MARRIAGE
At Severn Vineyard we want to invest in marriages in a range of different ways:
• marriage preparation - to lay foundations for the long haul
• marriage investment - to encourage going from good to great!
• marriage counselling - to deal with the tough stuff
The Online Marriage Course by HTB
We would love to recommend HTB’s The Marriage Course to any married couple. The Marriage Course is a series of seven sessions, designed to help couples invest in their relationship and build a strong marriage. It’s currently available online and free of charge, though they recommend you purchase the accompanying manuals and there is an option to donate an amount if you so wish.
The course runs exactly as it would be if you were attending in person, except that you will be able to do so from the comfort of your own home - where you can replicate your own date night:
Each session lasts for 1 hour 55 minutes, half of which will be for your conversations.
The films will be available online and you will be given access when you register for the course.
Don’t forget the candles, snacks, drinks, older kids in another room and the younger ones in bed. Try to make it feel as special as possible.
To sign up through the HTB website, click here.
Marriage Preparation
We have a 3-fold approach for helping couples prepare for marriage, with varying degrees of intensity! The first 2 of these are designed so that the processing conversations are almost exclusively as a couple, with only the mentoring element inviting input from a trusted other couple.
Marriage Preparation Course using the Marriage Preparation Course material.
In the current Covid19 season where it is harder to gather we have been using the online Marriage Preparation Course. We think the content & process is excellent. The 5 sessions cover a range of topics including Communication, Conflict, Commitment & Connection, where you are given access to the video for that session once a week over 5 weeks. Each session introduces content alongside timed exercises to do in your booklets & then discuss together. It is very reasonably priced - the main cost being the excellent course booklets which you need to order separately from here . Our only recommendation is to plan to be in the same room when you do the session - it hasn’t worked so well for couples trying to do the online content from different locations.
Please do let us know if you sign up to do this course (including your planned start date), as we look to offer extra support alongside. We look to provide a Support Couple for each couple doing the process, who are there for you to process any significant issues that come up. The course also includes an online Couples Survey - designed for you to fill out separately and then worked though with a Support Couple to check if there are any significant areas you haven’t yet considered.
After completing each session, we also then look to send you out further resources to consider around the topic of that week - which we have used & reference in the ‘real time’ course.
If you are more interested in doing this process as part of a cohort, there is the option of an intensive weekend online as a zoom webinar run by Time For Marriage.
For more information, please contact us via hello@severnvineyard.org. Or you can sign up directly through our Marriage Course Community Group page here. We’ll ask you for some basic details about you, your partner, your wedding date etc. which will come through in an email once you’ve signed up.
During more normal times of life, we also offer:
A ToolKit Training Day, looking at the some of the best tools for maintaining your marriage at peak performance. Please let Mal know if you are interested in attending our next training day.
Marriage Mentoring A fantastic opportunity to journey with a married couple further down the road as you travel through the preparation & early marriage season . Initially we recommend the content of these times is unpacking the excellent Online Couples Survey - which is very effective in highlighting where expectations and assumptions may vary. A more intensive but exceptionally effective & recommended investment in your marriage.
Marriage Investment
We encourage couples who’ve been married a while to invest in their marriage on a focussed weekend away - taking yourselves in for an MOT, to see where some investment in the machinery could make a difference. We work with a great organisation http://timeformarriage.org.uk and some of these weekends are hosted at ‘Breathe' an amazing venue in the Wye Valley only 45 minutes away run by Phil & Marianne Joiner who are part of our church community. Find out more at http://www.breatheministries.org.uk
We also particularly look to run a weekend for those who have been married a couple of years, and after the ‘honeymoon’ initial stage want to invest some more content into their marriage experience appropriate to that season. Please let us know if you'd be interested in this by emailing us and we’ll send you details.
Marriage Counselling
We also offer marriage counselling if things come to a head or need to be addressed with someone from our marriage team. Contact us here if you would like to book an initial session responding to something that has flared up . We also recommend organisations like Relate, and suggest an optional similar level of donation (depending on circumstance) for these sessions.
Contact hello@severnvineyard.org for more information.