Find Solid, Christian Premarital Counseling So You're Ready For A Healthy, Christian Marriage
Engagement is an exciting time in your relationship! You're all in now, and eager to get ready for your wedding day and a healthy marriage. But it's also a time of stress, where problems come to light. Knowing how to find a good premarital counselor, and what topics to cover, can make all the difference in how you handle them. And, what kind of foundation you lay for your marriage. These resources will help you get off on the right foot.
10 Essential Christian Premarital Counseling Topics
So, you’d like to get married. You’ve heard that premarital counseling during your engagement is a good idea. And it is: couples that pursue premarital counseling have a 30% higher success rate and avoid the most common
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Bryan has mentored my now-husband and I from singleness all the way through our first year of marriage. We never felt like passive students—more like active participants in building a relationship that glorified God, with an experienced and invested counselor as our guide.
Jason & Ann
Make The Most Of Your Engagement
Now that you've taken Beyoncé's advice and given your girlfriend a ring - or, if you're a woman - accepted one from your boyfriend - congratulations. Taking that step of formal commitment is a big deal, and honors God. This is starting to feel real.
But now what? What is engagement really for?
Practically-speaking, of course, it gives you and your fiancé(e) time to plan a wedding. To hire a DJ, photographer, and - of course - choose the perfect centerpieces.
But more importantly, your engagement is a time to get ready for a healthy marriage that glorifies God, serves others, and brings you joy.
At the same time, it doesn't just happen. If you're not intentional, engagement can feel like a mere holding pattern designed to frustrate you, and tempt the limits of your physical restraint. (It will do that, of course.)
You can also become so focused on each other, and your big day, that you lose touch with real community, and stop serving others. (My wife and I definitely made that mistake.)
Pursue Solid, Christian Premarital Counseling
That's where quality premarital counseling (and the SYMBIS assessment) comes in. By covering key Christian premarital counseling topics over several sessions - ideally with a transparent, seasoned godly couple - you'll uncover blind spots and strengths you never knew you had, and discover what the bible says about a healthy marriage.
Of course, the sessions themselves are not magic, or an information download. They're meant to be springboards for you and your fiancé(e) to have important conversations.
Guided preparation in-between sessions is important, too. Too often, couples either receive no 'homework' and squander the time between sessions, or, receive too much, get overwhelmed and start to feel burdened.
We need to turn to Scripture so we see God and ourselves accurately. And, to hear what he has to say about marriage and relating to each other. But then, we need to connect what God says to the details of where we live everyday. To the argument we just had on our way to church. And, how we're going to relate to our in-laws.
Good premarital counseling does all this, and more so that your engagement helps your marriage mirror the relationship God has with us, his church, through Christ.
'This mystery [of marriage] is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.' (Ephesians 5:32
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