Being married does not stop you from dating each other!
Dating your spouse will help to enrich your marriage and make it stronger.
On the 24th November the ABS released these figures confirmed what all of us had assumed – the number of marriages plummeted. In fact, down 30.6% to 78,989 for all types legal types of marriage in Australia. The ABS also commented as a “Key Statistic” that the 10th October was the most common wedding – the Saturday nearest to this date has been the trend for some years now.
The ABS also reported that the national average % of same-sex ‘marriages’ was 3.7%.
The registered relationship register showed only a small decrease to19055 in 2020 against 19870 in 2019
Whilst the number of marriages taking place in the year took a hit, regrettably this was not so for divorces remaining with the rate of 1.9 divorces per 1000 population (the crude divorce rate) and as a result some 41,592 have been affected by their parents divorcing and potentially leaving them with negative thoughts about marriage. The only good news with the divorce figures is that the crude rate is continuing its trend around this rate compared to the rate of 2.6 back in the year 2000.
The ABS warns that divorces are generally only granted after a period of 12 months
In the Church we strive to equip all the people in the Church to have fulfilling lives living out the lives and roles that God has planned for them as kingdom people. There are times when we need to address our comments or indeed create facilities so that a particular group can be ministered to e.g. children’s or youth ministry or give messages that may indeed be applicable to the whole church but have a particular focus on guiding those who are single, for whatever reason, in their journey to glorify God. We were all made in His image and where we know Jesus as our Lord and saviour we come to the Lord equal in His sight. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:28
This being said, at the end of the day, no matter our earthly condition married, single, divorced we are all members of the church, Christ’s bride.
Marriage is:
- one of the events within creation
- mentioned throughout scripture, some
Marriage – part of the infrastructure of the church.
It sometimes seems that Martin Luther’s opening words to his work “The Estate of Marriage” where he said “How I dread preaching on the estate of marriage! I am reluctant to do it because I am afraid if I once get really involved in the subject it will make a lot of work for me and for others.” apply in the thinking of parts of the church today. Our reasons for this may be different to his, but we all have the same prime responsibility as St. Paul charged Timothy as we see in 2 Timothy 3.14-17. Within this marriage must be maintained as a high priority throughout the leadership of the church and it is suggested that marriages are part of the infrastructure of the church – as we have said previously healthy marriages make healthy families which make healthy churches, communities….
Turning for a moment to the ABS release, last November, of the Marriage and Divorce statistics for 2021, the number of marriages are still well below pre-pandemic levels at 89,164 (3.2% of which were ssm). The number of those married by a minister
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