CELEBRATING MARRIAGE IN THE FRONTIER OF GOSPEL MINISTRY

Cranmer's Curate was honoured to receive a request from two American members of the youth group for a prayer of blessing for them on their wedding anniversary.

The Revd Timothy Fountain is a courageously orthodox rector in The Episcopal Church in the United States. He serves the Church of the Good Shepherd in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and looks after the robustly orthodox website, Northern Plains Anglican. He and his wife Melissa yesterday celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary.

Your curate had a telephone conversation with them and learned that they both originated from Los Angeles where they were married in the large, thriving Anglican church where they met. Ministry brought them to rural South Dakota, quite a contrast with cosmopolitan California. This suggests to cc that Americans would seem to be greater risk-takers than we are in the UK and more willing to move out of their comfort zones into the frontiers of Gospel ministry.

It is so important in these dark and evil days to pray for Christian marriages, particularly for those of us in front-line pastoral ministry. For a fellow Anglican minister and his wife, this prayer from the Solemnization of Matrimony according to the Book of Common Prayer seemed most appropriate to use:

O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, bless these thy servants (Timothy and Melissa), and sow the seed of eternal life in their hearts: that whatsoever in thy holy Word they shall profitably learn, they may in deed fulfil the same. Look, O Lord, mercifully upon them from heaven, and bless them. And as thou didst send thy blessing upon Abraham and Sarah, to their great comfort, so vouchsafe to send thy blessing upon these thy servants; that they obeying thy will, and alway being in safety under thy protection, may abide in thy love unto their lives' end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.