Mentoring young married couples...

It was great to see couples with a heart and a passion for coming along side younger couples to provide mentoring support. At the Un-conference, there were about 5-6 couples represented that seem to share this passion. Several topics were discussed:
1. How do we get couples together?
2. What are the expectations of both couples?
3. What are the qualifications to mentor?

It seems that younger couples have a sense of expectation that the older couples have it all together. It seems that they have passed with flying colors through the problems or conflicts that newer couples face and therefore are not really approachable for fear they might be judged.

It seems that the older couples need to potientially expose there issues early on to show the younger couples that we ALL have had or are having difficuties and have not worked it all out. It is a marriage long process.

To foster these relationships, the couples need to become friends first. This will aid in the trust factor and allow couples to be more free with the sharing and intamacy requried for true growth to occur.

Many of the newer couples are not interested in meeting where kids are present or prevalent in the conversations. They need to focus on their marriage before moving into the parental arena.

Hey.. one thing we did at a previous night of “young Couples” - back when I was young…we had 2 couples who had been married 30 years or more come and share their “wisdom and perspective” with the younger married couples in the group.
It was tremendously meaningful and fun…and encouraging to see couples who had a long term perspective… maybe we could set something like that up??

it may seem kind of inefficient, but what about using couples’ groups as a way to connect older and younger couples? it just seems like a good way to learn more about one another before moving into a mentoring relationship. i, for one, would love to connect with older couples at the journey. i have friends i can talk to about marriage stuff, but an intentional, mentoring relationship (for both spouses) is a powerful thing.

sounds like a natural

This could be a good start, and certain couples could be designated as ‘mentors,’ so that when young couples join, they know who is available should they want to seek mentoring beyond the group.

-Leah

Mornings would be great if they came later in the day

I think food is a great excuse to get people together. I personally like old fashioned pot-lucks. Perhaps these groups could also rotate from home to home to more personalize the times together.
And we all know couples that might or might not be believers but are struggling in their marriage that could use these mentoring groups. I would like it to be ok for any group members to invite them to join so they could also benefit from perhaps seeing and talking with marriages that are God-based and perhaps learn how to deal with issues differently than how the world deals with them.

How to connect with Jon & Kay:

We go out for lunch every Sunday.
Grab us right after the second worship experience. Suggest a place.
Stick around and help us with tear-down.
Understand that we come with three kids. Welcome to our chaos.
We also come with the ups and down of 21 years of marriage! :-)

if anyone is looking to connect with a young couples group…let me introduce my self…Im nichole garber and my husband and i along with another couple, jason and amy sutor, lead a young couples group everyother wednesday at my house. It is for couples married 5 years or less, engaged or seriously dateing. we do have group tomorrow 10-10-07 so if you are interested let me know and i can give you all the info.

this week is the 5 love languages.

Nichole Garber

Would you and your group be interested in a couple or two (with a longer marriage) visit your group to discuss mentoring?

Trey

I was thinking that maybe for one of our group meetings you could come and talk to the group about the mentoring couples. I do know that there are some couples that would really benifit from an older couple’s wisdome…ya know someone to call when things seem crazy and you dont know if its normal or not. so lets see if we can schedule something…Amiee Sutor is in charge of group topics and getting things like that together so i will give her a call and see what we can do.

Cool Nichole… Just let me know what I can do. Just drop a note to haight@semicore.com or give a call. We’re in the Journey directory.

Anthony and I are in a couples group already but I’m just a little curious about your group. Are you guys meeting every other Wednesday? Is it cool if we drop in one of these days to check it out. Shhh- don’t tell Jeff :-)

I feel weepy inside now.

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I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, "You're my favorite."