Love is often talked about as something we fall into. In real life, love is something we tend, return to, and choose again and again.
Through Healthy Family Initiatives, Arkansas Baptist Children & Family Ministries partners with pastors and local churches across the state to help strengthen marriages. By hosting marriage-focused events within their own church communities, pastors create space for couples to pause, reflect, and invest in their relationships.
Healthy Family Initiatives has supported multiple gatherings across Arkansas, each hosted in partnership with a local church. These events are designed to support couples at every stage of marriage, not because something is broken, but because strong marriages require care, intention, and encouragement.
One such gathering took place at First Baptist Church in Marion, where 42 couples came together for a Marriage Tune-Up Workshop. Over the course of two days, couples stepped away from the busyness of daily life to give focused attention to their marriages in a supportive, faith-centered environment.
Pastor James Nichols of First Baptist Church Marion reflected on the experience afterward:
“Marriage is challenging regardless of how long a couple has been married. The Marriage Tune-Up Workshop helped our couples pause and give attention to their marriages with the right amount of biblical therapeutic insight. I highly recommend every pastor consider hosting a Marriage Tune-Up Workshop. Couples need the help and secretly want it.”
That reflection captures the heart behind Healthy Family Initiatives. Many couples carry the weight of marriage quietly. Pressure often builds long before struggles are visible to others. Through partnership with pastors and churches, Healthy Family Initiatives helps create space for honesty, growth, and encouragement rooted in both biblical truth and therapeutic tools.
As churches lead this work in their communities, Healthy Family Initiatives comes alongside them, helping create space for marriages to be strengthened and families to grow healthier together.
This is an article by Arkansas Baptist Children & Family Ministries.