{"id":9723,"date":"2012-04-02T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=9723"},"modified":"2012-04-02T14:53:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:53:00","slug":"the-right-tool-at-the-right-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/faith\/essentials-faith\/reaching-out\/the-right-tool-at-the-right-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right Tool at the Right Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

\u201cWe had 10 good years of marriage, followed by three years of hell,\u201d says Denise Friesen of Springfield, Nebraska.\u00a0Many people told Denise and her husband, Roger, that they should get a divorce.\u00a0Instead, she says, \u201cGod restored our marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what this story is about.\u00a0It’s about what Roger and Denise have done in the second<\/em> half of their 28-year marriage.<\/p>\n

Something seems to happen in the hearts of many couples who have seen their marriages saved.\u00a0Their experience is so profound, so life-changing, that they immediately think of how they can help other couples who have the same problems.\u00a0They want those couples to understand the same biblical principles and the same hope they have.\u00a0They want couples to know and experience God.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what happened to Roger and Denise Friesen.<\/p>\n

They began by reaching out to couples in their church and business who were in crisis\u2014major relational problems, close to divorce.\u00a0But maybe they weren\u2019t ready to dive in so deep.\u00a0\u201cThis crisis stuff is wearing me out,\u201d Roger said. They needed to find a way to help people build a foundation for marriage as God designed it.<\/p>\n

They learned about Preparing for Marriage<\/em><\/a>, a FamilyLife resource for teaching and mentoring couples who are engaged or contemplating marriage.\u00a0It was the right tool at the right time; they realized they could help couples avoid many of the same mistakes they had made in marriage.\u00a0They talked to their pastor about starting a premarriage mentoring program, and he was delighted to have someone volunteer to help relieve his load.\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve heard because I don\u2019t like premarital counseling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Over the next eight years, they mentored and took 250 couples through Preparing for Marriage<\/em> (over a third from outside the church), and trained over 50 couples in their church in how to be premarriage and marriage mentors. They\u2019ve also trained people in a dozen churches in the Omaha area in premarriage ministry.<\/p>\n

They are big believers in the importance of mentoring.\u00a0\u201cYou don\u2019t have to have a perfect marriage to mentor people,\u201d Denise says.\u00a0\u201cYou just need to be available to meet with them.\u00a0Everybody has somebody younger than them that they should be mentoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happens now, she says, \u201cis we have couples who have experienced the program by either going through it themselves\u00a0or being trained to mentor.\u00a0Then they move and want to start a ministry in their churches around the country.\u00a0 I can barely keep up answering questions for them and sending them materials.\u00a0 We have developed a training book and put most of the material on a thumb drive to make it available to give to other churches.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Friesens have become so committed to mentoring that they\u2019ve begun a ministry called SOS Marriage Care, and devote several evenings a week (Roger still has a full-time job) to working with premarried and married couples.\u00a0They\u2019ve even gone back to working with troubled marriages; of the 50 couples they\u2019ve worked with over the last year, 40 were in crisis.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Friesens will sometimes use Preparing for Marriage<\/em> to help couples rebuild their marriage\u2014even if they\u2019ve been together for over 20 years.\u00a0\u201cWe don’t know of a better way to teach what God says about marriage,\u201d Denise says.\u00a0And if couples wonder why they are using a premarriage workbook, Roger reminds them, \u201cYou need a new marriage \u2026 but you don\u2019t need a new spouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Copyright \u00a9 2011 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparing for Marriage was the resource that helped one couple help people build a foundation for marriage as God designed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Preparing for Marriage was the resource that helped one couple help people build a foundation for marriage as God designed it.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2821],"tags":[],"equip-category":[],"cwp_profile":[3074],"class_list":["post-9723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reaching-out","cwp_profile-dave-boehi"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2017\/05\/the-right-tool-at-the-right-time_1024x326.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2017\/05\/the-right-tool-at-the-right-time_1024x326.jpg",1024,321,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Joshua Starcher","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/josh-starchercru-org\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Preparing for Marriage was the resource that helped one couple help people build a foundation for marriage as God designed it.","meta_box":{"_cloudsearch_visibility":"","profile_obj_manual_select":false,"profile_obj":false,"separator":false,"enable_link":false,"login_restricted":"","content_type":"","disclaimer_banner":"","currency":false,"pricing_subtext":false,"element_type":false,"date_field":false,"date_format":false,"theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":"","series":false,"ignore_sticky":false,"conditional_blocks_category":false,"cta_selection":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9723"},{"taxonomy":"equip-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/equip-category?post=9723"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=9723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}