3.
What Does the Community Agree To?
Evangelical clergy join Catholic priests, mainline clergy and minority
pastors at the local courthouse to sign a public covenant to implement proven
reforms to make healthy marriages a priority in their congregations. They commit
to do a better job preparing couples for a lifelong marriage, enriching existing
ones and saving those in crisis. Specifically, they are agreeing to:
1. Require 4-6 months of rigorous marriage preparation by trained Mentor Couples
(note caps) who supplement the pastor’s counseling.
2. Recruit Mentor Couples within their houses of worship who will:
Click here to see some sample agreements.
They agree:
- Not to marry any couple who has not had significant pre-marital
preparation from both the clergy and a marriage mentor couple who augment
the clergy’s counseling.
- To recruit and sustain mentor couples within their houses of worship
who will:
- PREPARE couples for a healthy marriage, including:
- Administering a premarital Inventory
- Teaching conflict resolution skills
- Sharing scriptural, faith-based principles
- ENRICH all existing marriages with at least an annual retreat
at the church
- RESTORE troubled ones by training “back-from-the-brink”
couples whose own marriages were once in crisis, to mentor those
considering divorce.
- CREATE a Stepfamily Support Group to assist couples
with stepchildren, who typically divorce at a 70% rate - to be
successful in four out of five cases.
- To support the training of mentor couples through qualified trainers
such as Marriage Savers.
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Prepare for lifelong marriages