A youngster in the community of Ottumwa, IA has a passion for ministering to married couples.
The Bridge, a two-year-old church plant from the Third Church of Pella started helping at-risk married couples by referring them to Marriage Matters' marriage mentoring program. After seeing the good results of marriage mentoring with these couples, Pastor Marty Schmidt began to build a marriage program within the church itself. He and his wife, along with five other couples, volunteered to be trained as marriage mentors. These mentor couples now serve engaged couples within the church, while married couples are still matched with Mentor Couples outside the church. This is strategic on the part of the church to maintain healthy relationships among its members.
Pastor Marty described the church's vision for marriages as "seeing marriages start well and seeing educational opportunities provided for their continued growth." The church will soon offer a class to engaged couples for the purpose of creating a healthy, strong foundation in their burgeoning relationships. During the course of the class, the engaged couples will participate in marriage mentoring with the church's trained mentor couples. For married couples, the church also plans to host a variety of other opportunities for healthy marriage education, such as a marriage conference.
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