Premarital Guidance (Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series)

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Introduction
Review: In this short (115 page) book, Charles Taylor provides an overview of the many issues clergy face about providing premarital guidance. The experiences of two pastors provide examples that run through the entire book.

Taylor begins by explaining his understanding of the goals of religious marriage preparation as well as the resources and skills pastors bring to the process. On the subject of method, Taylor favors group courses with a multiple topic, skills-training approach. Structured interviews, workbooks, premarital inventories, and combined approaches are also discussed.

Taylor explains common couple tasks, ways to teaching scripture pastorally, and preparing for the wedding itself in some depth. However, the book is still an overview rather than a detailed program to follow.

One aspect of the book I found especially helpful was a discussion of written policies, both why churches and ministers should have them and suggested topics to include. Another very useful part of the book was the appendix that reviews frequently-used workbooks (Grenz & Glover's The Marriage Journey and Hunt & Hunt's Preparing for Christian Marriage), inventories (FOCCUS, PAI, and PREPARE), and courses (Dyer & Dyer's Growing Together and Midgley & Midgley's Decision to Love).

Some sections of the book apply the metanoia model of pastoral care Taylor first described in The Skilled Pastor. Reading this previous book can be helpful, but isn't necessary to understand Premarital Guidance.

As a ministry student who realized that my seminary training would leave me unprepared for doing premarital counseling, I am grateful to have Charles Taylor's Premarital Guidance. I recommend it along with Stahmann & Hiebert's Premarital and Remarital Counseling and Anderson & Fite's Becoming Married to anyone in a similar situation.

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Introduction
Review: In this short (115 page) book, Charles Taylor provides an overview of the many issues clergy face about providing premarital guidance. The experiences of two pastors provide examples that run through the entire book.

Taylor begins by explaining his understanding of the goals of religious marriage preparation as well as the resources and skills pastors bring to the process. On the subject of method, Taylor favors group courses with a multiple topic, skills-training approach. Structured interviews, workbooks, premarital inventories, and combined approaches are also discussed.

Taylor explains common couple tasks, ways to teaching scripture pastorally, and preparing for the wedding itself in some depth. However, the book is still an overview rather than a detailed program to follow.

One aspect of the book I found especially helpful was a discussion of written policies, both why churches and ministers should have them and suggested topics to include. Another very useful part of the book was the appendix that reviews frequently-used workbooks (Grenz & Glover's The Marriage Journey and Hunt & Hunt's Preparing for Christian Marriage), inventories (FOCCUS, PAI, and PREPARE), and courses (Dyer & Dyer's Growing Together and Midgley & Midgley's Decision to Love).

Some sections of the book apply the metanoia model of pastoral care Taylor first described in The Skilled Pastor. Reading this previous book can be helpful, but isn't necessary to understand Premarital Guidance.

As a ministry student who realized that my seminary training would leave me unprepared for doing premarital counseling, I am grateful to have Charles Taylor's Premarital Guidance. I recommend it along with Stahmann & Hiebert's Premarital and Remarital Counseling and Anderson & Fite's Becoming Married to anyone in a similar situation.

Rating:
Summary: Table of Contents
Review: Introduction Chapter 1 -- Four Aspects of Premarital Guidance (1. Religious marital preparation; 2. Couples' issues and tasks: Getting a blessing, Leaving, and Cleaving; 3. Pastoral Resources: the pastoral person, Scripture, Christian tradition, contemporary theology and ethics, covenant communities, prayer and rites; 4. Bringing together issues and resources) Chapter 2 -- Skills for Couple Care (The opening session: How did you decide to marry? Why a Church marriage? Negotiating the contract; Presence skills: attending, positioning, observing, and listening; Proclamation skills: assessing, challenging, reviewing; Guidance skills: goal setting, developing programs, and planning implementation; Structuring tactics: engaging both partners and regulating the depth of inquiry) Chapter 3 -- Session Components (handling initial concerns, reviewing preparation, setting the agenda, exploring and expanding understandings, negotiating contracts, and getting information) Topics (communication, conflict resolution, role relationship, sexuality, spiritual values and religion, children, family of origin and friends, relaxation and leisure interests, personality and relating style, finances, and marriage expectations) Chapter 4 -- Common Couple Tasks (Getting a blessing: the bonding process, the choice of mates, complementarity between partners, the religious dimension of bonding, getting the relationship blessed, problems getting the family blessing; Leaving: children and leaving, cultural differences in leaving, leaving as a step of faith, leaving is not running away, some are not ready to leave, leaving comes before the wedding; Cleaving: marriage in societal transition, cleaving as "bonding in the desert", difficulties with cleaving) Chapter 5 -- Teaching Scripture Pastorally (Ephesians 5:21-33 -- The context: Christ breaking down the dividing wall; the beginning of the passage: verse 21; the meaning of "to be subject"; mutual self-giving; out of reverence for Christ; resources to sustain mutual submission) Chapter 6 -- Preparing for the Wedding (The six questions; praying the rite and scripture; elements of a marriage policy; rehearsal and family conference) Chapter 7 -- Reflections Appendix A (Workbooks; Premarital Inventories: Facilitating open couple communication, understanding and study (FOCCUS); The premarriage awareness inventory (PAI); Prepare/enrich inventory (P/E); comparisons of inventories; Courses: "Growing Together" and "A Decision to Love") Appendix B (Praying the Service and Scriptures (Praying individually; praying as a couple)