CAPE CHURCHES AGREE TO POLICY ON MARRIAGES

More than 25 local churches have agreed to adopt a community marriage policy aimed at cutting the divorce rate in the Cape Girardeau area.

As of Tuesday, 27 churches had adopted or agreed to adopt the policy, which has been endorsed by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance. The policy requires premarital preparation and counseling, which is already required in several local churches.

Cape Girardeau is one of 37 cities nationally where churches have adopted the policy. It was introduced in 1986 in Modesto, Calif., and Michael J. McManus, a syndicated columnist, now is its chief promoter.

McManus met last week with pastors and church members to discuss the policy and its implementation.

The community marriage policy requires engaged couples to go through a minimum of four months of marriage preparation, including four premarital counseling sessions, a premarital test or inventory, and meetings before and after the wedding with mentor couples, who will share their own experiences and insights into marriage. The preparation will touch on such issues as financial management, the role of each partner within the marriage, communication and faith.

The policy also encourages married couples to attend retreats as an way to strengthen their marriages and calls for development of "marriage ministries" of couples whose marriages once nearly failed.

Supporters call the policy a way to prevent spur-of-the-moment marriages and to make sure couples are truly compatible. They say a communitywide policy will prevent couples from hopping from church to church to avoid the preparation required.

Local church leaders say they are gratified by the warm welcome the marriage policy has received in Cape Girardeau.

"I was at a ballgame (Monday) night and a number of people came up and spoke to me and said they were glad to hear the kind of information we are sharing, and they hope that this provides for healthier marriages," said the Rev. Roy Jones, director of missions for the Cape Girardeau Baptist Association. "Nearly all of us have someone we care about who has gone through a divorce and wish our children won't have to go through one.

"I can't think of a negative response that we've heard," Jones said. "The only thing that anyone has said is that this is something that we need to do."

The Rev. William Burke, pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene, said his church members were to finalize the adoption of the community marriage policy Tuesday night.

Burke said his church already requires engaged couples to take a premarital inventory test.

McManus said that nationally about 10 percent of the couples who take the PREPARE test, which is cited in the community marriage policy, end up calling off their engagements.

"That sounds unproductive until you understand that those are probably 10 percent of couples who would have been divorced," Burke said.

He said the policy probably won't require major changes for most local churches.

"The mentor couples would be a big change for us," he said. "There is a tremendous advantage to that."

The Catholic church has required engaged couples to undergo a "finely developed" premarital counseling program for many years, said Monsignor Richard Rolwing of St. Mary's Cathedral.

"Probably it's more intense" than what the community marriage policy requires, Rolwing said. "The couples are interviewed by a professional counselor to see whether any little red flags are going up about any personality differences."

Engaged couples also meet with married couples to discuss common-sense things like financial planning, relationship skills and legal issues, he said.

"It's only at the end of it that the religious issue comes into it," Rolwing said, adding couples discuss the role of religion in marriage "and if religion is going to be a source of strength for them or a bone of contention."

He called the communitywide policy long overdue.

Civil marriage ceremonies have always been an option for engaged couples.

Circuit Judge Peter Statler said he can't see premarital counseling becoming a requirement for civil ceremonies. "I have no capabilities, facilities or anything else," he said. "We're authorized by the Constitution to perform marriages, and we do that."

MARRIAGE POLICY

The following churches have adopted or agreed to adopt the community marriage policy. Many already require some form of marriage preparation:

Mount Auburn Christian Church, First church of the Nazarene, Bethany Baptist Church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Christ Evangelical Presbyterian, Cornerstone Church, Evangelical United Church of Christ, First Assembly of God, Westminster Presbyterian, LaCroix United Methodist, First Baptist Church of Millersville, Hobbs Chapel, Wesley United Methodist, Centenary United Methodist, First Church of God, Lynwood Baptist Church, St. Mary's Cathedral, Christ Episcopal Church, St. Andrew Lutheran Church, North Cape Church of Christ, Livingway Foursquare Gospel Church, First General Baptist Church, New Community Plymouth Church, Third Street United Methodist Church and Grace United Methodist Church.

Churches have agreed to these minimum expectations

1. Encourage youth and single adults to practice premarital sexual abstinence.

2. A minimum of four months of premarital preparation.

3. A minimum of four premarital counseling sessions with one devoted to the use of a premarital test or inventory, and one devoted to the Scriptural understanding of marriage and divorce.

4. Networking "Helping Couples" in each congregation, training them to work as role models and counselors with engaged and newly married couples.

5. Encourage attendance at an "Engaged Encounter" weekend or similar experience for engaged couples to improve communications skills and to establish their marriage with God at the center.

6. At least two post-marital counseling sessions with clergy or mentor couple, six months after the wedding and one year after the wedding.

7. Encouragement for all married couples to attend a couples retreat.

8. Develop a "Marriage Ministry" of mentoring couples whose marriages once nearly failed, to work with troubled marriages.

9. We clergy will participate and cooperate fully to learn and experience more about how to bond couples for life.

10. As clergy, we will take this covenant back to our congregations to be ratified by the appropriate boards and our congregation.

11. Encourage participation in ongoing long-term evaluation of this policy.

12. Encourage married clergy to be the first to attend a couples retreat.