Chapter Six
The Pathway
A way into marriage preparation
Life is a journey. All of us are travellers. Two people who are planning to marry are already travelling, but they are about to bring their individual pathways closer together, and to commit themselves to be partners along the way. On their wedding day they will walk down the church path separately to the service where they will make their promises before God and their guests. When they leave the church they will retrace their steps together over the same paving stones and continue on their journey.
There is some symbolism here that may be helpful. Suppose the pathway to the church represents marriage preparation, the pathway from the church represents marriage support. The paving stones represent the different content areas for marriage education, both preparation and support. (Content areas for both are roughly the same. In marriage preparation some areas require a couple to project into the future, while in marriage support they will be handling 'the present'.)
Each paving stone has written on it a content area.
The stones are different shapes but they fit together.
There are some content areas that are repeated. They form the core of the pathway and run down the centre, holding it together. On them are written the words: communication, (handling) conflict, commitment. The other paving stones are attached to them, forming lovely patterns, but the edge of the path is not neat.
When creating a marriage preparation course it may be helpful to use the paving stone/pathway idea. The words themselves will provide a powerful image both for couples and for those providing marriage preparation. All pathways provided in marriage preparation will contain similar stones, but they will be arranged differently, thus creating unique patterns for each group, and within them for each couple. Couples will interact with the content of their course, make connections with their own situations and place the 'paving stones' into a pattern which is theirs.
There is an illustration of a pathway showing paving stones labelled with content areas for marriage preparation (the pathway is a graphical image that is 52kb in size, so it will take a moment or two to download into your browser). It is provided for use as a tool and may be used in several ways.
- Use it with individual couples to help identify content areas that they want to explore with you, and areas that you feel it is important to explore with them individually or in a group. In such a situation it may be used as a helpful tool for negotiation, enabling you to dovetail what they suggest with what you think is important. This process may guide you in adjusting any published resources that you might use to meet the needs of specific couples or groups.
- Use it to construct your own course. You may find it helpful to enlarge the illustration of the pathway, cut out the paving stones and move them around to form a pattern for a course. Actually moving the 'paving stones' will help you to clarify the order in which they might be laid, or used in a course. In other words, they will help you to identify your syllabus and to design the course. This could be a useful way for a group of people involved in marriage preparation to plan a course together.
- Use it after each session to check what has been covered and what remains for the future. Also, give each couple a copy so that they can keep their own records of what has been covered.
As part of any course couples may find it helpful to 'play' with coloured paper cut into the shapes of the paving stones. They can label them and create a patterned pathway that may be pasted on to card to form a visual reminder, perhaps a symbol, of how their joint pathway through marriage may be. Couples could be encouraged to frame them, or to place them somewhere significant such as in their wedding album, Bible or on the bathroom mirror!
If marriage preparation strengthens couples' relationships now, the beginning of their joint pathways will be firm. They can step out into the future better able to face whatever life may throw at them. Through marriage support the churches have an opportunity to help them to keep their pathways in good repair. When their pathways become difficult, perhaps swampy, those involved in marriage support can enable couples to find ways through by placing 'stepping stones' in their path.
© Churches Together for Families, 2001-2002