This January, I took a class on pastoral care giving. It included a unit on pre-marital counseling. This was a subject of intense interest to the instructor, and he provided many useful guidelines for successful pre-marital counseling, including when to say 'no' to a couple that wants to get married.Pastors, what is your approach to pre-marital counseling?
4 comments:
I use Prepare by Life Innovations Inc. Very good
I agree with Rev Willy. Before I went into fulltime evangelism six years ago, I used Prepare-Enrich. Couples separately completed a questionnaire, which was sent to the Prepare-Enrich headquarters & scored with an eye to differences & similarities. I found it to be a useful tool in raising questions during the sessions.
I use Prepeare/Enrich along with "Called Together" a book by by Steve & Mary Prokopchak.
Right now, I don't use any published helps; I just meet with the couple a few times, look for serious red flags, and send them on their merry way.
Eventually, I want to get out of the "pre-marital counseling" business altogether and hand if over to laity couples. My younger sister hardly met with the pastor at all who performed her wedding ceremony, but she and her fiance were requried to meet many times with a lay couple in her church who had been trained in mentoring young couples for marriage. I really want to adopt that model, but it will take a while to be accepted here I think.
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