Marriage Helps and Divorce Helps Give A Starting Place for Enrichment
What started as a gap-filling resource for my own work has become a set of pages I hope will be helpful. Like you, I had books, articles and helpful websites galore! They are the real backbone of my resourcing. But still, something was missing. I needed a piece to hand to people that would sketch out some basic thoughts in a quick, non-threatening fashion. For those of you who work with pre-marital, married or divorcing persons, you now have Marriage Helps and Divorce Helps. These quick, 2-page guides started as a way to overview some key life issues with my couples and divorcees. Because I work with a high volume of each, I had found a need for something that human beings will actually read!
Indeed, each of these topics could be an expansive book. Or a web site unto itself. But I find that on introduction, folks just aren't going to sit down and give that level of focus to a topic unless guided in. That's what these pages do. They act almost like a relational "mirror" that my marriage and divorce participants can hold up in front of themselves. They are written conversationally in an attempt to connect and inspire. Often, these pages become dialogue-starters in the next session after they've been read. The participant comes back in and references a key thought from one of these topics and wants to talk more. Then we have something to work with!
Remember--the best resource is the one that will actually be used!
One surprise application: my Divorce Recovery participants have requested the Marriage Helps pages to the extent that we've also begun to bind these into the resource book we hand out to entering each group. The notion is that they want to read them as that "mirror" to look into retrospectively as well as to anticipate being in healthier relationships again oneday. I celebrate that!
I hope you'll find them to be a bridge you can use to invite your participants in for deeper exploration.
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Dr. Charles Qualls is Associate Pastor for Pastoral Care at the historic Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta. Since 1995, he has offered 32 Divorce Recovery groups for over 1400 participants. He works with 12-15 pre-marital and married couples each year in multi-session enrichment counseling as well. Charles is a frequent consultant and group leader in the areas of marriage and divorce work. Along with Bo Prosser, he is the co-author of Marriage Ministry: A Guidebook (Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2004). Dr. Qualls may be reached at cqualls@spdl.org.
Marriage Resources
Intimacy in Marriage
Arriving at Midlife with Your Marriage Intact
Marriage Helps - Does Your Spouse Think You're Emotionally Available?
Marriage Helps - Are You Keeping Your Romantic Fires Burning?
Marriage Helps - 7 myths
Marriage Helps - Conflict and Patterns
Marriage Helps - Themes That Make Marriage Richer
Marriage Helps - Money Matters
Marriage Helps - Dealing with Your Families of Origin
Marriage Helps - Some Critical Issues Central to Marriage
Marriage Helps - Finding Me Without Losing Us
Investing in Premarital Work (from the Baylor School of Social Work)
Divorce Recovery Resources
Divorce Helps - Handling the Grief of Divorce
Divorce Helps - Divorce Recovery
Divorce Helps - 7 Myths About Your Divorce Experience
The Hard Work of Divorce Recovery Groups (from the Baylor School of Social Work)