Flooding the Zone: Marriage And Family Initiative Builds Demand for Resources in Tulsa Through Church Connections

By Amy Morgan

The Bible doesn’t mention retirement – and Bruce and Leta Wilbanks agree. Rather than rest on their laurels after Bruce retired from his corporate recruiting career, they began volunteering to help others strengthen their marriage.

The divorce of one of their friends after 37 years of marriage drew their attention more urgently to the need. “That was a real wake-up call,” Leta said. “People need to know they need to invest in their marriage continually” (no matter how long they’ve been married.) Their first step in 2009 was to help long-time friends Steve and Susan Tucker with Arkansas-based Eagle Family Ministries with their marriage conferences. The Wilbankses supported from behind the scenes before moving into a speaking role.

After a few years, Bruce and Leta felt God calling them to focus on their local Tulsa area. They led conferences at their church and workshops at the local community center. Recognizing the need for premarital coaching, the Wilbankses became certified in Symbis and Prepare/Enrich.

But they continued to feel God’s nudge and wondered how they could be more intentional and have a bigger impact in Tulsa. As they grew in skills and confidence, Bruce and Leta introduced Marriage InSync to the Tulsa area and led Re/Engage at their church. They attended one of Watermark’s trainings and shared their desire not just to teach, but to help other churches get started. When they first began the program only one other church in the area offered Re/Engage. That heart to share resources and empower churches undergirds the mission of Marriage And Family Initiative, which they launched in 2017. Subsequently, more than a handful of churches in Tulsa now offer Re/Engage, with one church taking more than 250 couples through the program in two semesters! Bruce also received a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2020, and they became FamilyLife Staff Affiliates in 2023.

“When we first started the process of meeting with pastors, we felt like we were spinning our wheels,” Bruce said. “We kept plugging away, emailing a monthly newsletter, attending the Christian businessmen’s lunch, connecting with the Tulsa Metro Baptist Network.” They’ve even been guests on several local Christian radio programs. Eventually the continual drip of being in contact started to pay off.

“It took a year,” Bruce admitted. “We tell new people not to be discouraged if it looks like things are not happening. Their work will take hold.”

The Wilbankses also are willing to generously serve. They often help a church host a first conference or group study before turning the program back to them. Bruce and Leta remind pastors that they are just lay people in their own church and encourage them to look for people in their own congregation God is calling to be “Marriage Champions,” rather than adding additional work to their already overfull load.

“We just want pastors to be cheerleaders for their marriage ministry,” Bruce explained.

Leta and Bruce recount an encouraging example. They met with a new pastor, explained the importance of marriage ministry and gave him the book, Married People, to consider. But the initial meeting did not seem promising, as he had just taken over the congregation. They kept in touch with him, and he sent a representative couple to Marriage And Family Initiative’s quarterly Marriage Champion luncheon. The popular event has grown steadily and now averages more than 40 attendees from varied denominations, they report.

A couple of months later, the pastor asked the Wilbankses to meet and delighted them by declaring his goal to change the culture of his church to focus on marriages and families. The pastor kicked off 2025 with a sermon series and soon had more than 50 couples enrolled in a Love Like You Mean It follow-up study. “This is what success looks like!” Leta enthused.

“Often, when we meet with a pastor and ask what their church is doing for marriages, they haven’t even thought about that question,” Bruce said. Their primary strategy when connecting with churches is encouraging them to do something. “It doesn’t have to be huge,” Bruce said. “Just start somewhere. We’ll help them do that.”

They provide valuable recommendations to trusted material. The Wilbankses even have visited a church’s service so they can suggest something in keeping with its style.

“We want to flood the (Tulsa) market with Christian marriage resources,” Bruce said, “to increase demand and then meet it.” They describe their strategy as threefold.

• Increase capacity – offer more resources and events through churches and the community.

• Increase demand – let people know through radio, sermons, or social media that they can have the marriage they’ve dreamed of. They plan to add a marriage minute radio spot in the summer of 2026.

• Put the two together – Marriage And Family Initiative hosts a website with a calendar to help those interested find related events and resources along with contact information. They also publish a list of churches that champion marriages.
  
  

The Wilbankses greatly value the support of the CMI family and its role in elevating the capacity and ability of Marriage And Family Initiative. It was Mark and Michelle Ellis, associated with both FamilyLife and the Arkansas CMI, who introduced them to the CMI family and its onramp to help other Marriage Initiatives develop and thrive. They learned about NARME and watched Dennis Stoicia’s videos. “This was an answer to prayer!” Bruce said. “We were trying to reinvent the wheel Dennis had already invented.”

Having a proven path to follow, knowing what to do and seeing how others had done it before proved to be extremely helpful to the Wilbankses. “We could move forward without making mistakes we didn’t need to make,” Bruce said.

