LoveForever Marriage Ministry Plan

Our vision for the LoveForever Marriage Ministry Plan is to provide opportunities for growth and fellowship for engaged and married couples, in a covenantal relationship with their spouses, families, congregation, and God. To reach this goal, a broad range of educational, spiritual, and fellowship activities and studies has been developed and created for implementation by the local church or organization. This plan is directed at preparing couples for marriage, improving marriage relationships, creating closer friendships with other couples, and assisting marriages in crisis.

Any comprehensive master plan for marriage ministry requires commitment to a certain responsibility from the congregation or other organization. When a couple decides to become united in holy matrimony, it is the congregation's responsibility to help them examine their hearts to confirm and affirm that which God desires for them in this union. Therefore, each couple needs to spend time in marriage preparation focused on God's gift of marriage, the centrality and divinity of Christ in the home, and the couple's responsibility of obedience to God, the giver of the covenant between them.

The comprehensive plan provides a map for extensive marriage ministry for church members on the journey from pre-marriage training and mentoring, through the newlywed years, through marriage enhancement, until they part as a couple at the end of their lives. Each phase of ministry includes curricula for effective classes and seminars, establishment of small groups, mentor couple assignments and training, and development of local resource centers. There are other journey-specific options, as well.

A consultant from Center for Covenant-Based Marriage, assigned specifically to your project, researches and evaluates your church's particular situation. The consultant then develops and presents to your pastoral staff a personalized approach to the LoveForever Marriage Ministry Plan for integration into the church's overall ministry scope. Training specific to the implementation of this plan is provided for pastors and other key leaders. Follow-up for a significant period of time is provided that ensures the Plan is implemented to the satisfaction of the pastoral staff and appropriately received by the congregation.

The main aspects of the Plan include:

Interspersed throughout each of these phases are numerous opportunities for growth of your couples. Each phase includes recommended classes and seminars, growth groups (referred to as ECG's or MEG's - Engaged Couples Groups or Marriage Enrichment Groups, as appropriate), retreats/getaways, dinners and activities, and marriage mentoring. You will find that mentor couples will be the backbone of the effectiveness of this plan as it is implemented, and as it matures over time.

Friends for Life Marriage Mentors

The main strength of this plan for marriages at the church is the team of specially trained and anointed couples with good marriages who have proven experience and relationship skills to share with other couples. They care about couples and want to help make other couples' marriages what they can be – as God directs!

Couples that have built a strong marriage have a great opportunity to pass on to other couples what God has given them by becoming a Marriage Mentor Couple. We provide your staff with the training necessary for them to know how to identify, equip, and develop these couples into effective and rewarding mentoring relationships with other couples.

LoveForever Covenant Marriage Program

Center for Covenant-Based Marriage affirms that marriage is a lifelong covenant relationship made between a man and a woman and God. When a couple shares their wedding vows, they are vowing to God, each other, their families, and their community to remain steadfast in unconditional love, reconciliation, and sexual purity, while purposefully growing in their covenant marriage relationship.

This part of the overall marriage plan provides couples not only with a printed covenant statement for them to sign individually - a personalized, beautiful, elegant parchment for framing and hanging – but also a statement to which their friends, families, and congregation will be asked to hold the couple accountable. This covenant, initiated by the congregation, is one that comes from God and is lived through the local body of Christ. We provide your staff with the tools, including the ceremony and accompanying messages, if you so desire, to have an annual covenant marriage celebration at your church. This is an exciting and memorable component of all that we offer you through the LoveForever Marriage Ministries Plan.

These are the major components of the LoveForever Marriage Ministries Plan which we develop and personalize for your congregation. You may already have many of these components in place. If you do, that's great! If you need or desire certain aspects added to your mix of ministry to marriages, we can provide those aspects for you and help you implement the changes to your ministry.