"Your marriage may not need The Marriage Course, but your marriage will benefit from it."
What is it?
The Marriage Course is a series of eight sessions designed to help any married couple strengthen their relationship.
It’s a great opportunity to spend time together as a couple looking at the important issues in your marriage.
The Marriage Course is very practical and will help equip you with the tools needed to build a healthy marriage that lasts a lifetime.
Each week you are given the opportunity to enjoy a special meal together and listen to a talk. Then there is plenty of time to discuss the topic as a couple. There is no group work involved at any stage of the course.
The Marriage Course is now being run in 60 countries, including the United States, and is now being offered by serveral churches in Hartsville to the community. St. Luke United Methodist Church, Wesley United Methodist Church and St. Bartholomew are currently working to add more sponsoring churches. St. Bartholomew is hosting the course, but each church is equally involved in the leadership, direction and support of the course allowing it to be a truly ecumenical offering to the communtiy.
Who designed the course?
The course was started by Nicky and Sila Lee in 1996. The Lees are on the staff at Holy Trinity Brompton – the London church that started the Alpha course. They have been married for over 20 years and have four children.
They have spoken to thousands on the subject of marriage and are the co-authors of The Marriage Book which has sold over 52,000 copies since it was published in 2000. They run The Marriage Course three times a year at Holy Trinity Brompton with around 100 couples on each course.
Who's it for?
It is for any married couple who wants to work together at and invest in their relationship.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been married for less than two years or more than thirty.
If you have a strong marriage this course will help you make it even better and will reinforce your good habits.
If on the other hand your marriage is in difficulty, the course will help provide you with very practical tools to help you work through the issues. Some couples who are separated have used the course as a way of trying to get back together.
While the course is based on Christian principles couples are welcome with or without a church background. Many couples who are not churchgoers have enjoyed and benefited from doing the course.
What's involved?
Dinner – each evening starts with a meal. Over a candlelit dinner there’s an opportunity to spend time together as a couple or with other couples.
Talk – each evening a talk is given. In some venues they will use videos for the talks and in others a couple will give the talks themselves.
Coffee and discussion time – during the talk there are exercises for you to do together as a couple. Every effort is made to make sure your conversations aren’t being overheard and music is played in the background. During the longest exercise you are served coffee or tea and cake.
Homework – at the end of each session you will be given some homework to do together before the next session. It isn’t looked at by anyone else and is just for your own benefit to help you continue your discussion at home.
Talk titles
- Building Strong Foundations
- The Art of Communication
- Resolving Conflict
- The Power of Forgiveness
- Parents and In-Laws
- Good Sex
- Love in Action
- The Marriage Course Party - What makes a Marriage Work?
What's the cost?
A basic charge of $150 per couple is made to cover the cost of the catered & candle-lit suppers and materials.
What couples say . . .
Mark and Katie
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We had areas of conflict in our marriage…we were a couple of hotheads. The course gave us some really good tools and practical
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help mainly in the area of listening. We learnt how to listen to each other and just to reflect. We learnt to respond in a healthy way.' Mark
'I have to say doing the course has given us tools which have made things better, and it does work.' Katie
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Jim and Lisa
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'We were like two people living in the same house leading separate lives.' Lisa
'It really helped us to learn the tools for communicating. You
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think you know how to communicate but sometimes you just know how to talk. We were able to break through that surface level of communication and really share our lives together and get back the intimacy and closeness that makes marriage so wonderful.' Jim
'I can’t express the drastic turnaround this course has done for us.' Lisa
'I couldn’t recommend it enough. You arrive and they have dinner by candlelight ready for you. You work through real issues. You make real progress. It’s an important relationship and I think everyone should devote time to it.' Jim
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Inger and Henrik
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'We’d been at crossed purposes with each other and we needed to learn how to express love for the other person in the way that is most meaningful for them. It’s
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a process and you have to keep learning. I think we’re getting better at it and it’s made a big difference.' Inger
'It is like a date night. They make you feel very special…you don’t have to share with anyone else. You have a sense of privacy which is important.' Henrik
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Miles and Deborah
'It would have been a much bigger issue later on in our marriage if we hadn’t dealt with it.' Deborah
'For the first time we had a chance to talk about the issue without it really getting nasty and turning into an argument. Because The Marriage Course provides such a great environment to discuss these things in a civilised way we could actually start to understand each other’s point of view. It was actually fun doing The Marriage Course and working this issue out.' Miles