“We initially placed a much higher value on the financial support, but as we reflected, we realized that over the long term, the knowledge gained through group and individual coaching will be far more valuable. The relationships built through these experiences are something we can truly rely on. We feel confident reaching out to anyone in the CMI family for help or advice, knowing they would be there for us, just as we would for them,” Bruce and Leta wrote in their CMI grant exit survey.

They count the relationships they’ve built through the CMI family as the most important aspect of their association. They remember how generously CMI leaders Brady and Melissa Vandeburg shared their resources. The Vandeburgs unhesitatingly offered the Wilbankses access to the power point presentation they use at Wyoming Strong Families to recruit churches. “We had ideas of things, but we didn’t have the funds or strategy,” Bruce said.

“We’re all willing to help each other because we have a single goal,” Leta added. “It’s neat to have a huge network of people who are willing to share and not compete,” Bruce agreed. “Knowing that there are people all over doing God’s work. I honestly feel I could call any one of them and get advice, information and help, and I hope they would feel the same.”

Through CMI, the Wilbankses learned about a phone app to help churches assess the relationships in their congregation and requested speaker information. “There are so many resources, videos, PDFs, power points! We didn’t always know where to look,” Bruce said. He also found the video introducing five questions to ask churches especially helpful.

The Wilbankses consider the monthly CMI training extremely valuable, and especially as they ramped up to apply for a federal grant in 2025.

“Dennis’ workshop on grant writing was incredible,” Leta said. “The cost of something like that would be thousands of dollars in monetary value!” Although Marriage And Family Initiative was not selected for funding, Bruce is proud that they did score 100 out of 100 on their grant application. “God is in control,” he said, satisfied that he had given his best effort despite the disappointing outcome.

The Wilbankses continue to expand the offerings of Marriage And Family Initiative. In addition to leading a conference at their church in the fall of 2026 and a series of workshops on communication and conflict resolution at the community center, they also will offer a new program that unpacks what it means to be a grandparent on purpose.

They were introduced to Larry Fowler’s Grandparenting Matters resource at a Legacy Summit and were inspired to add it to their collection. The study is designed “to help grandparents understand and embrace the impact of their biblical role.”

Their own grandchildren are just reaching the age where the Wilbankses will have the ability to make a real impact. “Part of being a good grandparent is having a strong marriage,” Bruce said. “Here’s our chance to be intentional, because we want all of our kids and grandkids in heaven.”

“We want to speak into their lives and build a relationship with them that allows us to impact their lives as they get older,” Bruce added.

When asked what they’d tell others who want to replicate their work through Marriage And Family Initiative, the Wilbankses said, “Be passionate about it. It can be a lot of hard work. You have to be willing to do the hard things, not get impatient and try to jump ahead.” “Bruce is the brake,” Leta acknowledged, and “I am the gas. We had to do the groundwork and build a strong foundation.”

They were most surprised that “most churches don’t do anything for married couples. It’s so important to God and so important to our society and the health of the church. It’s still mind boggling to me when pastors don’t see that vision,” Bruce added. “Marriage affects a lot of other things. For instance, businesses in this country lose billions of dollars every year to lost productivity due to relationship issues, and nearly all our social problems in our communities can be positively impacted when marriages and families are strong.”

When asked what a win looks like, they referred to the church whose new pastor was inspired to initiate a marriage ministry. “We brought it to his attention, and now it is on their radar,” Bruce said. The Wilbankses also seek to change the narrative about marriage to remind people that marriage is good and it is worth it.

“The narrative around getting marriage education was that you had to have a bad marriage. We’re changing that narrative,” Leta said. “Married couples and intact families do better in life in every area you can measure,” Bruce said. “Churches need a marriage ministry just as much as a kids and youth ministry. They might have pre-marital or crisis counseling (often outsourced), but nothing in between. Couples have a need for godly Christian marriage skills and knowledge throughout their marriage.” Marriage education is “just like continuing professional education,” Leta said. She reports they’ve had good response to titling their programs “Continuing Education for Marriage.”

The Wilbankses will celebrate their 50th anniversary in August 2026, a milestone even more special because they remember sharing Bruce’s grandparents’ Golden Anniversary and subsequently his parents 65th. In homage to their 1976 wedding, they’re planning a 70s-themed party. They nostalgically remember when churches used to recognize couples on their anniversaries, a practice Leta would like to revive. “Our business is celebrating marriage. We need to let couples know their church celebrates with them on their anniversary!”

Would you consider following Bruce and Leta’s lead and asking your pastor to recognize congregational anniversaries? One seemingly small step could cornerstone a legacy in your community.