The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring: Connecting Couples to Build Better Marriages

The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring: Connecting Couples to Build Better Marriages

A comprehensive resource to help churches build a thriving marriage mentoring program Les and Leslie Parrott are passionate about how marriage mentoring can transform couples, families, and entire congregations. The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring includes life-changing insights and essential skills for• Preparing engaged and newlywed couples• Maximizing marriages from good to great• Repairing marriages in distressPractical guidelines help mentors and couples work together as a team, agree on outcomes, and develop skills for the marriage mentoring process. Appendixes offer a wealth of additional resources and tools. An exhaustive resource for marriage mentorship in any church setting, this guide also includes insights from interviews with church leaders and marriage mentors from around the country.“The time is ripe for marriage mentoring, and this book is exactly what we need.” ― Gary Smalley, author of The DNA of Relationships A comprehensive resource to help churches build a thriving marriage mentoring program Les and Leslie Parrott are passionate about how marriage mentoring can transform couples, families, and entire congregations. The Complete Guide to Marriage Mentoring includes life-changing insights and essential skills for • Preparing engaged and newlywed couples • Maximizing marriages from good to great • Repairing marriages in distress Practical guidelines help mentors and couples work together as a team, agree on outcomes, and develop skills for the marriage mentoring process. Appendixes offer a wealth of additional resources and tools. An exhaustive resource for marriage mentorship in any church setting, this guide also includes insights from interviews with church leaders and marriage mentors from around the country. “The time is ripe for marriage mentoring, and this book is exactly what we need.” -- Gary Smalley, author of The DNA of Relationships #1 New York Times bestselling authors Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are psychologists and founders of the game-changing online assessments: SYMBIS.com , BetterLove.com , and Yada.com . Their best-selling books include Love Talk, The Good Fight, Crazy Good Sex, and the award-winning Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts . Their work has been featured in the New York Times and USA Today and on CNN, Good Morning America , the Today Show , The View , and Oprah . LesAndLeslie.com The Complete Guide to Marriage MentoringCopyright 2005 by The Foundation for Healthy RelationshipsRequests for information should be addressed to:Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataParrott, Les. The complete guide to marriage mentoring : connecting couples to build better marriages / Les and Leslie Parrott ; foreword by Gary Smalley. --- 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27046-1 ISBN-10: 0-310-27046-4 1. Church work with married people. 2. Mentoring in church work. I. Parrott, Leslie L., 1964 -- II. Title. BV4012.27.P36 2005259'.14 --- dc22 2005020701This edition printed on acid-free paper.All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New Inter national Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.Scripture quotations marked LB are taken from The Living Bible. Copyright 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.Some anecdotes in this book are composites of real situations, but names, facts, and issues have been changed to protect confidentiality.The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means --- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other --- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.Published in association with Yates and Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Suite 1000, Liter ary Agent, Orange, CA.Interior design by Beth ShagenePrinted in the United States of AmericaPART ONEThe BIG PICTURE on MARRIAGE MENTORINGWisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing.ECCLESIASTES 7:11Can you imagine giving an inheritance to another couple --- a couple not related to you? It's an unusual gift, indeed, but that's exactly what you'll be doing as a marriage mentor. As you pour your wisdom into another couple who has not yet traveled the distance you have in your own marriage, you'll impart an invaluable gift that this couple would never receive on their own. That's why we're thrilled at the thought of your interest in marriage mentoring. We also believe you'll find it to be one of the most rew