Rev. James R. Kok:

Good afternoon to all the guests and the family. The families of Scott & Patricia welcome you to this joyous and sacred celebration of the marriage of their children. We thank you for coming, all of you, friends, family and anyone else. Celebrate with them, Scott & Patricia want you to enjoy this time with them.

We are gathered here in the presence of God, for the sacred purpose of joining Scott & Patricia in the bonds of holy marriage, which was instituted by God when he said, "A man shall leave his father and his mother and shall join himself to his wife, and they become one body." This was confirmed and repeated by Jesus when he said, "In the beginning the Creator made them male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one.

So, God has established marriage for our welfare and enjoyment. Marriage makes sacred the union between man and woman, and offers to each other the opportunity to grow together into more complete manhood and womanhood. Also, by the celebration of marriage, we affirm the goodness of the sexual relationship that God has given to us. Thus, we call upon God to bless this unique personal relationship, that mutual love may increase between Scott & Patricia. These two, who have previously travelled separate ways, come now to be made one.

Let us pray for God's help. "Oh God our Father in heaven, life is so exciting and mysterious. We participate in it fully, and yet its full meaning can slip by us so easily. We pause on this very sacred occasion to see ourselves as families, as individuals, as persons with unique capabilities, male and female. It is true, we are wonderfully made. Speak to us in this magnificent moment. Help us to listen to you. Create again another home where human love will flourish in our threatening world. May Jesus Christ be our friend in all we do, and guide these two who seek your blessing, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen."

Who gives Patricia to be joined in marriage to Scott?

Hal Roehm: Her mother, Theta, and me.

Rev. James R. Kok:

Hear these words from the scriptures:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irratable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. These three, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.

At this time, I'd like to share some thoughts about marriage, as God has given it to us. Marriage really is God's gift to us. Contrary to our usual way of thinking, it is not love, in the romantic sense, that holds a marriage together; but marriage enables two people to grow together in love. Marriage holds love together.

Love begins with emotions, the feelings of attraction and warmth and desire for each other. But love is only truly trustworthy finally when it is accompanied by the committment that you're making today when you two, together, publicly promise each other that you will be faithul and true to each other. Because at the heart of love is this committment and the fidelity that follows from it. The true trial of the feelings of love and emotions is your willingness to enter a permanent marriage, and this marriage then provides the security where your love can grow.

In Christian marriage, we find the opportunity to grow to full personhood and equality. The ideal of marriage is that two shall become one. This unity is not automatic; it doesn't happen today. True there's a sense in which it does happen officially and formally. In fact, however, two different people, the two of you unlike each other in many ways will become through time as you struggle together, as you have fun together, as you plan and think and do things together and have compromises and disagreements and joys and conflicts.

Through these experiences and the resolutions of problems, forgiving each other, valuing each other, laughing with each other, caring for each other, you become increasingly a unity. By valuing one another as if the other is ones own self, this unity through time, becomes a reality. But, even though you become a unity, we should not think of it as loss of your personal identity, but a hightening, becoming more of who you are, even while you become more of a unity.

God is love. Love is from God. It is unlikely that love can grow together as it really ought, unless two people with regular habits and continual associations with people and thoughts and experiences of God's presence, will grow in love because love is from God. So we are nourished and built up and reinforced in our capacity to love and endure through knowing God and walking with Him.

In an age of instant answers and easy solutions to problems, many things in life as you know we, when they wear out or get tired of them, we trade them in. Marriage is not that way. It should not in any sense be thought of as something that can be traded in. This outlook always leads to disaster. There are few worthwhile achievements anywhere in life that come without struggle, discomfort and hard work. And so it is with achieving maturity in marriage, it requires the ability to do something which is very rare: struggle, work together even when the going gets tough.

The reward of marriage is that it can be like, surprisingly, a prelude to heaven. If we understand heaven as a place where we are totally safe, totally accepted, and no longer have to pretend or be nervous about what others think of us, or whether we're adequate, then we can see in marriage a foretaste of that, in that we grow together in comfortableness and security in an atmosphere where we can be ourselves, where we can be totally accepted, where the home is like a shelter from the storms of life and the struggles that we face in our work. The home is like a harbor where we can love each other and nurture each other and feel safe and secure.

