COMMUNITY MARRIAGE COVENANT (Faith version)

HEALTHY MARRIAGE INITIATIVE (Community version)

Healthy Marriage Initiative of Fairfield County

A Partnership of Churches, Community Agencies, and Other Groups

Preparing, Strengthening, and Restoring Marriages

Because we care for our community, for married couples, for families, for children

Everyone agrees that healthy children and families are vitally important. But how will we build them? First, we seek to increase the percentage of children born into healthy, married families. Next, we want to help those married families grow in love. Finally, we must help married couples survive the 'storms of life' affecting every marriage. 

The job of building healthy children and families is too big and too important for any one church or denomination. And it can't be done by any one agency or collection of government programs. We must all work together. And we will. 

The Healthy Marriage Initiative

The Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) is a broad framework of agreed-upon guidelines for premarital preparation, marriage enrichment, and crisis counseling support for marriages. The specific application of these principles will vary from church to church, and from agency to agency. The Healthy Marriage Initiative is not a one-size-fits-all program, does not address all the needs of families, and does not denigrate single-parent families. We exist to promote healthy marriages through preparation, strengthening, and rebuilding.  

Our Mission, Purpose and Goals

Rather than adopting the 'agency model,' where couples come to HMI to receive services, we have adopted the 'distributed model.' This means HMI distributes teaching, training, and resources to various churches, agencies and other groups to help each of those groups succeed in meeting the needs of families. This means HMI goes into each church, agency, and group as requested by their leadership, and provides the help and resources they need. Ultimately, we hope to teach and train hundreds of people in Fairfield County to be 'marriage champions' in their own circle of influence, wherever they are. 

We believe that experienced married couples are an untapped resource: “Every congregation has couples with solid marriages who really could be of help to other couples, but have never been asked, inspired, or trained to come alongside another couple at a key stage of their life.” Mike McManus – author of 'Marriage Savers'.

By training and equipping this vast volunteer resource, we greatly multiply our efforts. Here are some of the 'nuts and bolts' of our plan:

1. Promote and provide education in high schools and youth groups on successful relationship-building, including commitment relationships and marriage.

2. Implement a pre-marriage preparation program for all engaged couples to include 12-15 hours of instruction by married mentor couples.

3. Provide marriage mentors for couples during the marital adjustment phase, typically the first two years.

4. Provide marriage enrichment opportunities in our local congregations and also through a yearly community-wide enrichment event.

5. Provide resources and mentoring to couples currently in crisis.

6. Help reconcile separated couples to each other.

7. Create step-family support groups within each congregation.

Can a Healthy Marriage Initiative Really Make a Difference? A 2004 study shows that the 114 communities that already have such an initiative reported an average 17.5% drop in divorces in seven years. We hope you'll join us!

For more information:

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Or call:

HMI Director, Gary Lankford: 614-470-3311

HMI Administrator, Teresa Sullivan: 740-654-3866 ext. 243

Steering Committee Member, Pastor Tom Alexander: 740-654-0099

Cora French-Robinson: OSU Ext. Office 740-653-5419