Preparing for Marriage Leader's Guide , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Dennis Rainey

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62 pages

English

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Description

Point Them in the Right Direction Before They Walk Down the AisleMarried couples begin their lives together with a vow of lifelong love and devotion . . . but many walk down the aisle unaware of all that promise entails. Now you can help engaged couples make their vows with open eyes and hearts, fully prepared for the hard and rewarding work of building a strong and lasting Christian marriage.Created by FamilyLife, one of America's leading marriage and family ministries, Preparing for Marriage is a dynamic, comprehensive premarital education program designed to lay the foundation for biblical, fulfilling marriage. As a supplement to Preparing for Marriage, the Preparing for Marriage Leader's Guide is an invaluable tool for pastors, premarital counselors, mentor couples, and small group leaders. Inside is everything you need to help engaged couples establish a lasting relationship built on an unshakable foundation: Jesus Christ.The Preparing for Marriage Leader's Guide will help you: · Counsel an engaged couple or lead a small-group study for couples · Share God's unique blueprints for marriage and the home · Help couples discern God's will for their relationship · Provide practical guidance on finances, responsibilities, and intimacy · Evaluate a couple's readiness for marriage after counseling · Create a mentoring couples program and develop mentoring relationships · Build healthy, Christ-centered marriages in the Church

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Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	18 janvier 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441266859
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0374€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

1998, 2010 FamilyLife
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Bethany House Publishers edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-6685-9
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Contents
About This Course
A Message to Mentors from Dennis Rainey
Chapter 1: Overview of Preparing for Marriage
This overview presents the goals, format and length of the course. It also gives options for using the workbook, instruction on how to help those who have been previously married and tips for leading a small group.
Chapter 2: Ministering to Premarried Couples
This chapter gives counselors and mentors information to remember about couples in love, four goals for ministering to them, and a list of suggested resources for counseling premarrieds.
Chapter 3: Using Mentors
This chapter gives guidelines in finding and training mentor couples.
Chapter 4: Conducting the Opening Interview
This chapter includes directions for conducting and evaluating the opening interview, with the needed forms included.
Chapter 5: Notes on the Couple’s Workbook
This chapter gives step-by-step instructions for conducting and evaluating the opening interview, with the needed forms included, and guidance for facilitating discussion of each chapter of the book.
Worksheet 1: Understanding Your Personal History
Worksheet 2: Great Expectations
Session 1: Why Marriage?
Session 2: God’s Equation for Marriage: When One Plus One Equals One
Session 3: Evaluating Your Relationship
Session 4: A Decision-Making Guide
Session 5: Authentic Communication
Session 6: Roles and Responsibilities
Session 7: Money, Money, Money
Session 8: Intimacy: Sexual Communication in Marriage
Appendix: Premarital Couple Evaluation
About the Writers
About This Course

Preparing for Marriage was developed by a group of men working with FamilyLife, a subsidiary of Campus Crusade for Christ. FamilyLife’s goal is to help you learn practical, biblical blueprints for building a godly home. FamilyLife out-reaches include:
“FamilyLife Today”: a 30-minute radio program featuring Dennis Rainey, FamilyLife executive director and the general editor of this study. The show airs five days a week on hundreds of stations across the country.
The Weekend to Remember marriage conferences: weekend getaways for couples that have changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of couples since 1976.
The HomeBuilders Couples Series: a group of small-group Bible studies to help married couples grow in their relationship.
For more information about FamilyLife, visit our website at FamilyLife.com , call 1-800-FL-TODAY, or write us at 5800 Ranch Drive, Little Rock, AR 72223.
A Message to Mentors from Dennis Rainey

