wonderfully manifests the types of creative
initiatives our students are prepared and
trained to design and launch to advance
the New Evangelization,” says Dr. Mat-
thew Gerlach, dean of the Institute for Lay
Ministry at Sacred Heart. “The fact they
are a married couple, who combine their
complementary gifts in lay ecclesial min-
istry in service to other married couples,
only serves to heighten their witness to the
beauty and power of married life.”
Calling Couples to Christ, according to
its website, envisions a society “where mar-
riage is sacred and the family is the true sanc-
tuary of life and the heart of a civilization of
love.” All of its ministries are inspired by
the teachings of the Catholic Church, “the
source of wisdom, truth and guidance for
living Christ-centered, joy-filled marriages.”
Dennis and Rose are already working with
two parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
They have plans to market programs to
multiple parishes and vicariates.
“Most parishes do not have the resources
to hire a part- or full-time person to focus
on marriage,” says Rose. As a result, these
parishes only minister to engaged couples
through marriage preparation programs.
The Wingfields maintain that couples
should be ministered to during the entire
cycle of their marriages, since many spouses
lack solid role models in their lives. Rose
and Dennis’s goal is to use the knowledge
they gained at Sacred Heart to assist parish-
es with recruiting married couples to serve
as mentors to engaged couples—and, essen-
tially, as evangelizers.
“The married volunteers help engaged
couples encounter Christ, and accompany
them through the engagement phase and
beyond,” Dennis says. “The engaged cou-
ples grow in their faith, plus the mentor
couples grow as married couples.”
The hope is that the engaged couples will
eventually become mentors themselves, as
well as active parishioners in the commu-
nity. “You’re welcoming that couple into
the parish and continuing that relationship
beyond the wedding day,” Rose says. And,
as a result, “You then have two couples
evangelizing.”
Members of Our Lady of Good Coun-
sel Parish in Plymouth, Michigan, Dennis
and Rose feel affirmed in their mission to
promote the New Evangelization through
marriage ministry by the writings of Pope
Francis and Archbishop Allen Vigneron.
“Evangelization of couples and families is
necessary if they are to carry out their own
work of ‘unleashing the Gospel’ as Arch-
bishop Vigneron calls them to do,” Dr.
Gerlach says.
“We need support in marriage. People
think they’re alone,” Dennis says. “Mar-
riage is a huge struggle if you don’t have
Christ in your life to make it work.”
Darci Swisher is a freelance writer who lives in
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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