Greetings from Me and My House,
I’m going to intersperse the series of articles with a few shorter posts addressing some recent questions/ comments to the list. This one deals with preparing our children for Christian Marriage.
We give plenty of teaching/ training on courtship, marriage, men’s/ women’s biblical roles, etc. throughout our children’s education; but when they are actually at the point of leaving (our home) and cleaving (to their spouse-to-be) we believe 2 steps of specific, in-depth preparation are paramount. They are Freedom from the past and specific now-that-you’re-engaged marriage councel. I will recommend 1 resource for each, although I know there are many good ones out there. These are 2 of the best we’ve found that are very thorough within themselves. We wished we’d been saved and known about them *BEFORE* WE got married.
Yes, even “good Christian homeschool” kids pick up wounds and offenses that they need freed from, before entwining their life with another. “Restoring the Foundations” is a “healing/ freedom” ministry (I hesitate to say “deliverance” ministry because of the conotation. This is NOT typical “deliverance” ministry, but it does bring freedom through prayer.) This ministry focuses on 4 ministry areas through prophetic (listening) prayer councel. They are Sins of the Fathers/ Generational Curses, Soul/ Spirit Hurts, Ungodly Beliefs, and Demonic Oppresion. The counceling begins with freeing yourself to receive ministry through releasing forgiveness and proceeds to deal with each of the areas, and how they’ve affected your life, through prayer – family sins that may be underlying in their life, soul/ spirit hurts (from wounds and offenses), ungodly beliefs (even kids with good Christian foundations can pick up negative/ worldly beliefs especially about themselves, or relationships, etc), and demonic oppression (areas where – usually, from carrying one of the above, satan/ his demons have gained a stronghold). There is an opening questionaire/ interview to give an idea of what areas need addressed. This is not a high-strung, in your face type thing. It’s very low key, yet mightily powerful – simply listening prayer, and Holy Spirit freeing. There are trained “Restoring the Foundations” councelors around the country, as well as a “Healing House” you can go to for a week, but you can also just order the manual and work through it yourself or (preferably) with another person. I think ideally, parents would become trained (by going through the ministry themselves), then lead their young adult children through it. In some intances, a young person may not feel they can go through this with their parents, and may need to go to other RTF ministers. The manual (aprox. $40), and more info on finding a RTF minister (people within local churches), are available through Proclaiming His Word ministry, http://phw.org
The other area we see a great lack of training in is actual what-to-expect-when-you’re-married-and-how-to-handle it type counceling. Sorry, pastors, but most of what we’ve seen as pre-marital pastoral counceling is really lame. Young Christian couples are not being given the foundation they need to go the distance in facing a world (and the Enemy) hostile to their Christian marriage. We highly recommend Family Life Marriage Conference. They include a special track for engaged couples. Obviously, we haven’t been through *that* track, but the rest of the conference is GREAT. It teaches how to build Oneness in marriage, what obsticles you’ll face, and how to get around them. Conferences are held around the nation. A friend’s daughter and fiancee went to one of these before they were married. The result was she and her siblings sent their parents, their parents came home and started the Family Life “Home Builders” bible studies in our church, resulting in US going to the conference. It is powerful life changing stuff. Early registration $85.00 per *person*. Go to http://familylife.com
At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa
P.S. Since this was originally posted, Ashli and her husband have gone through the pre-married track before they were married. It was great preparation (only a couple minor points we disagree with).
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