Marriage Savers Resources

Marriage Savers at Coral Ridge

One of Marriage Savers most important strategies to reduce divorce is training couples in healthy marriages who can be found in any church to serve as Mentor Couples. Mike and Harriet McManus pioneered this strategy in their home church.  Over a decade they trained more than 50 Mentor Couples who prepared 288 couples for marriage.  The preparation involved administering a premarital inventory to give the couple an objective view of their strengths and areas for growth, teaching communication and conflict resolution skills, and modeling what a healthy marriage looks like. Result: of the 288 couples prepared for marriage, 55 decided NOT to marry.  But of the 233 who did, there were only 7 divorces or separations in a decade. That is a 97% success rate – virtual marriage insurance. Mike and Harriet have trained more than 4,000 Mentor Couples around the country. This DVD is an independent look at marriage mentoring by the Coral Ridge Hour, introduced by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy.  Producers taped a mentoring session by Mike and Harriet and interviewed both couples on the experience.  The DVD also includes a couple reporting how marriage mentoring saved their troubled  marriage in Tallahassee, a Community Marriage Policy which Marriage Savers helped to create.  And it profiles another couple who were divorced for five years before remarrying, with the help of a Mentor Couple.  "If we had been mentored before we married, we would have never divorced," says one spouse. Marriage Savers suggests ordering this DVD ($10) to illustrate what a Mentor Couple is to leaders of your church or to local clergy considering creating a Community Marriage Policy.