet five times with a marriage mentor couple. He noted Northview Church counts 90 marriage mentor couples. 

• Derek and four therapists also lead workshops for singles about how to have a healthy dating relationship.

Creating a Process for Struggling Couples: 

Re|Engage is a first step, because couples have a place to be in proximity with other believers talking about marriage, he said. 

Derek and Missy lead Hopeful Tomorrows Marriage Intensive weekends every other month. They usually have at least one couple attending who has filed for divorce or is already separated. Many couples have referred to Hopeful Tomorrows as a Hail Mary Pass. Despite the depth of crisis, Derek reports an 86% success rate of couples recommitting to their marriage.

It helps to have the layer of a marriage intensive weekend, he said. “We have the luxury of a weekend that offers a lifeline to hurting couples that is no more than eight weeks away.” The Marriage Intensive cost is $500, with scholarships for those in financial need. They donate Missy’s time as well, with all proceeds going to the church as part of the generosity initiative.  

Derek does not do ongoing counseling with an individual, rather he models a pastoral guidance process. He’ll meet once or twice with somebody and refer to a vetted Christian counselor. He likes to partner with the counselor if possible, asking a couple to sign a release authorizing their therapist to communicate with him so he can be part of their story. 

He said he strongly encourages couples to get to the Marriage Intensive Weekend. “People will work as hard to get their spouse to one counseling session as to get them to that weekend. I don’t want them to go to one counseling session, I want them to get over the hump and pour 17 hours into a weekend to get some traction. They will be in a much better place to be able to do the work they need to do.” 

He likens the marriage intensive as shocking the heart back after cardiac arrest – trying to reawaken hope and desire at the same time. Hope, that the couple actually thinks they could make it, and Desire, that there’s a part inside that at least wants to try. “Getting two people to that same place is no small feat,” he said. Couples are still encouraged to work with a pastor or counselor as needed and connect with a Re|Engage group. Derek noted they are seeing results getting out into the community.

He tells a story of a husband who accepted Christ at a conference and called Derek even though he had filed for divorce and been separated for three months. He was baptized and began being discipled. Eight months later, the man told Derek he wanted to be the husband and father God called him to be. “That is what is possible in a church if we execute it well.”