what’s the difference?
Have you committed to pre-marriage mentoring, but are unsure of next steps?
When it comes to mentoring, you have a few choices.
1. Be mentored by your pastor or officiate
2. Engage a counselor/therapist
3. Enroll in a mentoring program with a pre-marriage mentor couple
- Jim and Sheri Mueller are the co-founders of the marriage ministry, Growthtrac Ministries. The Marriagetrac ministry was birthed out of the needs of our mentor couples. Today, Marriagetrac serves One-Million couples annually and is a respected, leading marriage resource. — More about Jim & Sheri — Read the Chicago Tribune article
- Jim and Sheri were trained and certified through a leading one-year pre-marriage mentoring program. They later taught and certified new mentors in this program.
- We utilize Prepare-Enrich, the #1 relationship inventory and couple’s assessment tool. Jim and Sheri are Certified Prepare-Enrich facilitators.
What is Prepare-Enrich?
Prepare-Enrich is a customized couple assessment completed online that identifies a couple’s strength and growth areas. It is one of the most widely used programs for premarital counseling and premarital education. It is also used for marriage counseling, marriage enrichment, and dating couples considering engagement. Based on a couple’s assessment results, a trained facilitator provides 4-8 feedback sessions in which the facilitator helps the couple discuss and understand their results as they are taught proven relationship skills.
Over 3-Million Couples
Over the last 30 years, the Prepare-Enrich relationship assessment has empowered and energized more than 3 million couples. We’re the #1 relationship inventory and couples assessment tool.
What are the Major Goals of the Prepare-Enrich program?
- Explore strength and growth areas
- Strengthen communication skills
- Identify and manage major stressors
- Resolve conflict using the Ten Step Model
- Develop a more balanced relationship
- Explore family of origin issues
- Discuss financial planning and budgeting
- Establish personal, couple and family goals
- Understand and appreciate personality differences
Is the Prepare-Enrich Program valid & reliable?
An important strength of the Prepare-Enrich Inventory is their strong psychometric properties. High levels of reliability and validity have been found for each instrument, making them valuable tools for research as well as clinical use.
- National Norms based on over 500,000 couples
- High Levels of Validity and Reliability
Prepare has validity in that it discriminates premarital couples that get divorced from those that are happily married with about 80-85% accuracy. Reliability is high (alpha reliability of .80 – .85).
about Jim and Sheri
Jim and Sheri Mueller — co-founders of Growthtrac Ministries — have mentored over 100 couples over the last 15-years. In fact, Growthtrac itself emerged from Jim and Sheri’s passion for marriage mentoring.
Jim and Sheri are certified marriage mentors, marriage enrichment event teachers, ministry consultants and published authors
Jim and Sheri have served the local church as pre-marriage mentors and have taught and coached other marriage mentors and churches. Married over thirty years, Jim and his wife Sheri have conducted marriage conferences in cities across the country, have been guests on Christian Radio, and have committed their ministry to equipping and encouraging America’s couples to build healthy, biblical marriages. The Muellers live outside Chicago, and are the parents of two married daughters.
Sheri’s Bio
Sheri is an LCPC who earned her M.A. in Professional Counseling from Olivet Nazarene University and is an adjunct professor at Judson University. A certified facilitator and trainer for PREPARE/ENRICH, Sheri has worked for more than 15 years to help individuals, premarital couples, and married couples build and maintain healthy relationships. An author of numerous articles and a regular column, Mentor Minute, Sheri, with her husband, Jim, founded Growthtrac Ministries.
Watch for Sheri’s book, I Want Him to Want Me, from Focus on the Family, available Summer of 2024.
Jim’s Bio
Jim is the founder, with wife, Sheri, of Growthtrac Ministries as well as Program Director of GrowthtracRadio and the architect behind growthtrac.com. Jim holds a B.S. in business management and is a facilitator for PREPARE/ENRICH couple assessment tool. He has authored numerous articles, interviewed leading relationship authors and Christian artists, and has contributed to Dr. Les Parrott’s book, The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring. Jim has worked for more than 15 years to help premarital couples and married couples build and maintain healthy relationships.
- Over a 15-year period, Jim and Sheri have mentored more than 100 couples
- When you engage this ministry for your mentoring, both Jim and Sheri will mentor you. We believe best results come from a two-on-two relationship
- We’re here for you. If you’d like, we’re open to extending our relationship beyond the wedding date.
- We only do pre-marriage mentoring. This is our specialty. This is our passion. We want you to succeed.
We will provide you with a vision for marriage, conflict resolution, budgeting, spiritual issues, communication, and sex & intimacy. In addition, each of you will complete the PREPARE-ENRICH Inventory from Life Innovations, which will help us better coach you in our time together.As Christians, we place a high value on the principles of the Bible. With this said, we respect your rights to grow in the spiritual path you have chosen for yourself.
The pre-marital education you receive is designed to be fitness training for your relationship. Our role is to facilitate the process while you discuss issues, and develop skills necessary for a healthy, growing marriage. This is not counseling or therapy.
Marriage mentoring is not a guarantee of relationship success. Ultimately, that is the responsibility of the pre-marital couple.
