Well said.
Finally, the churches are restoring one of their vital responsibilities.
The goal is to get the government out of EVERY church function.
And that means, first and foremost, the end of the $900 billion per year federal welfare scam which INCREASED poverty from 11 to 15%.
Sincerely,
John
----- Original Message -----
John:
This article is absolutely true. Retrouvaille or "Marriage Savers" started in Montreal, Canada. So successful was this Catholic program that it has spread throughout the Catholic church and established itself in the Protestant churches as well. There is a 70 to 95 percent success rate in healing marriages. Basically, the program starts out where the couples have to draw a line in the sand per se and start to "un"- learn the bad habits developed in a marriage. One of the rules is to agree to rebuild for the future, forget the past, and to stop the name calling. It's a pretty fantastic program. I'm all for it because whites need in tact families to reproduce at higher levels. As you know, divorce has been most devastating on the white race. The unlearning I speak of is composed of and infested with jewish tabloid lies. It takes expert coaches (teachers that have gone through the trauma themselves) to diffuse the anger and confusion from such lies. Minimizing divorce will eliminate much of the female divorce rebound where they quite often end up with promiscuous chimps and muds.
CHURCHES CAN VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE DIVORCE
(fourth of a 5-part series)
By Mike McManus
Is it possible for a church or synagogue to virtually eliminate divorce?
Yes, if the congregation trains a network of Mentor Couples who create a
safety net under every marriage. Consider Killearn United Methodist Church
in a suburb of Tallahassee. Outwardly, it looks like any large successful
church with four services every Sunday, two traditional and two
contemporary, that are packed out with 2,500 members.
Since January, 1999 it trained 25 premarital Mentor Couples, who prepared
75-100 couples for marriage, only one of whom has divorced. And six
''Marriage Savers'' couples whose own marriages once nearly failed, worked
with 20 troubled marriages, only one of whom divorced.
That's only two divorces in three years for a church with thousands of
members.
Or consider Bread of Life, an inner city church in Kansas City, KS with 150
members, led by Pastor LeRoy Sullivan who started as a street evangelist.
Located in such a poor area, he bought a square block for his new church for
only $750. Since Bread of Life trained eight Mentor Couples three years
ago, there have been no divorces in the church. None.
In other words, money and size has nothing to do with a near zero divorce
rate.
What matters are couples such as Carol and Jeff Long, married 31 years in
Tallahassee. Their marriage nearly came apart years ago when he had an
affair. ''We were able to pull out of that and maintain our marriage,'' he
recalls. ''We felt like we had a lot to offer to couples in a similar
situation. We can offer hope that even after adultery, it is possible to
pull marriages back together.''
Every church has couples like the Longs, but has not appreciated them as the
marriage- saving treasure that they are, or trained them to tell their
stories of hope.
Most clergy assume professional credentials are essential to help a marriage
heading to divorce. However, many of those therapists with the Master's
degrees are ineffectual with troubled marriages. Or worse, they actually
recommend divorce!
Rev. Bob Tindale, senior pastor of Killearn UMC, has a different view.
''Crisis couples can be given hope if they sit down with someone who can
say, `We've have been there and we made it.' That is an incredible thing to
say to someone, particularly if there's been an affair,'' where the injured
spouse says, ''I don't believe I can get through this.''
''But the mentors say, `Yes you can. We have been there, and made it,' which
is more than I can say. It gives hope. And there's serendipity. Mentor
Couples tell me how much they get out of helping: `It keeps our marriage
fresh as we help another relationship.'''
Jerry and Beverly Smith have had a similar joy mentoring three couples who
were preparing for marriage. Oddly, all three had in-law problems. One
engaged couple was expected to call one set of parents every day. Another
couple had to sit with the proud parents in church and go out to lunch with
them every Sunday.
''We were surprised by their level of interference,'' said Beverly. ''We
encouraged them to be bold enough and assertive enough to express
dissatisfaction. The young couples were pleasantly surprised to find their
parents backed off.''
Richard and Elizabeth Albertson have helped 10 couples at Killearn UMC
prepare for marriage. In their final session, after talking through many
issues surfaced by the FOCCUS inventory, Richard tells couples, ''I want you
to make a commitment that if you ever get in trouble, before you call a
lawyer, will you call us? Three of the 10 couples have done so.
In one case, ''the man was bulldozing his wife, shutting her down. She had
moved out, but we got them back together. Just sitting down and talking
with us, or my talking to him privately and Elizabeth meeting with her was
enough to get them over the hump.''
The Albertsons have been the architects not only of Killearn UMC's mentoring
program, but of mentor programs in 60 churches who created a Tallahassee
Community Marriage Policy that has pushed down the county's divorce rate to
its lowest level in a decade, saving hundreds of marriages a year.
Four churches have been particularly successful. Why? ''Our approach is
comprehensive.
It is for the whole marital life cycle - from premarital or marriage
building, to enrichment of existing marriages, saving troubled marriages,
and repairing the lives of those hurt by divorce, even the children,''
Albertson says.
An 8-year-old girl said, ''I learned the divorce was not my fault.''
One result: Albertson (RichAlbert at aol.com) told Pensacola clergy this week
how to start a Community Marriage Policy.
END TXT Copyright 2001 Michael J. McManus
Michael J. McManus
Co-Founder & President
Marriage Savers
301 469-5873
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