Consider for a moment the training that most teenagers receive to qualify for a driver’s license. At the age of 15 (in most states), they can receive a driver’s permit if they pass a written test of their knowledge of the state’s driving laws. During the next year, they drive under the supervision of a parent or adult. If they are wise, they complete a driver’s education course. Through hours of practice, they slowly learn the hundreds of small skills that skillful driving requires: how to accelerate and brake under different conditions, what to observe while driving down a road, how to turn onto a street or into a parking space, and so much more.
Finally, they must prove their skill by passing a driver’s test administered by a state-licensed examiner. Now they have a prized driver’s license in their hands … only to learn that several years of safe driving will be required until they shed the costly mistrust harbored by at least one segment of society—the car insurance companies!
Now consider the requirements for obtaining another type of license. To be legally married, a couple must obtain a blood test and must state their vows of commitment before an ordained minister or a justice of the peace. That’s it. If they are wise, they will receive some premarriage counseling, but in many churches that means little more than meeting with a pastor to go over the wedding procedures.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Our society requires intensive training to receive a driver’s license for one simple reason: We know that bad things happen when we allow someone to drive a car without first learning some critical skills.
Unfortunately, our society is only now waking up to the fact that bad things happen when we allow a couple to be married without learning some critical skills. I could spend pages analyzing all the reasons why America’s divorce rate has been the highest of any country in the world for the last 30 years, but the reasons boil down to this: People don’t know how to be married.
Children are growing up in a culture that emphasizes individuality over responsibility. Many are raised in fractured families. Because of this they don’t learn the skills needed to relate to another person on a daily basis through good times and bad, in good health or poor, during times of plenty and times of need. They don’t learn how to give or experience unconditional love in a marriage relationship, and our culture and our nation is suffering because of it.
That is why we have developed Preparing for Marriage and this accompanying leader’s guide. We need to help families learn how to put God at the center of their lives and turn to His Word as their guide. The best time to do this is before couples get married—before they start to “drive on the streets.”
There are few ministries in a church more strategic or effective than guiding couples through premarriage preparation. With the Preparing for Marriage workbook, you can help couples build their homes on the foundation of God’s Word.
Notes on the Updated Edition
Since Preparing for Marriage was first published in 1997, we have been pleased to see hundreds of thousands of couples go through the workbook, usually with the help of a pastor, mentor or counselor. We often hear stories of how this resource is being used around the world. A friend says his two nieces went through the workbook at their church. A mentor couple writes to describe ministry they’ve helped build at their church, where dozens of couples complete the workbook each year and other singles are asking to go through the course even though they aren’t in a serious relationship. Another man writes to say he has taken more than 40 couples through the workbook in Kenya. One of the couples told him they had “the best premarital counseling in Nairobi. We’re determined that everyone we know goes through the same program.”
In many ways the new, updated edition of the workbook and leader’s guide are so similar to the original that you may not notice they have changed. The biggest changes were in format. We received a great deal of feedback that couples and mentors were often confused by all the different sections, chapters and projects in the original workbook. At times they didn’t understand the order in which these elements should be completed.
Through some strategic reorganization, we have retained all the original material, but it is now much easier to follow. You simply take couples through the book in the order the material is presented in the workbook:
Couples first complete two worksheets, “Understanding Your Personal History” and “Great Expectations.”
Couples then complete each of the eight chapters in numerical order.
Two bonus projects—“Parental Wisdom Questionnaire” and “Couple Interview”—are offered in appendix A and appendix B. These are recommended but not required.
The Ultimate Marriage Preparation Guide
I’ll never forget a woman who came to me one time for counseling after her divorce. Thinking back, she said, “As I was preparing for marriage it was as though I started out on this desert landscape. I picked up the binoculars and looked out on the horizon and I could see all of these corpses and all of the rotting flesh and the destruction of broken marriages that had not made it very far across the desert. And even though I could see that so many people hadn’t made it very far, I didn’t have anyone in my life to grab me by the shoulders and say, ‘You need survival training before you start out.’ So I started out on the journey with my husband, and after a few years had passed, I found myself in the same condition as those other people who had failed in their relationships.”
There are two things I noticed about her comments. First, she realized that premarriage training would have helped prepare her for the inevitable trials she would face in her marriage. Many engaged couples today are apprehensive about this commitment they’re about to make. Yes, they may act like they know it all, and they may be so consumed with planning a 30-minute ceremony and a two-hour reception that you’d think they wouldn’t make the time for premarriage counseling. But they could—with a little encouragement. An increasing number come from broken families themselves, and they want to have successful marriages.
Preparing for Marriage provides the training they need. In fact, it includes the type of material Barbara and I wish we had known before our