The date is set. Plans are being made. Excitement is filling the air, except it is not your enthusiasm, but the wide-eyed, hand holding, “lovey dovey” couple sitting before you in your office. They cannot wait to get married, and you, perhaps, maybe cannot wait to get them married. Whatever role you have, and in many cases, I suppose a pastoral or helper one, you are attempting to garner the attention of these two lovebirds over the pushy mothers and mother-in-laws, the wedding planner, and a number of other things pulling on these two. Perhaps you hope to give them one or two magical “nuggets” that will set them on a course for success, but you feel that your efforts may even fall short, as it can be difficult to articulate what has worked for you if you are married yourself and have experienced some marital success, but that may not even be true. So my question is- are you desiring to be better able to effectively deliver premarital counseling to the number of couples you engage with annually who are seeking to make the walk down the aisle to marital bliss?
If you are, then there is a great opportunity for you to develop your skill set as a pastor, counselor, or wedding officiant by attending a workshop dedicated to making you an effective, confident and competent premarital guide. Whether you have advanced training or not, PREPARE/ENRICH is a well-studied and established tool to utilize when providing premarital guidance. It is easy to learn and provides facilitators with a number of resources and concrete test results about a couple to help you effectively know and guide those sitting before you.
Many times in premarital counseling, you may be faced with a couple you barely know who only agrees to meet with you because of their desire for access to the space for their planned matrimonial event. This is a wonderful way to be effective in getting those couples to take a little time to look beyond the wedding event and to study the state of their relationship while providing tools to aide them in taking the next step. It also allows for those functioning as an officiant to have a better sense of the people who’s ceremony you are presiding over, or to know whether it is something you feel comfortable presiding over.
So if you are looking to become a more equipped and engaging premarital counselor, sign up for this opportunity to train as a PREPARE/ENRICH facilitator today! The video below outlines more of how PREPARE/ENRICH works as a training module. If you are interested in this training and cannot attend the one scheduled, please let me know! I would be glad to work with you about putting on another workshop sometime. And finally, if you typically do premarital counseling but would rather not, we can help with that too! I would be glad to talk further about setting up a referral plan with you for premarital counseling.