FEATURE
It’'s Worth It THE POWER OF MENTORING MARRIAGES
BY FRANK STIRK
J
ared McDonald and Brittany Wilson just got married. But before they tied the knot, they spent eight weeks being mentored in marriage by another couple in their church — Kirk Giles, the president of Promise Keepers Canada, and his wife, Shannon. Their time together reflects a growing trend in Canadian churches to engage people other than pastors and counselors in the work of strengthening the bonds of marriage both before and after the wedding. “I don’t actually think of it as ‘counseling,’” McDonald says. “I just think of it as going to see someone who is more like a mentor — and a friend as well. They’ve been married a long time and it was good to see their different perspective. They were able to speak from their experience.” Kirk and Shannon Giles lead the pre-marriage mentoring team
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at Forward Church in Cambridge, Ontario. It is the first component of what is planned to be a ministry to couples, Christian and nonChristian, at every stage of their married life. A key element in the program is weekly meetings where a marriage-mentoring couple invites a young couple such as Jared and Brittany into their home. The sessions allow them to talk through their expectations of marriage on things like communication, sex, dreams for the future, their freetime preferences, and so on. FamilyLife Canada also offers marriage-mentor training. There are 645 trained mentor couples and 154 churches that are using marriage mentoring now in Canada, director Brent Trickett explains. The couples meet once a month for about a year to discuss fourteen marriage-related topics. “It’s really just conversations that a Christian couple is going to lead them through,” he says. “We always bring it back around to remembering that marriage is about two people becoming one,” Giles says. “And if you’re withholding a secret from your spouse-to-be and from God, you’re not setting your marriage up for success. If there’s ever a time when you’re going to need to deal with this, now is the time. We can’t control whether or not they follow through on those things, but we can set the environment and create the conversation in such a way that provides the opportunity for them to take those next steps in their relationship.” Kevin Pent, Forward’s Church Life Pastor, concedes there are times when the issues adversely impacting a marriage are so deep or complex that a couple needs professional or pastoral help. “But for the average marriage that’s
