Smart Marriages

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) -- and two umbrella groups representing scores of Protestant denominations, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCCC) have committed to reduce the nation's divorce rate. The effort represents 240,000 churches. The core strategy, which can reduce the divorce rate in an individual congregation to near zero, is simple. In every congregation, there are couples in strong marriages who really could be of help to other couples, but have never been asked, inspired or trained to come alongside another couple and share their wisdom of how to make a marriage work.

A Christian Declaration on Marriage