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Solid as a Rock

Miles & Debbie McPherson

When Miles first met Debbie at a party in New Haven, Connecticut, he told his friend he was going to marry her. That was more than 25 years and three children ago. Last September, in honor of their milestone anniversary, the couple did something even their adult children didn’t expect. They renewed their vows in the witness of 1,500 people.

“In the NFL, you only have one day off a week during the season, so we flew to Las Vegas to get married,” recalls Miles, a former defensive back for the San Diego Chargers. “We never had a traditional wedding. It was just the two of us, a friend and a judge.”

Their early years, Miles says, were a mess. His life off the field was ruled by drugs and spiraling out of control. Luckily, with the help of a good friend, he found salvation in Jesus and a new purpose that would lead him to improving the lives of thousands of people. In 1992, he founded Miles Ahead, a nonprofit organization that has used the Gospel to help more than 45,000 young people around the globe. He even earned an Emmy Award for a documentary on methamphetamine, available through the program. Then in 2000, he founded the Rock Church, where today more than 12,000 people gather for its five weekend services.

Presiding over wedding ceremonies, of course, is a regular activity for the senior pastor.

“Twenty-five years flew by, and we never had a wedding,” Miles says. “In the meantime, every time I officiated a wedding I felt like I had cheated Debbie by not having had one ourselves.”

He made up for it in the only way he knew how — through the church, and with the people he spent every weekend with.

“Fifteen hundred people came,” Miles says. “Debbie is normally a behind-the-scenes person, so she was very nervous that day. My father walked her down the aisle and gave her away.”

Their children — Kelly, 24, Kimmie, 23, and Miles, 21 — also participated in the ceremony by declaring the vows. Each one stated a vow and read a letter to their parents, sharing sweet sentiments about how blessed they felt and how their parents had already been true to their original wedding vows. In the end, it was their children who pronounced Miles and Debbie “still” husband and wife.

“We were crying at different parts throughout the ceremony,” Miles says. “And I can still see her walking down the aisle. It really felt as if it was our first time.”

Miles, who has hosted eight marriage retreats for the Rock, says the secret to a lasting relationship starts with the right philosophy. Couples, he says, should never approach marriage with divorce as an option.
“In the Bible, Jesus is the groom and the church is His bride,” he says. “The Apostle Paul says that the wife is supposed to submit to her husband as to the Lord.

“But what we don’t hear often enough,” Miles adds, “is that the husband is supposed to love his wife as Christ loves His church, which basically means the husband is supposed to be willing to die for his wife. What has kept Debbie and me strong is that we have kept that perspective, that I lay down my life for her and she for me. We have constantly served each other and put each other first. It’s not about pleasing ourselves — but about us pleasing each other.”
Their photos — taken with Kelly, Kimmie and Miles on the beach behind Hotel del Coronado — say it all.
“In one of the photos, our photographer had instructed us to run on the beach,” Miles says. “As we were running, Debbie was laughing, and I remember thinking that I had never seen her so happy before. I realized she was a princess that day. It was my favorite moment.”

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