Lakepointe Church Hosts Mass Wedding for 52 Cohabitating Couples

Fifty-two unmarried, cohabitating couples walked onto the stage at Lakepointe Church in Rockwall after senior pastor Josh Howerton closed a February 22 sermon with a direct challenge to anyone "living with somebody that's not your spouse" or "sleeping with somebody that's not your spouse" — and more than a thousand congregants showed up to cheer them on.

Howerton, who leads the multi-campus church across eight locations, did not soften the call. He addressed couples who had "actually already started a family and had kids with somebody that's not your spouse" and told them the church was ready to act immediately. At the close of the sermon, he shared a text number from the pulpit for any couple willing to participate in a mass wedding ceremony, saying plainly, "We are ready to have a mass wedding ceremony across — I'm 100 percent serious."

What followed surprised even Howerton. Numerous couples responded to the text number, and 52 ultimately participated in the ceremony. In a Facebook post, Howerton wrote that the couples "came under conviction" after hearing his sermon and expressed gratitude for "52 couples, 52 families, 52 lineages and legacies and family trees changed forever." In a comment on the post, which included a photograph of the couples assembled on stage, Howerton reported that "over A THOUSAND people showed up to cheer them on."

Howerton described the event as "one of the coolest things we have ever seen at Lakepointe" and framed the church's posture toward the couples as explicitly non-judgmental. "We've got a little saying at Lakepointe: The only time we look down on people is to give them a hand up," he said. He told couples the church would provide counseling and support before the ceremony: "We're gonna walk with you, counsel you, help you — and then we're gonna get you married. We're gonna throw a big party. And guess what, your church family is not gonna be doing? These people aren't gonna be judging you. They're gonna be cheering you on as you step forward in obedience to Jesus Christ."

On March 8, Howerton returned to the subject at the opening of his sermon, asking the congregation to "give them a STANDING OVATION to show them their church family is behind them, heart and soul."

One question raised publicly in the wake of the ceremony remains unanswered in available accounts: whether the 52 couples obtained civil marriage licenses or participated in religious vows only. Rev. Ken Fellenbaum posed the question directly in a public comment: "Interesting….did these marriages include legal licenses or just religious vows?" Lakepointe Church has not publicly addressed the legal status of the ceremonies in the materials available, and the Rockwall County clerk's office has not confirmed any related spike in marriage license filings.