So, Christian marriage includes intamacy also. It's deepened by crises. It's deepened by tenderness. It grows out of creative achievements to which you both contribute. Sometimes it's the raising of children or planting a garden or taking care of some of your dreams and seeing them to fruition.

Christian marriage blossoms and blooms in the good earth of love and communication with each other and with God. Psalm 1 says they become like trees planted by streams of water, yielding their fruit, and not whithering, no matter what ill winds blow against them, because they seek the living water.

Rev. James R. Kok:

Having shared these thoughts and reflections, we come now to the most important part of the wedding ceremony, your vows.

Scott, do you promise to take Patricia to be your wife, to live together in holy relationship of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and support her, in joy and in suffering, and remain with her as long as you both shall live?

Scott: I do.

Rev. James R. Kok:

Patricia, do you promise to take Scott to be your husband, to live together in the holy relationship of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and support him, in joy and in suffering, and remain with him as long as you both shall live?

Patricia: I do.

Will you join your right hands? (Face each other.)

Scott, please repeat after me:

Scott: "I Scott, take you Patricia, to be my wife. I promise before God and these friends, to be your loving and faithful husband. To share with you in wealth and in poverty, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."

Patricia, please repeat after me:

Patricia: "I Patricia, take you Scott, to be my husband. I promise before God and these friends, to be your loving and faithful wife. To share with you in wealth and in poverty, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."

(K, now release your hands. Can I have a ring?)

These rings you give each other, are the visible sign of God's eternal presence in the covenant of love between both of you. The circle of the ring is a symbol of God's undying and unfinished and complete love and yours for each other.

As you put the ring upon her finger, please repeat after me:

Scott: "I give this ring to you Patricia, as the sign of the convenant, made between us today."

Patricia: "I give this ring to you Scott, as the sign of the convenant, made between us today."

(Join your right hands please. I'll give you the blessing.)

Since Scott & Patricia have consented to join together in marriage, and have promised themselves and each other in faith and fidelity before God and this congregation assembled here, I affirm that they are, you are, husband and wife. Become one. Fulfill your promises. Love and serve the Lord. And what God united, do not divide. In the name of the Father, Jesus his Son, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

(Will you kneel for the prayer please?)

Let us pray. Almighty God our Father, we ask your blessing upon this marriage, that is brought together today with this beautiful young couple. We pray that they may experience your love through the love that they have for each other. May they grow together in depth and understanding, in wisdom and in grace as two people brought together by you to become what you intend for them, both as individuals and as a couple. Bless them in the days ahead of them. Give them the spirit of grace and truth and honesty and love that will help them and guide them through all the days that are before them. May they thrive and prosper in their work, in their individual vocations, in their home together, and in whatever you have in store for them on the pilgrimage of life. I pray, Lord, that you will help them to understand that the source of love is God, and that they may call upon you to draw on that resource to bring into their lives and into their home, the strength that you have for them.

Guide them. Protect them. And strenghen them, in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Rev. James R. Kok:

As we have just witnessed the love and unity that is promised to each other, Scott & Patricia are now going to light the unity candle. At the beginning of the service, the two outside candles were lit, representing Scott & Patricia's lives up to just a few minutes ago. Those two candles are two distinct and separate lights which were capable of going in two different directions. But here, those two candles are going to merge into one light, while retaining their own light. The center candle will symbolize Scott & Patricia's unity. At the same time however, this fusion of two peoples' lives, does not diminish in the least their individual gifts which each of them has. Hopefully, because of their marriage, Scott & Patricia's unity, their individual gifts and talents will become even more brighter, greater and fuller, and the whole somehow becoming more than the sum of its parts.

So, although you are still two separate and unique people, you have now chosen to unite your lives and to seek your happiness together and share your sorrows together.

So, you may now symbolically show your unity in lighting the unity candle.

This is the day that we can say, "we've got a lifetime together, forever." I'll take your hand, and we will stand here in the eyes of the Beholder, together. Do I take you this moment, and for my whole life through, do I promise to love you? Forever I do, forever I do.

Forever I do, I'll always love you. Forever I do, I promise to be true. Forever I do, I'll always be by your side. Forever I do, forever I do.

Rev. James R. Kok:

Scott & Patricia, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, make this world a better place, and live together in love.

(You may kiss each other.)

Rev. James R. Kok:

It is my joy and privilege to present to you, Mr. & Mrs. Scott Crevier.