A Pre-Marital Counseling Guide for Christians
When couples decide to get married, they often lose themselves in the frenzy of event planning and dress-shopping, and forget to concentrate on each other and the commitment they are about to make. Counseling resources often caution couples to take time to attend a workshop or take some premarital counseling sessions, as they can be great venues for establishing a good foundation for a successful marriage.
Often led by trained religious figures, psychologists or therapists, the sessions are a professional and objective place to discuss marriage roles, clarify each other’s expectations and values, establish ways to communicate and avoid conflict, and many other relevant topics.
Centers Around the Country – Christian Marriage Counseling Facts & Resources – General Pre-Marriage Resources
Centers Around the Country
- Apokata has offices in San Francisco and Fremont, California. The premarital counseling sessions aim to help couples prepare for a successful marriage. (415-362-6099)
- Capstone Christian Counseling has premarital counseling for the Temecula area of California. They aim to use faith and professionalism to help their clients deal with the issues of marriage and other counseling specialties. (951-695-3337)
- Center for Marriage has a four session educational program designed for couples that are planning to get married. The goals of the sessions are to build skills related to marriage and to raise awareness. The Center is located in Solana Beach, California. (858-755-3519)
- MyWedding.com has a listing for The Saratoga Chapel, which offers premarital counseling classes. It is located in Ballston Lake, New York and can be contacted via the website.
- Mandarin Christian Counseling Center located in Jacksonville, Florida offers premarital counseling. The sessions cover topics like conflict resolution, finances, children and others. (904-997-0096)
- Marriage Healers offers premarital counseling consultations and sessions. Janet Greenwood, the therapist behind this endeavor, serves the Sacramento area. (916-924-8255)
- New Day Counseling in Michigan specializes in a multitude of different types of counseling and therapy programs. The center has one program specifically designed for premarital counseling. (248-649-8050)
- Redeemer Presbyterian Church offers pre-marital counseling in New York, among many other counseling services. They are geared toward couples considering engagement or are already engaged. (212-808-4460)
- Soul Care Center offers interactive premarital counseling in the Greater Seattle area. Pastor John Kilough uses the Bible to help people cope with social, financial and other issues that arise. (206-244-7600)
- Total Life Counseling has programs designed to help couples deal with the challenges of marriage and to assess readiness for marriage. Total Life Counseling has offices across Florida. (407-248-0030)
Christian Marriage Counseling Facts & Resources
- The rates of divorce among Christian couples are nearly indistinguishable from the national average (33%), according to The Barna Group’s statistics.
- There are few sites that have legitimate information about the success rates or related statistics on whether there are positive effects due to premarital counseling sessions. Many sites offer conflicting results on the same subject, most of which are not scientifically or based in attributable or statistically significant studies. Examples below:
- Sandra Levy Ceren: personal study, few participants
- Buzzle editorial: about marital counseling, but could be relevant to premarital counseling in terms of the engagement
- Pine Hill Counseling: throws out a number, 30% success rate, without any attribution
- However, it appears that while much of the information out there about premarital counseling is based in conjecture and biased, the concept behind it is still very appealing to many who want a successful marriage.
- CCES discusses how premarital counseling is key to learn the skills to make a marriage last. It emphasizes how counseling will facilitate communication and conflict resolution from the start.
- ChristiaNet’s article about premarital counseling stresses the similar divorce rates among secular and religious couples. It reasons that having an objective professional clarify each member of the couple’s needs and viewpoints on marriage can help prevent conflicts in the future by helping the couple learn how to overcome the conflicts.
- Crosswalk has an article about the importance of couples to evaluate their readiness for marriage and the state of their relationship before taking the plunge. It outlines some typical issues couples face after marriage, including money, children, roles within the marriage and others. The writers encourage premarital counseling to improve couples’ conflict resolution and general communication skills that can help iron out differences before the marriage takes place.
- GrowthTrac is a large online resource for marriage and how to improve relationships. The site has information on marriage, counseling of all types, spirituality, and other topics.
- Living Life Counseling offers a questionnaire covering the many facets of marriage. Some of these topics include marital readiness, lifestyle expectations, religious faith and values, and other concerns. It incorporates also the use of a manual that will help couples discuss and strengthen areas of their relationship where there are disagreements or differences.
- Marriage Counselors explains how Christian premarital counseling can reinforce religious beliefs about marriage and address practical issues that arise after marriage.
General Pre-Marriage Resources
- Celebrating Marriage encourages participation and offers information on counseling and workshops designed to help couples understand and appreciate each other’s similarities and differences, establish an objective platform for discussion about critical or uncomfortable issues and help set goals for marriage.
- Cornerstone Financial Counseling offers pre-marriage financial counseling for couples. Counselors will help couples learn how to manage and communicate about money, set up a spending plan, and how to make them independently in the future.
- Equality in Marriage has a section on marriage preparation and offers resources on how to build a strong marriage. The article lists places to find marriage preparation courses that can help couples learn to communicate and understand one another’s expectations going into the marriage.
- Family Life Respect Life Office has a checklist of sorts for individuals preparing for marriage. On their site, couples can register to discuss their marriage plans with a priest or deacon, sign up for and attend marriage preparation workshops, and finally follow up with the priest or deacon and proceed with their plans.
- Focus on the Family has a large section of its site dedicated to ‘Preparing for Marriage’. Some of the topics covered are how to establish foundations for a life-long marriage, how to resolve conflicts and clarify expectations, and others.
- OCMarriage is a website dedicated to helping couples in Orange County, California. There are many resources on the site, and especially so if you live in southern California and want to find marriage education classes.
- San Diego Marriage Resource Center offers a long list of resources for couples to prepare for marriage. Its site details books, courses, and counseling sources to help the couples develop their characters, clarify their values, and other related issues.
- Sounds of Encouragement expounds on the idea that pre-marriage education is vital to making marriages work. It encourages couple or group counseling to discuss various subjects integral to marriage.
- Stay Hitched provides information on why pre-marital counseling is essential to making marriages successful. The article talks about the importance of fleshing out the details of the realities of marriage.
- The Quest is a Christian site that has a premarital counseling resource article listing books that serve as general aids for couples looking for guidance before their marriage.
- WedAlert’s article talked specifically about how essential premarital counseling is to the success of marriage. It makes a very convincing argument that counseling will strengthen and clarify the relationship and establish constructive tools that can be used in future challenges that arise.