Our Founders

Ty and Jamie Pipkins have been married for 30 years and have 3 married children, and 7 grandchildren. After accepting the call to the ministry at church camp as a teenager, Ty has accumulated over 25 years ministry experience including positions as Pastor, Youth Pastor and Worship Pastor. During this time Jamie assisted in roles as Pastor’s wife, women’s department leader, as well as ministry to young women and foster children.

What We Believe

Our Vision

Choose To Stay Ministries is a religious non-profit public charity as described under section 501(c)3 of the tax code with all donations to the ministry being completely tax deductible. It is our vision to raise funds through both private donors and ministry fundraisers so that we may provide marriage retreats at no cost to couples of faith whose marriages are in crisis.
It is also our long term vision to provide pre-marriage ministry events and to build a marriage enrichment center, all with the goal of helping to lower the divorce rate in churches of all denominations across America.
Our vision also includes spreading the Choose To Stay message through speaking engagements, social media, marketing, and fundraising.

Our Mission

Choose To Stay Ministries exists to encourage, uplift, and equip couples of faith to fulfill the covenant made at the marriage altar between them and God.

Our Story

Choose To Stay Ministries is the result of a burden placed in the hearts of its founders, Ty and Jamie Pipkins, to see hurting marriages find hope, healing and restoration in a faith based environment. Just as Nehemiah was grieved and moved to action when he heard the walls of Jerusalem were torn down, this ministry was formed out of a longing to see faith- based marriages Choose To Stay and rebuild the walls of protection around their relationship rather than breaking the covenant made between them and God at the wedding altar.
Speaking from the experience gained from 20 years of marriage, raising three children, and spending almost 20 years in church ministry positions, Ty and Jamie have a passion to encourage, uplift and equip couples to follow Christ’s example of forgiveness and begin the process of reconciliation. In a society that has made it the norm to just pack your bags and find another spouse, there is another choice…. Choose To Stay! Your marriage is worth it!

Our Beliefs

The Scriptures

We affirm that the Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, is alone the only infallible, inspired Word of God, and that its authority is ultimate, final, and eternal. It cannot be added to, subtracted from, or superseded in any regard. The Bible is the source of all doctrine, instruction, correction and reproof. It contains all that is needed for the guidance in Godliness and practical Christian conduct.

The Trinity

It is the testimony of both Testaments and of the Christian Church that God is both One and Triune. The biblical revelation testifies that there is only one God, and that He is eternally existent in three persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God the Father God the Father is the creator and sustainer of all things and created the universe in love to respond to Him. He created man in His own image for fellowship and called man back to Himself through Christ after the rebellion and fall of man.
The Son Jesus Christ is eternally God. He was together with the Father and the Holy Spirit from the beginning, and through Him all things were made. For man's redemption, He left heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, henceforth; He is forever Christ the God man.
The Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is God, the Lord and giver of life, who was active in the Old Testament and given to the Church in fullness at Pentecost. He empowers the saints for service and witness, cleanses man from the old nature, and conforms us to the image of Christ. The baptism in the Holy Spirit, subsequent to conversion, releases the fullness of the Spirit and is evidenced by the fruit and gifts.

Salvation

The Word of God declares clearly that salvation is a free gift of God, based on the merits of the death of His Son, and is the atonement appropriated by faith. Salvation is affected by personal repentance, belief in the Lord Jesus (justification), and personal acceptance of Him into one’s life as Lord and Savior (regeneration). The new life in Christ includes the privileges of adoption and inheritance in the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son. Salvation is an act of free will in response to God’s personal love for mankind. It is predestined only in the sense that God, through His omniscience, foreknew those who would choose Him. It is secure in the eternal, unchanging commitment of God who does not lie and is forever the same. Salvation should produce an active lifestyle of loving obedience and service to Jesus Christ our Savior.

The Christian Life

We believe that the Scriptures portray the life of the saint in this world to be one of balance between what is imputed to us as Christians and what is imparted to us according to our faith and maturity. Hence, God’s provision for His children is total, and the promises are final and forever. The shortcomings of the individual and of the Church are because of the still progressing sanctification of the saints. The Christian life is filled with trials, test, and warfare against a spiritual enemy. For those abiding in Christ until their deaths or His return, the promises of eternal blessing in the presence of God are assured. To remain faithful through all circumstances of life requires dependence upon the Holy Spirit and a willingness to die to personal desires and passions.

The Second Coming

We in the rapture affirm the bodily, personal, second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the saints, the millennium, and the final judgment. The final judgment will determine the eternal status of both the saints and the unbeliever, determined by their relationship to Jesus Christ. We affirm with the Bible the final state of the new heavens and the new earth.