Re: More Than 'I Do': A Pastor's Resource Book For Premarital Counseling
Aladino Bharudin
It's an honor and privilege to be asked to marry a couple, but there's more to performing a wedding than leading the vows and giving the sermon. The minister is also responsible for preparing the couple for marriage and guiding them in creating a ceremony that brings honor to Christ and affirms their commitment to each other.
The Pastor's Wedding Planner is a beneficial, adaptable resource that will help pastors make every couple's wedding day something special. Perfect for the multi-tasking minister, it outlines every part of the wedding process and includes ideas for a variety of traditional and contemporary ceremony styles. From pre-marital counseling topics and wedding forms to message ideas and outlines for unique ceremonies, this all-inclusive manual makes the minister's job of pronouncing two people husband and wife easier and even more meaningful.
Resources include:
- Pre-marital counseling topics and questions
- Suggestions for more than 20 different ceremony styles
- Sermon ideas and message outlines on several different themes
- Scripture readings, benedictions, and song suggestions
- Wedding checklists, building policies, shower ideas, and more
More Than 'I Do': A Pastor's Resource Book For Premarital Counseling
DOWNLOAD https://xiuty.com/2yWSiO
Staying married is one of the greatest challenges that couples will ever undertake. Marvin McMickle has provided a seven-step resource for premarital counseling that couples can use with or without the involvement of a clergy member or counselor. Developed over a thirty-year career in pastoral ministry, this book is based upon the premise that a healthy marriage is the result of what happens before a couple says, "I do." By focusing on seven concepts--
Marvin A. McMickle, DMin, PhD is currently Interim Regional Executive Minister of The Cleveland Baptist Association of American Baptist Churches USA. He was Interim Pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, where he previously served as senior pastor for nearly twenty-five years. He has also served as past president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York. No stranger to academia, McMickle previously served as professor of homiletics at Ashland Theological Seminary and in 2009, spent a semester as a visiting professor at Yale University Divinity School. He also taught at Case Western Reserve, Cleveland State, Princeton, and Fordham universities. A prolific author, McMickle, has more than a dozen books to his credit, including resources on preaching, ministry, and African American history
Premarital counseling has been shown to be very effective in improving relationship satisfaction, communication skills, and even reducing the likelihood of divorce. According to research, couples who underwent premarital counseling had a 30% higher marital success rate than couples who did not.
If, for whatever reason, speaking with your pastor cannot take place soon, you could consider another resource. Christian Family Solutions, an agency within WELS, offers counseling: both in-person and video counseling from the privacy of your home. This link will provide you with more information.
This is a question you will want to address to your pastor. While I can try to provide responses to many different kinds of questions, yours is one that requires a level of pastoral counseling. It will be helpful for your pastor to provide him with much more information than I have here. I encourage you to contact your pastor.
Another resource for premarital counseling recommended by both CBMW and Christians for Biblical Equality was the PREPARE/ENRICH program. PREPARE/ENRICH is a set of inventories put out by an organization called Life Innovations:
I did not start out this research to prove a point about either view. I started out to study premarital counseling from two different perspectives. I felt offended that many male hierarchists believe that couples who choose to live based on gifting are putting the health of their families at stake. This research has convinced me that premarital counseling is best when talents, personalities, and gifting are explored. I believe that it can hurt the premarital couple if they try to live within gender expectations rather than gifting. As a future premarital therapist, I plan to help couples explore what strengths they can bring into the relationship in order to create healthy intimacy. My core belief is that we all have spiritual gifts and should be free to use them.
As we learned what they wanted in a counseling center and they learned more of what Bridgehaven was, we realized we were like-minded and that launching a second office of Bridgehaven close to them met both our needs. This allowed the Summit to have a center closer to our Blue Ridge, Cary, and Capital Hills campuses and for these churches to have a quality pastoral counseling resource near them.
If you need counseling that requires meeting more frequently than weekly (i.e., intensive outpatient counselor) or desire casual social interaction (i.e., mentoring), then neither Bridgehaven nor the graduate intern program would be a good fit.
When you decide that you would benefit from counseling (and that sometimes takes us a while to acknowledge), there is still another hurdle to navigate: How do you find a counselor who is a good fit for your needs? Counseling is not as objective as medicine, so finding a good match with a counselor is more important than most helping relationships.
SBC has partnered with Right Now Media (RNM) to offer you more than 10,000 incredible video resources free of charge. If you have a RNM account, click any of the links below to be directed to their website. If you don't have a RNM account, set up your free account here. We especially recommend the following studies: The Art of Marriage, Grace-Filled Marriage, You and Me Forever, Changes That Heal
The minister of today . . . who does not avail himself of contemporarypsychology's invaluable contribution is neglecting an indispensableresource for effectiveness in his work. To know how character isformed, deformed and reformed is basic. . . . Because of ignorance ofthis available information, many ministers in dealing with personalproblems are doing far more harm than good.Harry Emerson Fosdick.
To schedule an appointment for professional counseling or premarital counseling, please call 817-704-6991 or email us at couns...@rushcreek.org. Our normal office hours are 8:30am-9pm, Monday-Thursday, and limited appointments on Friday. At times you may need to leave a message when our staff is unavailable, but please be assured that your voice message is confidential and will be responded to as soon as possible. For more on our counselors, continue to our Counselor Directory.
Congratulations if you've recently become engaged! Marriage is God's good idea to join a husband and a wife for a lifetime. Did you know premarital counseling or classes can reduce the chances of divorce by 31%? Since your marriage is the most important human relationship you'll ever have, CTK requires premarital counseling before your wedding. Plus, we regularly offer classes & workshops! Talk to your officiant for more information.
Should you happened to get engaged while a student at Liberty, we have multiple ordained pastors in our office who are able to walk you through premarital counseling. Our staff uses an excellent resource called Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (SYMBIS). Our staff does not charge to do premarital counseling, however, there is a $35 charge per couple to cover the cost of the computer generated assessment that steers the sessions. Many couples use our staff for premarital counseling and a family pastor for the wedding. However, we have pastors available to perform ceremonies. You can work directly with these pastors to determine financial arrangements.
As God instituted marriage, so He also sustains marriage. As a man and woman prepare to stand before God and be united in Him as one flesh, let them remember that a foundation on Christ Jesus is paramount. Marriage preparation is about more than just the wedding. It includes matters of household, Christian conflict management and reconciliation, sexual intimacy, and spiritual growth. Preparing for marriage means looking to Christ as the source and perfecter of the love a man and woman have for one another. The resources compiled here serve both pastors creating their premarital programs and the couples who seek to enter the holy estate of marriage faithfully.
Millennials are the generation most likely to begin counseling as treatment for mental illness, with more than one-third (34%) reporting this as the impetus for their therapy. By comparison, 23 percent of Gen X and 21 percent of Boomers cite this reason. These statistics may point to decreasing stigma around mental illness among younger generations, who have grown up with more open or public conversations about mental health.
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