By Amy Morgan

Chris Schultz divides his time between serving as the Life Events Pastor at Foothills Bible Church in Littleton, Colorado, (weekly attendance 1000 and growing) and representing Watermark Church’s well-known Re|Engage, Merge marriage programs. He values the flexible schedule that allows him to practice the life/work balance he now preaches to couples as an ambassador for marriage. The dual roles also allow him to actively engage with his wife of 25 years, Jen, and their four daughters ages 15 to 22. But this wasn’t always the case. Overcoming a spirit of self-sufficiency to value family and marriage were lessons hard learned on his journey.

Chris also wasn’t always a pastor. After a brief stint as the quarterback and head coach of the Simbach Wildcats, a Semi-Pro American Football Club team in Germany when he was 22, Chris followed his father’s footsteps into a career as a coach and educator. The first 10 years of marriage the Schultzes found themselves mired in darkness and sin. Chris struggled with pornography, and both secretly contributed to the family’s credit card bills until they were drowning in consumer debt.

Chris is very aware that without God’s intervention their family could easily have been a divorce statistic.

It wasn’t until God led them out of that dark season, and they had plugged in to The Well Church in Fresno, California, that the senior pastor approached Chris about a career in ministry. “When the senior pastor called and asked what I thought about coming on staff as a campus pastor, I told him, ‘I’m not a pastor, I am a coach.’ He laughed and said, ‘It’s the same thing.’ I told him to let me talk to Jesus and Jen. As I prayed, fasted and sought counsel, I realized coaching and pastoring are very similar. You prepare people to play the game just like you prepare people to live a godly life and grow.”

Chris ended up serving in several pastoral roles at The Well from 2010-2022 – eventually landing as an executive pastor. Over those years he became passionate about serving marriages. “Some of that was out of our own brokenness,” he said. “God rescued us. Often, he does stuff in us to do stuff through us. God stirred in me a passion for marriage in a world that’s in some ways disregarded the biblical design for marriage. God’s got a better way, and I want to be part of that.”

He and Jen started serving as marriage facilitators at the Scott River Lodge marriage retreat center in Northern California. In 2016 Chris attended a Re|Engage and Merge conference at Watermark Church in Dallas that energized him to bring the programs back to The Well. He launched the programs there in 2017 and served on the leadership team for seven years. He trained leaders, taught every week, incorporated the Foundations curriculum to equip newlyweds and became the unofficial marriage director of The Well, in addition to his “official” position as executive pastor.

But his ability to keep all the plates spinning at once led to a crash. His body, mind and soul shut down in 2022. “I could feel the Lord stirring us that our time in Fresno was coming to an end,” he said. The family took a season of rest. Jen worked remotely while Chris homeschooled the girls. They traveled around the country for three months discerning where God wanted them to settle. Chris felt they should be in the Denver area, and when God orchestrated the circumstances for the Schultz family to rent the house next door to a friendly pastor, they took that as His providence. Two days later, Chris interviewed with Foothills Bible Church (FBC), joining the staff three weeks later in a part time role. He launched Merge and began training and equipping leaders and discipling married couples. He’s excited to partner with Colorado Christian University to hold a Merge class on campus in the fall of 2024. “This is a great opportunity for the local church to come alongside these pre-married couples with curriculum and mentors,” he said.

The ink on Chris’ contract with FBC was barely dry when he found himself at Watermark in Dallas sitting with John McGee and Robert Green asking them how they could collaborate for the sake of the Gospel and marriage. Shortly thereafter, Robert called to offer him the position as Development Coach for Re|Engage.

In this role Chris serves as the “marriage consultant” for churches in the Mountain and Western region who are either using Re|Engage or have expressed interest. (A combined total of more than 1000). He’s the first in line to answer any questions or to coach a church through the pilot program or transition between modes.

He and Jen also started Hold Fast Marriage Ministries LLC that gleans from their rich network of friends and colleagues developed over the years through The Well, The Lodge and Watermark. Several times a month a church or organization will call and ask him and Jen to hold a retreat for leaders or lead a marriage-themed event.

