Missionary Disciples, Even After 'I Do'

Why the Great Commission still applies to married couples.

Mission brought Alli and Tanner to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, IN, in July 2024. (Photo provided)

Leaving staff as a campus missionary with FOCUS was a difficult transition.

I absolutely loved evangelizing students at the University of Colorado Boulder, and I didn’t want my zeal for souls to fizzle out. I was determined to continue living on mission, even if it would look different.

My fiancée was on the same page.

Alli wanted our marriage to be an instrument of grace that could help others encounter Christ. Together, we dreamed of hosting weekly dinners for our community, befriending our neighbors and sharing the Gospel with them, getting involved in our parish and pouring into its youth group, raising up a small army of little kids who love Jesus, and on and on.

We were hyped to live radically for Jesus.

We were adamant that our time as missionaries would not be limited to a two-year stint with FOCUS.

A few weeks before our wedding, we had dinner with a couple that we admired. We were eager to absorb any wisdom they could offer, so when we asked them for their best marriage advice, we hung on every word: “Make sure you’re living on mission together.”

Their advice felt like common knowledge, nothing I couldn’t have thought of myself, but it proved to be prophetic.

The Kalinas were "hyped to live radically for Jesus" when they were married at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth, MN, by Father Peter Mussett, then-pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Boulder. (Photo provided)

Cut to one year later. Alli and I had individual friends here and there, but no real community. We barely knew a couple of our neighbors. I was traveling far too often to truly invest in our parish. And on top of all that, we had a string of issues connected to our fertility.

We felt like total failures, even though we probably looked like we were doing great from an outside perspective. Alli’s youth ministry was teeming with new students, and I was constantly flying around the country to share the Gospel with people.

Even though we appeared to be living a marriage on mission, we knew that we were missing the boat.

Our work was often the source of our conflict. Alli would get frustrated that my travels came at the expense of spending time with our local community, and I would get frustrated that, after traveling and emptying myself, Alli expected me to continue pouring myself out when I got home.

We were certainly living on mission — but not together.

It felt like I had my mission, and Alli had hers — and that was that.

We had to come together, talk out our frustrations and realign our goals. We had to reaffirm our intention to glorify God — together. I had to reframe Alli’s work as a gift to me, not a detriment, and Alli had to view my work in a similar light. We also had to establish boundaries in our work to ensure we weren’t putting undue strain on our marriage.

As we worked through this, nothing seemed to change on the surface. Alli remained a youth minister, while I continued traveling and speaking. However, the dynamics within our marriage completely shifted.

We began to feel more connected. Our conversations grew richer. We found various ways to collaborate — whether it was Alli traveling and giving a talk with me, or me helping Alli host dinners for her youth group volunteers. We also saw our work begin to bear more fruit, because the prayer and support of a spouse only amplifies our efforts. When it comes to mission, 1 + 1 ≠ 2. 1 + 1 = 100.

Mission can be cool, too, especially in community. Here, Tanner and Alli smile with Tanner's FOCUS teammates from the University of Colorado Boulder. (Photo provided)

When you're married, it's easy to allow your zeal for evangelization to wither. With work, paying bills and raising children, among other responsibilities, any other service can seem like a burden, if not impossible.

It’s also easy when you’re married to take matters into your own hands.

It’s admittedly difficult to live on mission and to do that with your spouse, but I’m convinced that it’s vital to do so for marriage to be all it can be.

Aristotle was the first to talk about the three types of friendship.

There are friendships of pleasure. These are friendships in which both people derive some sort of pleasure by being with one another. Think of your concert buddy, your fantasy football pals and so on. Many Christians view marriage as the ultimate friendship of pleasure — the relationship in which you can enjoy the gift of your sexuality, guilt-free, because you have God’s stamp of approval on it.

Then there are friendships of utility. These are friendships in which both people derive some benefit by being with one another. Think of your coworker or your workout partner. Our culture views marriage as the ultimate friendship of utility — the relationship in which you can enjoy all the legal, financial and social benefits that exist for people who take the plunge.

And, finally, there are friendships of virtue. These are friendships in which both people are oriented toward a goal outside of themselves. Aristotle would view that shared pursuit as living a life of virtue, but we as Catholics would add that it includes living a life of discipleship with Christ — a life of holiness. In reality, marriage is the ultimate friendship of virtue.

Consequently, every marriage should have the mutual aim of living a life of discipleship with Christ, and thus, a life of mission.

As Pope Benedict XVI once said, “Discipleship and mission are like the two sides of a single coin: when the disciple is in love with Christ, he cannot stop proclaiming to the world that only in him do we find salvation.”

Or as Pope Francis once wrote, “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples’ and ‘missionaries’, but rather that we are always ‘missionary disciples’” (Evangelii Gaudium 120).

We need to remember that we’re all called to help fulfill Christ’s Great Commission (“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…”), and that doesn’t stop once we’re married. In fact, being married only gives us the grace to have our efforts boosted.

Now on mission together, Tanner and Alli strive to bring others into encounter with Jesus, whose Heart burns for love of all. (Photo provided)

The key to doing this well is doing it together, not on our own.

In Luke 10, Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples and sent them out two by two. He entrusted his work to pairs of people because he knew that doing so would make their work more effective.

When a married couple truly lives on mission as a pair, their labor proves to be more fruitful, benefiting them, their children and God’s kingdom.

Having a joint mission protects a married couple from drifting apart, because it connects them to a common objective. It keeps their hearts fixed on God and not on lesser things. It also helps their children understand that the world is bigger than them, grounding them in reality. And it helps build the Kingdom of God, offering people a glimpse into the communion of love for which they’re destined.

Every married couple needs to discern a joint mission, which will obviously express itself in a unique way for that couple.

One couple, for example, might make it their mission to evangelize their pickleball community, while another couple may co-lead a Bible study. Alli and I are friends with a married couple who are super talented baristas, so they host people every Saturday morning for free craft coffee and fellowship.

Though God invites every marriage to a unique mission, every marriage shares the ultimate mission of making disciples of all nations.

This is our responsibility, but we don’t need to be afraid.

This is designed for our benefit, and it is intended to be done together.