Whether you’re developing a new marriage ministry or growing an existing ministry — it’s important that your staff, leadership and volunteers are on the same page on a few key items.
This list applies to pre-marriage mentoring, but has application to general marriage ministry.
- Elder’s Statement — Do you have standards in place regarding:
- Re-Marriage: Under what conditions is a person free to re-marry? Also consider a Divorce statement.
- Sexual Purity: Do you require a commitment to purity? Living Arrangements: What if a couple is living together? Spiritual Condition: How do you define equally yoked? Do you marry seekers? Will you marry unequally-yoked couples?
- Who can be married at your church? Who can engage in your marriage process? Does a couple need to attend your church? For how long?
- Will you mentor non-Christians? Seriously consider this evangelistic opportunity.
- Marriage Criteria What biblical principles govern whether or not your church will marry a couple? How will that be communicated to the couple?
- Pre-Requisites. Prior to affirming a couple’s ceremony date, what is required of the couple? A marriage workshop? A budget class? Mentoring?
- Decision to Marry Who makes that decision? Are your volunteer mentors empowered to do so? Will leadership stand by those decisions?
- Your Mentoring Program Who will mentor? You? Volunteers? If volunteers… What are your recruitment criteria? Who will recruit and train? Have you developed a mentor-training program?Have you considered ongoing refresher training? Consider these four important components of any strong training program — skills training, mentoring, testing, and small group.
- What pre/marriage topics will be addressed?
- What objectives or values are most important? Community? Evangelism?
- Spiritual Growth?What are the core building blocks of a quality marriage?
- What will be the duration and frequency of a mentoring session?
- What kinds of issues might qualify a referral to professional counseling?
- What assessment tool/inventory (such as PREPARE-ENRICH) will be used, if any
Jim Mueller is the President of Growthtrac Ministries
Copyright (c) Growthtrac Ministries
Jim Mueller
Jim is the founder, with wife, Sheri, of Growthtrac Ministries as well as Program Director of GrowthtracRadio and the architect behind marriagetrac.com. Jim holds a B.S. in business management and is a facilitator for PREPARE/ENRICH, the most widely used customized couple assessment tool. He has authored numerous articles, interviewed leading relationship experts, 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.