“The Lord opens doors, and we pray and discern if we have the means and capacity to move forward,” he said. Unlike in his previous position as executive pastor, Chris enjoys his less structured schedule that allows him to combine his passion for marriage and people. “I love that I am tethered to a local church,” he added. “Even in what we do with Hold Fast – God calls us to be part of the local church, to be part of worship, community, and growth, to have a place where we can participate and serve.

“But I’ve always had a heart for the ‘Big C’ church that’s working across the country and globally. My little slice of Littleton is important, but God loves the whole world. I love that I get to operate in both worlds and work with people everywhere. I’ve always been a networker. People matter.”

Chris was able to launch marriage programs at both The Well and FBC. When asked how he enlisted senior pastor support, he replied with the response he gives churches who now call him inquiring about Watermark’s programs. “Every senior pastor (like every church) has a set of values about what matters most to them. Consider how what you are proposing can tap into what they value.” For example, Re|Engage and Merge incorporate Gospel orientation and help the community live out their faith in a way that links back to sound biblical teaching. “I was aware I could tell our senior pastor Brad Bell that what we were considering was aligning with where we were going.”

He also counsels being patient and building progressively. He started a beta test at The Well with only seven couples. When that worked well, they took the next step and ran a second test of 30 couples that included the senior pastor and his wife, as well as many of the other campus pastors and worship leaders. Once they had a good experience, it was an easy ask to open the program up to the church body.

He recommends asking for permission to take next steps and says, even if you think your senior pastor won’t participate, it doesn’t hurt to ask … or invite him to speak or view a commencement celebration.

For those interested in starting a marriage ministry in their church he reminds them to start with prayer, “If the Lord doesn’t build the house, we labor in vain.” Then be intentional with senior leadership. “What is the current reality in the church? What does your senior pastor value?” he asked. Also, assess what exists already. “Maybe it just needs a little bit more energy. Give them a vision for what marriage ministry looks like. Recruiting is huge. Jesus said come and follow me – he was always inviting. Some people followed, some didn’t. Don’t think it always has to the couple with the ‘perfect’ marriage or one that has been leading the small group for years. Do a good job of training, equipping and supporting and you’ll be really surprised at what God will do.”

Chris incorporates a technique to recruit lay leaders that shouldn’t be novel. He asks the Holy Spirit on Sunday morning to guide him to the couples who he should ask to lead. As he walks the sanctuary, he’ll see somebody out of the corner of his eye, or someone will come up to talk to him. He shares that he’s thinking about launching some programs and asks them to do him a favor and pray about it, then lets them know he’ll follow up in a week (which he makes a point to do). Sometimes, too, he’ll scroll through the voluminous number of contacts on his phone until someone’s name sticks out. He’s always on the lookout for couples he can invite, train and equip. “Jesus called people to follow him, then he spent time making sure they were ready, because front-line discipleship work can get messy,” Chris said.

He found people generally want to plug in to their church and serve. When they started the marriage ministry at The Well, he found it was a primary opportunity to equip and engage those in the 40-60 age group to be mentors.

He overcomes people’s objection that they “don’t feel qualified” by asking: “Do you love Jesus?” “Do you love your spouse?” “Are you concerned about relationships?” and finally, “Would you like to be part of the solution?” He noted that Watermark resources include a very robust training system, which he used to undergird the support structures at he created at The Well. He follows up with his mentor couples to make sure they feel supported, equipped, prayed and cared for.

When Chris was selecting a marriage program for The Well, he looked for one that aligned with the church’s goal of discipleship – that’s what led him to Watermark’s resources. That’s one of the questions he asks those who call him with interest in Re|Engage. He asks about how they help people become more faithful followers of Jesus and what their community life environment is like (how they do small groups). He also asks them to tell him what worked or didn’t in the past.

He noted that Re|Engage and Merge can be tools to reach lost people as they look to the church as a first place for answers for their marriage.

