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Dr Nighatoli P Achumi
Pastoral Counselor & SYMBIS facilitator, IICC
This is an excerpt from the doctoral thesis that I wrote in the field of premarital counseling. Here, I will be highlighting some of the significant pointers with regard to pastors being in the best position to provide premarital counseling, how having the requirement to take premarital counseling by the church authority impacts marriages and the reason why pastors need to be trained to provide premarital counseling.
Marriage is instituted by God as a covenant relationship for a lifetime. In the Naga context, marriages were usually arranged, and the extended families played a vital role in helping the couple honor their commitment. Divorce was a taboo and hardly heard of. However, today, the institution of marriage is facing new challenges. The pioneer of Christian premarital counseling H. Norman Wright mentions that the four changes which are quite significant in relationship to the future of marriage are, movement from traditional extended marriage to a nuclear family, free choice of mate, changing gender roles as partners and change in sexual morality. True enough, the shift from traditional arranged marriages with strong kinship ties towards the trend of free choice of mate selection, changing gender roles and, change in sexual morality are leading to complex issues in marriage.
In this scenario, church is still one of the institutions with a tremendous impact on Naga social life. Pastors who are shepherds of the church have the opportunity to provide premarital counseling to couples intending marriage. This might help the couples to build healthier marriages. However, most of our Naga churches are yet to implement this practice.
According to Wright, the local church is in the best position to offer premarital counseling thatmakes way for future involvement in the couples’ life as rapport is built. He quoted Reverend Robert Dublin, Junior as follows, “Pastors should refuse to sell the birthright of their ministry to nurture marriages, for the pottage of conducting weddings. Its ministry is to nurture marriages, before marriage and during the marriage. If couples cannot make a commitment to nurture their marriage before the event, then the church should say we cannot have your wedding solemnized here”. This is a strong point for pastors to use their position with rightful authority. In the Ph.D. Thesis, “The Preparation of Pastors in Premarital Counseling”, Jeffrey Karl Buikema comments that historically, three main groups have provided the vast majority of premarital counseling in the United States: clergy, mental health providers, and physicians. He concluded that Clergy continues to be the primary providers of premarital counseling. As a Christian state, we are witnesses that when a marriage is about to take place, couples usually approach the church and therefore, certainly pastors are in the best position to provide premarital counseling. Different Churches have different set of rules to comply with, in order to give approval for wedding. Now, the question is, does the church require couples to take premarital counseling? Let us see how having this requirement can impact marriages.
In the dissertation ‘Christian Pre-marital Training in the Local Church Setting: A Study of the Effectiveness of the SYMBIS Model in Reducing Divorce and Producing Stable and Satisfying Marital relationship’, it says “It is the church's responsibility and not the government, to provide the necessary preparation for healthy marriages and families”. Thus, undertaking this responsibility, SYMBIS was accompanied by a church policy which required all couples getting married by pastors to complete the SYMBIS program prior wedding.
After the survey, Marks’ study showed that among the ninety couples who got married within a period of four years, eighty couples could be contacted and they were all still married. It appears that SYMBIS reached its intended goal – to virtually eliminate divorce from the body of Hyland Heights Baptist Church. SYMBIS Premarital Program showed improvements in conflict management, gender-based needs training, financial management, parenting basics, sex and married life, teaching on marriage maintenance and teaching on the purpose of marriage.
The above study was made possible because of the prevalence of a structured marital preparation course along with the requirement made by the church to undergo the course. It had its base on the awareness for the need of building healthy families in the midst of increasing instability and divorces. This affirmed that the church took the responsibility of taking the issue of marriage seriously. The study proved the success of premarital counseling. Thus, making it as a requirement to undergo premarital counseling in the church policy gives pastors an impetus to practice and provide premarital counseling on a richer scale and this definitely prepares couples for a healthy marriage.
Pastors play a pivotal role in the spiritual and relational lives of their congregants. Among their many responsibilities, offering premarital counseling cannot be overlooked, because it sets the foundation for healthy marriages within the church community. While pastors are often well-versed in biblical teachings, providing effective premarital counseling requires more than just theological knowledge. Therefore, specialized training is required to equip pastors with the necessary tools, skills, and insights to guide couples through the complexities of modern marriage.
The central question of a thesis written by Buikema was, ‘What kind of training do clergy need to provide effective pre-marital counseling ministries.’ He identified three important- training components in premarital counseling: basic pre-marital content, relational skills training, and exposure to assessment instruments. The content components included classic pre-marital preparation topics such as the biblical basis for marriage, communication and conflict resolution, marital expectations, relationship roles, personality issues, sexuality, and parenting skills. The most often mentioned assessment instruments were the TJTA (Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis), PREPARE (Pre-marital Personal and Relationship Evaluation), and Myers-Briggs. In his quest for the content component of pre-marital preparation training, pastors’ responses were training in theology, psychology and counseling skills. This points that practical premarital training program for pastors with exposure to assessment instruments with a base of basic counseling skills and psychological understanding is crucial.
In our Naga context, there is no doubt that pastors are in the best position to provide premarital counseling and research does prove that having a requirement by the church to undergo premarital counseling does assist couples to work towards a healthy marriage. Our congregants expect to receive premarital counseling from their pastors too. While many can afford to go for professional premarital counseling, there are also some in our pews who cannot do that and solely depend on pastors. We should also be mindful that with the complexities of this modern era’s marriages, pastors need to level up in every possible aspect among which premarital counseling is one. The heart of the matter is, are pastors willing to equip themselves to being trained in order to effectively prepare and bless the marriage relationship. That one relationship which impacts our overall society.
