The Christian wedding ceremony at the churches of Path Parish includes two primary commitments. One commitment is the personal covenant the couple makes with one another:
“To take from this day onward, to join with and to share all that is to come, to give and to receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, and in all our life together, to be loyal to you with my whole being, as long as we both shall live.”
The other commitment is the covenant that the couple makes with the church: to understand their life together in relation to the faith community. This second commitment is implicit throughout the marriage ceremony in the language, the symbols, the blessings, the location (in the house of worship), the officiant (the minister) and the expressed intention of those who would be married under the authority of the church. As the The United Methodist Book of Discipline states:
"We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant which is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between [two persons]. We believe that God's blessing rests upon such a marriage.”