Prevention in marriage is three times more effective than intervention. Plus, as the average couple is unhappy six years before their first intervention, most intervention efforts fail. Presently, many churches lack an effective structure to prevent crisis. They have premarital counseling and crisis counseling, but no structure to help couples during their marriage. As one pastor said, “the only thing we were missing was the entire marriage.”
The “if it gets so bad I can’t take it, I’ll get help” model does not work. Churches and couples need to get proactive and strategic to protect and grow marriages. Everything needs attention to thrive and, as John Maxwell states, “Nothing is great by accident.”
We realize everything takes work to grow, but somehow we just expect our marriages to be fine without proactive investment. It is time churches and couples prioritize marriage and make space to “work on” their relationship.
A leader once told me, “Couples will be no more intentional with their marriages than churches are with their marriage ministries.” Grace Marriage equips the church to have an intentional and effective marriage ministry for all couples. We provide the church with curriculum, facilitator guides, promotional materials and other resources to implement and maintain an ongoing marriage ministry structure.
As one pastor excitedly said, “Now, when I do a wedding, I don’t have to just tell the couple ‘Good Luck.’ I have a structure to help them do well and continue to grow in their marriage.” Another minister stated, “I hardly ever do crisis marriage counseling since our couples got involved with Grace Marriage.”
We are all for good youth and children’s programs, but the spiritual growth of children is more dependent on the health of their parents’ marriage than an hour or two of weekly church programming. We ask churches to compare the investment in children and youth ministries to that of marriage and ask the question, “Should we invest more time and effort into our marriages?”
If you want to do less crisis marriage counseling and help couples avoid the pains of crisis and divorce, please call us. We would be honored to work with you in the effort to institute an investment mentality in marriage.