Resources

Here are resources we recommend to start a marriage ministry or encourage marriage mentoring in your church or gathering. Reading about healthy marriages can actually work to improve a marriage: it’s called bibliotherapy. All these are available at Amazon.com

GREAT WEBSITES
We’re pro-marriage here, but divorce happens. If you find yourself or someone you know in an unwanted divorce, try DivorceResourceCenter.com. They offer hope, courage and direction to the person facing divorce.

And for a light touch offering humor and great discussion, head for Marriagedoneright.com which features a “Fun Test” and a “Sex in the Bible” test. Tom, a pastor, messed up a couple of these, but laughed anyway!

BOOKS
Why Men Hate Going to Church
by David Murrow
(Nashville, Tennessee; Nelson Books, 2005)
Okay, while not exactly about marriage, if you can’t get your guy to go to church or “act more spiritual,” you’ll find this a wild assessment. At times irritating, refreshing, insightful and even gender-biased both ways, Murrow says churches—not necessarily pastors—have to offer what men are seeking in faith and most churches settle for “nice” (think nice and sweet people, furnishings and sermons!). Maybe you’ll think churches need to go camo-colored, but you’ll get us men talking after reading Murrow!

12 Hours to a Great Marriage
by Scott Stanley, Howard Markman, Susan Blumberg
(San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, 2004)
THE BOOK we hand to more couples as it combines the latest marriage research, effective skills and a hopeful perspective on what durable marriages do to our culture. Grab this book as it is great for people of faith or no discernible faith. A Christian version of this by Scott Stanley is titled A Lasting Promise.

His Needs Her Needs
by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Fleming H. Revell, 2001)
See this best as an affair preventer and conflict resolver. Trendy concepts like “love bank” are helpful visuals. Ideal for a Sunday class, small group or home group with accountability if taken seriously.

The Most Important Year
by Mark and Susan Devries, Robert and Bobbie Wolgemuth
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2003)
Here’s to your first year of marriage! Fold in wit, practical skills, adjustments, a few horrors, spiritual wisdom and the joys of year one. Cleverly written flip-flop style by two couples–a pastor couple and a popular writer couple— this book is like two novels, with half written by the men, the other half by the women, so you can begin with either viewpoint! THE BEST book we have seen for newlyweds [wedding gift!] in years.

Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage
by Lee and Leslie Strobel
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2002)
Here’s refreshing, blunt truth on what “unequally yoked” means if you find yourself in a faith “mixed” union. Written by a former indifferent atheist who married another atheist, then she went Christian on him and nearly messed up the marriage (his version), then he found faith in Christ and the mess got bigger! Both husband and wife (Lee also authored The Case for Christ) give you the honest pain, goofy reactions, anger, frustration and then actual strategies that helped them get unstuck in a faith mismatch. EXTRA BENEFIT: the Strobels also address the more common mismatch when one Christian spouse competes with the other to get the spiritual life right and the goofiness this often produces. Easy narrative style makes this puzzling topic a help to pastors, counselors and many of the marriages you know or may find yourself in.