Marriage Savers Travel Schedule: 2010
Readers are invited to attend any of the following events. However, scheduled
events are subject to change. Please call the contact person listed below for
fresh information on place, time and event.
The following is the schedule for training and Community Marriage Policy
signings by Marriage Savers® Co Chairs Mike & Harriet McManus.
Normally we will train Mentor Couples, clergy and counselors from 6:30 to 10
p.m. on Fridays and from 8:30 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. If there is a signing of a
Community Marriage Policy, it typically is at 1 p.m. on the same Friday as the
training. Check with local leaders for details regarding time and place. A
Marriage Savers training covers proven interventions at five stages of the
marital life cycle: Preparation, Enrichment, Restoration, Reconciliation and
Stepfamilies. Details of these interventions are explained below the schedule.
We also meet with pastors who are considering creating a Community Marriage
Policy. We conduct Marriage Enrichment Weekends for couples and Restoration
Marriage Ministry training for couples whose own marriages were once in crisis
on how they could mentor couples in current crisis.
July 10, 2010
- SMART MARRIAGES "Teach-In" 5:15pm
-
Orlando, FL Rosen
Shingle Creek Hotel
On how to reform No Fault Divorce
law, with a model bill by Missouri Rep. Cynthia Davis, HB 1234,
which is based on Mike's book, "How To Cut America's Divorce Rate in
Half: A Strategy Every State Should Adopt"
1. Give "marriage insurance" to the engaged -- a 95% guarantee that
their marriage will go the distance.
Three elements are involved.
First, couples are given a premarital inventory to
give couples an objective view of their relational strengths and
areas for growth. A tenth of couples who take an inventory
decide not to marry.
Second, couples in healthy marriages are trained to
administer the inventory and discuss the unique issues it
surfaces with each couple.
Third, trained Mentor Couples teach skills of how to
resolve conflict. This combination raises the percentage of
those who break up short of marriage to a fifth. Studies
indicate that those who break an engagement have the same scores
as those who marry and later divorce. They have avoided a bad
marriage before it begins. For example, in the church of Mike &
Harriet McManus, of 288 couples who prepared for marriage from
1992-2000, 21 dropped out of the course, mostly to break up.
Another 34 couples completed the process, and decided not to
marry. That’s 55 couples who decided NOT to marry -- is a high
19% dropout rate. However, of those couples who did marry, there
have been only seven divorces, a 97% success rate over a
decade. That's marriage insurance.
2. Enrich all existing marriages by conducting an annual
week-end event at the church, using a marital inventory, speakers,
or videos.
For example, a DVD series called “10 Great Dates” has been
used to strengthen 100,000 marriages. If couples offer free
babysitting, scores of couples will come to the church on a
Friday or Saturday night, drop their kids off and then watch a
20 minute DVD excerpt on such topics as “Resolving Honest
Conflict,” “Becoming an Encourager” or “Building a Creative Love
Life.” Couples then go on a 90 minute date for dessert and
coffee where they fill out a brief questionnaire on that week’s
theme from a paperback book, and talk. Ten such Great Dates are
scheduled every week for 10 weeks, or every other week. Total
cost to the couple, the $12 for the paperback.
3. Restore four out of five troubled marriages by training
"back-from-the-brink couples"
Restore four out of five troubled marriages by training
"back-from-the-brink couples" (whose own marriages once nearly
failed) to mentor couples currently in crisis. A couple nearly
driven apart by adultery who survived has something to say to a
couple in a crisis over adultery. Marriage Savers offers a
“Restoration Marriage Ministry” training over a Friday
night-Saturday training.
4. Reconcile the separated using a self-guided workbook course,
"Marriage 911"
Separation is usually a prelude for divorce. However,
separation can be used to spark personal, professional and
spiritual growth that attracts back the errant spouse. The
person trying to save his/her marriage takes this course with a
friend of same gender, who gets a Support Partner Handbook to
serve as an accountability partner, meeting weekly for 12 weeks.
"Marriage 911" heals more than half the marriages of the
separated. Cost: Only $28 plus shipping.
5. Help stepfamilies succeed by creating "Stepfamily Support
Groups"
Help stepfamilies succeed by creating "Stepfamily Support
Groups" that give couples with children from a previous marriage
a place and a plan to learn how to be successful parents and
partners. A kit is provided with a Manual on how to work with
five organizing stepfamily couples, a CD by the author, Rev.
Dick Dunn, played at the beginning of each meeting, and a
paperback book, “Willing to Try Again." Instead of losing 70% of
stepparents to divorce, this program saves 80% of remarriages,
at a cost of only $38 to the church.
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