Family Life Ministry – For Courting Couples

Thinking of Marriage?

If you are a member of YCK Chapel and contemplating marriage, we encourage you to contact us early. The Family Life Ministry (FLM) of YCK Chapel is here to assist you.

Your wedding is the one of the most significant event in your life and is a sacred ministry of the church. Preparing for marriage that would last a life-time requires the couple to commit to pre-marital preparation, as well as to be open to having older marriage mentors walk alongside to coach, guide, encourage and provide counsel when needed.

Please note that YCK Chapel only conducts the Holy Matrimony for baptized members of the church.

Here are some important steps to take:

• • Meet with the Family Life Ministry (FLM) Leader at least 8 months, but preferably 9 – 12 months, before the wedding.
  • At the meeting, the FLM leader will want to
    • verify the spiritual and marital status of the couple (single or ever married, baptism & church membership, etc.),
    • firm up the date and venue of the wedding,
    • arrange to undergo pre-marital counseling with a couple of Marriage Mentors,
    • give guidance on planning for a wedding,
  • The couple will then meet the solemnising pastor to
    • learn about God’s design for marriage and sexual purity.
    • explain what’s involved in a church wedding (eg. registration of marriage, flow of Holy Matrimony etc).
  • The couple will meet their marriage mentors for their pre-marital counseling sessions. In one of the session, they will go through a Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis (TJTA). This is recommended but subject to availability of a counsellor.
  • Final meeting with soleminising pastor happens at the end of the pre-marital course to go through the wedding vow and to prepare for the wedding day.

Role of Marriage Mentors

Family Life Ministry of YCK Chapel provides a team of Marriage Mentors. They need not be pastors or counsellors but they are older married couples who are willing to take the time to prepare a young man and a young woman for a lifetime of marriage. Journeying with a young couple is also an enriching and rewarding experience for Marriage Mentors.

Marriage Preparation provides time to:

• Talk about your hopes, expectations and dreams of marriage. Learn about how to make a good decision to marry – how to evaluate your relationship and how to discern God’s will.
• Discuss your fears and anxieties about marriage. Anticipate issues ahead of time instead of being caught off guard.
• Explore personal readiness for marriage and the strengths you bring into this commitment.
• Understand yourself and your partner better. Discover the joy of knowing each other better.
• Know, apply and experience God’s Word as it relates to engagement and marriage.
• Acquire some essential communication and conflict resolution skills. Practice and apply foundational skills needed to build your marriage.
• Understand the critical nature of core responsibilities in marriage.
• Learn about God’s design for true sexual intimacy.

Sexual Purity for Courting Couples

Courting couples should observe sexual purity before marriage. A marrying couple should invest on spiritual intimacy before marriage and leave physical intimacy to after marriage.

• The Scripture clearly teaches that marriage is to be held in honor and the marriage bed be kept undefiled.
  “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Heb 13:4
• Courting couples should not mock the marriage vow by entering into physical intimacy even before taking the vow.
  “I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage. With my body, I honour you, all that I am, I give to you, and all that I have, I share with you. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” (vows made at the exchange of rings)

Therefore courting couples are to:

A. Abstain from pre-marital sex and from any physical activities that is of sexual nature (e.g. heavy petting, mutual masturbation, oral sex).

God has designed sex to be consummated within marriage (see Heb 13:4). Therefore all forms of sexual intimacy are to be kept within the boundary of marriage.

Before marriage, courting couples are to exercise self-control and to keep their passions in check. Physical intimacy can easily lead to sexual arousal; it is therefore wise not to be engaged in any activities that will lead to it. Note that sexual purity is more than keeping one’s virginity.

1 Thess 4:3-5
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality (fornication); that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God..

B. Abstain from any activity that promotes or implies sexual relations before marriage (eg: cohabiting, going on trips alone as a couple).

Biblical wisdom and Christ’s love bid us to abstain from activities that will expose us to sinning against God and men. The Bible gave us three principles of living:

• Principle of fleeing from sexual immorality

1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body

2 Timothy 2:22
Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

1 Pet 5:8-11
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

​1 Cor 10:12
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Sexual temptations are not to be taken lightly. The Bible exhorts us that the way to overcome sexual temptations is to flee from them. Proverbs 7:6-27 tells of an account of a young man who lacked common senses. He did not avoid sexual temptation but choose to walk the path that passed it. The passage shows how he was ultimately enticed by lust and become a victim of his own foolishness.

• Principle of walking in the way of love

Rom 14:13-23
“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother… For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died… It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble…”

1 Cor 8:9-13
“But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak…Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble…”
Rom 14 and 1 Cor 8 clearly show that we are to choose the way of love. The love of Christ demands us to limit our freedom for the sake of our brethren. Having a clear conscience involves being conscious that our actions will not result in stumbling another brother or sister in Christ.
For example, a young-in-faith unmarried couple may follow the example of a spiritually older unmarried couple in going on trips alone. While the latter may have resolved to observe sexual purity, the former may not have done so and fall into sexual temptation during the trip. In this way, the conscience of the spiritually older couple is being defiled because their action has stumbled the young-in-faith couple.
Choosing the way of Christ calls us to deny our rights for the sake of our brethren.

• Principle of being a light to the world

Matt 5:16
“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
We are called to be salt and light of this world. We are to live out God’s decrees and be God’s beacon to the world regarding truth, purity and morality.
Cohabitation or going on trips alone as an unmarried couple suggests to outsiders that the couple is already behaving like they are married. Many will assume that they have already consummated their marriage. Therefore it does not matter if the unmarried couple has maintained their sexual purity. Their action does not bring glory to God rather result in a possible misrepresentation of God’s regard towards marriage and sex.

Prepared by Ps Rick Toh

For more information , please read the Design and Sanctity of Marriage.

For more information or to discuss your plans to have a marriage in the church please contact Adrian Ow at:

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