Mark & Carla Thompson Wedding

Prelude Music -

Processional

Entrance of the bride - Please Stand

Welcome

We are gathered together to celebrate a commitment of love,

a commitment that Mark and Carla

believe to be the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Let us ask our Heavenly Father to bless this special occasion.

Prayer

Dear Lord: We come into Your presence

with thanksgiving and praise.

We bless You for the assurance of Your guidance in our lives.

We praise You for the awareness that You care about

every endeavor of our lives,

especially our relationships that lead to Christian marriage.

Bless then, this special occasion as Crawford and Susan come before You,

their family, and friends

to link their lives together in this ceremony of commitment.

In Jesus' Name, we pray, Amen

You may be seated

Scripture Reading

Charge and Giving of the Bride

Love is a word that contains so much impact,

we are often hard put to define it.

someone said that love wants to give,

and because it does, its prime goal is to make the other person happy.

It is a desire to please the partner.

It is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of the two persons

to produce together

and yet spontaneously express their individuality in the context of marriage.

Love is the soil and climate in which each can flourish,

far superior to what either could achieve alone.

As good as these definitions are,

perhaps non have achieved the beauty and majesty

of the apostle Paul's soaring description of God's kind of love found in

1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13

13: 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The love described here has many meanings and examples

First, it is in the middle of a letter that basically told this Corinthian church all the things they did wrong

After listing a ton of corrections, God through the apostle Paul

writes just before he describes what love is,

“ I will show you a more excellent way”

Paul was trying to get across that love is the solution for all things

When things go wrong

When the world is impatient and cruel

When life gives you lemons

When Mark begins to work on the car and the neighbors hear him

or Carla is making demands about everything

Love is the answer

Second, Paul wanted the readers to understand that all things will pass away on earth

But love is the constant that will remain.

God is love

And God loves us

He created us

He originally created us to be perfect

and in a perfect relationship with Him

But, because the first humans were disobedient to God

we now all live in sin and in a sinful world

But it was through a combination of God's love and holiness

that God chose to send His one and only Son

to pay the penalty for our sin in this world that is broken

John 3:16 says, 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God says in Romans 6:23 - The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus

God says in Romans 10:9 - if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

God loved us so much

He gives us salvation from our own sin

and from this broken world

Love is eternal, not just in God, but with each other here on earth as well

The kind of homes we need most

are those where two lives are drawn together

by a holy love greater than their own.

If your commitment to each other has these dimensions,

that are in the description from God's Word

love goes on forever.

Understanding the love that is required to enter into a sacred pact

Between each other and God

Having discussed with each other and God

The life you want to establish with each other in Jesus

And Believing that the home you wish to establish

is founded on that kind of love, the love of God,

it is my privilege to ask:

Who gives this woman to be married to this man?

Wedding Vows

At this time Mark and Carla will exchange vows with each other

Will you please face each other and join hands

Mark, would you affirm after me

I Mark

take you Carla

to be my wedded wife

to have and to hold

from this day forward

for better and for worse

for richer for poorer

in sickness and in health

to care for and encourage

in both good times and in bad

I promise to live for Christ

and with you

in the full awareness

of trust and love

and with this commitment

I pledge to you my love

'til death do us part

according to God's holy law

In the presence of God

I make this vow

Carla, would you affirm after me

I Carla

take you Mark

to be my wedded husband

to have and to hold

from this day forward

for better and for worse

for richer for poorer

in sickness and in health

to care for and encourage

in both good times and in bad

I promise to live for Christ

and with you

in the full awareness

of trust and love

and with this commitment

I pledge to you my love

'til death do us part

according to God's holy law

In the presence of God

I make this vow

Exchange of the Rings

These rings are symbols of your commitment of love.

They are made of precious metal,

expressing the purity which should always be in your marriage.

They are formed in circles,

expressing the unending dimensions of your love and the eternal love of God.

share these rings now in full awareness of Christ's love for you

and through you.

Mark, would you place the ring on Carla’s third finger and left hand

hold it there and repeat after me

Carla

I give this ring

as a visible token

of my love

and I give it to you

as my own life

With this ring

I promise to

Always stand by your side

To be your light in the dark

Your helpmate

Friend and lover.

I promise to cherish you

And love you

Today and forever.

This is my vow to you.

Carla, would you place the ring on Mark’s third finger and left hand

hold it there and repeat after me

Mark

I give this ring

as a visible token

of my love

and I give it to you

as my own life

With this ring

I promise to

Always stand by your side

To be your light in the dark

Your helpmate

Friend and lover.

I promise to cherish you

And love you

Today and forever.

This is my vow to you.

Closing Prayer

Dear Father: Giver of life and love, time and eternity.

These two people whom You love very much

have made public their vows of commitment to You and to one another.

Guard and help them keep these sacred and beautiful vows.

Grant them a long life to develop their marriage.

Guide them with Your wisdom in their daily lives.

May their marriage be all You intend it to be.

Give them enough difficulty to keep them dependent on one another

and leaning on You;

enough joy and sunshine to remind them of the sheer thrill of living in Your will.

Thank you, Father, for meeting us here.

We ask our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,

who demonstrated love in its highest dimension on the Cross of Calvary,

Amen.

Closing Remarks

Usually I reserve this part of the ceremony to give some closing remarks

It's been an incredible celebration already.

And after knowing the both of you for some time

There's not much I can share to help you on your journey

that either hasn't already been shared

or you both have experienced already

I’ve heard another pastor share this with me

about how a mariage is supposed to work.

Picture a pyramid with God at the top of the pyramid

and Mark you are on the bottom on one corner

and Carla you are on the other corner at the bottom.

The only way to get closer to each other

is to get closer to God at the top.

This I think is the key to a successful marriage.

It’s not about trying to get closer to each other

it’s about getting closer to God

and allowing Him to draw you closer to each other.

For any good marriage to survive

that’s what has to happen.

If one gets closer to God

and the other drifts away from God

you won’t get closer to each other.

If neither gets closer to God

then you won’t get closer to each other either.

A successful marriage remembers that

there is always three of you in the marriage.

Each other and God.

any less and the marriage may not fail

but it won’t be successful either.

Any more than the three of you

and there’s a crowd

and others can pull you away from each other and God.

The blessing is, having known both of you for some time

I don’t believe that's going to be a problem

So with all that said

Let me be the first to wish you congratulations

Before I pronounce you man and wife

And look forward to seeing you grow and flourish together

In your marriage and in your ministry

And in your mission to be followers of Christ

Presentation of the Bride and Groom

Mark and Carla, because you have exchanged sacred vows,

because you have given rings as symbols of your commitment to Christian marriage

it is my privilege to pronounce from this day forward,

in the sight of God and man,

you are now husband and wife.

What God has joined together, let no man separate.

God bless you

This has been a day many years in the making.

You may kiss your bride.

Let me present the Bride and Groom Mark and Carla Thomas

Recessional Music