“Regardless of religious affiliation, every human being wants to be in a healthy human relationship,” Chris said. “The church can leverage this as a means to help non-believers come in and be the place they encounter Christ” then transition them into small groups. We can help churches cultivate a new season of that. “If they do it right, people will tell others how good it was for their marriage and have people coming in off the street.”

When it comes to those who need a deeper level of care, The Well was fortunate to have a counseling center under the church’s umbrella, the head of which went through the second round of Re|Engage with her husband. Chris also made a point to visit the other counseling centers in town to probe their spiritual and biblical principles as best as he could within the limitations of California licensing. For those who shared the Christian faith, he’d suggest partnering together. “Both venues are important, it doesn’t have to be either/or. We can communicate and work together,” Chris said.

In Littleton, three counselors rent space from Foothills Baptist Church. Chris attends their monthly staff meetings and continues to follow his practice of meeting personally with counselors in Denver. “As we build more marriage resources at Foothills, we want them to know we are a safe, biblical place to teach and prepare. But we want to know what the counselors do and their areas of expertise so we can partner with them.”

When it comes to planning marriage events, Chris reaches back to his experience as a coach. “It is all about team,” he said. Recently Foothills sponsored a relationship series that included a date-night box stuffed with goodies and instructions for the date. Since the event included childcare, he gathered the church’s kids’ director, communications director and a representative from administration to work together – each taking the part that best suited their strengths. They even recruited a group from the church’s older population to serve by stuffing the boxes. “That’s the collaborative nature of bringing the right people in,” he said. “It doesn’t have to just be their role. You need somebody who is creative, someone who can draw people in and recruit well. You need to involve the lay leaders instead of burning out church staff.”

When asked how to secure financial support for marriage ministry, Chris referenced sobering research from Barna and Communio that report few churches have any marriage ministry budget or staff.

“It is crazy how much we’ll invest in kids and students, but they need mom and dad in a godly healthy relationship,” he said. Chris has been able to overcome the budget obstacle by planning events and classes that fund themselves. He’ll add an upcharge to the cost of a class workbook to pay for childcare. He also casts the vision of the value and fruit of a strong marriage months ahead of the annual budget cycle for the elders and those who make the decisions. “Be strategic and prayerful as you help them understand this is part of the big discipleship vision and an outreach to the community,”

Another issue is getting priority for marriage on the church calendar. Chris thinks 12 months in advance and reaches out to the people in departments including event tech, facilities, media arts, and communication to ask them if what he’s planning is doable in their time frame, so he doesn’t burn out the staff team. He recommends working with executive leadership to make sure everyone is in line and all departments that will support an event have time to plan. And if you make a mistake – don’t do it again, he cautioned.

Chris is motivated to serve marriages because of the way God rescued his marriage so dramatically from the brokenness and path that could have led to divorce.

“There was not a week in Fresno I wasn’t dealing with a marriage on the verge of divorce or in a really bad place. I can’t just sit by and say, ‘I hope it works out.’ I had to create something to steward and care for others,” he said. And it is important to get to the pre-marrieds before they get married.

“I’ve had a front row seat to see God do so many things – strengthening things that were apathetic — see so many people join the saint train and do ministry and serve.” Chris was back in Fresno recently, and people told him, “We are still serving because you, Chris, told us to pray about it.”

“It is fun to see God take people and grow them.” Couples see their own marriages enriched as they serve. “You can’t export what you don’t import. There’s a unique group of people who serve marriages,” he said. “You can feel that when you come to a Re|Engage conference and see all these people from all over the country with different demographics. They all get it. They are serving in something that’s hard but also really life giving.”

He believes he and Jen have “this strong passion to have the healthiest, strongest marriage that we can have,” striving to live out what they practice so they can be an actual voice of help worthy of imitation, not just talking heads who tell people, “Do as I say not as I do.”  “We want to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1) and walk in love (Ephesians 5:2) so that others might see God’s grace and power in our lives.”