What to do when your husband won’t come to church
Ashley Worley
Too many women go to church without their husbands. Golf, hunting, sports, or just plain ol’ apathy take over Sundays.
If you experience that, you’re not alone. For many, it’s passed down generationally. I grew up in a home where my mom asked this question every Sunday. My dad didn’t see his dad in church every Sunday and learned the race track was a more important way to spend his time.
For some women, it happens because their husbands aren’t yet followers of Jesus. For others, it’s because their Christian husbands aren’t taking part of the responsibility to connect with and contribute to the church that Jesus loves. For all of us, the question remains: when your husband won’t come to church with you, what do you do?
What To Do When Your Husband Won’t Come To Church With You
1. Keep coming to church.
Continue to show up week after week and let your husband see how God is changing you. It became obvious to my dad, and it will be to your husband. Continue to be obedient to God without being obnoxious to your spouse. Don’t judge him, belittle him, or withhold your love or sex as a bargaining tool.
God was patient with you before you decided to follow Jesus and attend church, and the best thing we can do is be patient with our loved ones as they make their own decisions about these things (2 Peter 3:9). Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are reconciled to God, and you’re equipped to help others experience reconciliation with God and others — including your husband (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
Be obedient to God without being obnoxious to your spouse.
Your calling is to be God’s representative to draw your husband to a relationship with Jesus. What an incredible role you get to play.
2. Keep praying for your husband.
Ultimately, only Jesus can change your husband. Deciding to follow Jesus and coming to church are personal decisions. Ladies, am I right when I say it doesn’t work as well when you tell your husband something? They have to come to decisions on their own. You can’t change him or save him, but God can.
Don’t give up on your husband or on how Jesus is working in him. The power of prayer is incredible, and if you know Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and intercedes for you and your husband. It may not seem like you are doing much by “just praying,” but you are going to battle in spiritual warfare for your husband. You are a warrior.
3. Keep loving and respecting your husband.
The best way to show Jesus’ love to a husband who isn’t interested in God or the church is to love him the way Jesus loves him. You are the best example of Christ that your husband sees on a daily basis. You are in a marriage covenant with him that says, “I choose all of you, no matter what,” not unlike Jesus’ commitment to our good, despite his own suffering and death on the cross (Philippians 2:5-8).
It is crucial to respect your husband as an authority in your home even as you submit to Christ as the ultimate authority of your life. This will speak volumes to him, maybe even more than consistent invitations to church and sharing what God is teaching you. Like Peter wrote to the early church: “Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty...should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3:1-4).
I pray that through these words you have found hope and guidance. As a church family, we hope your husband will not only attend church with you, but ultimately, know Jesus and thrive in a relationship with Him. We believe the best is yet to come for you, your husband, and your marriage.
If you want someone to pray for you and your husband specifically, visit the Care Room at your campus on Sunday or send us a message here.