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How Will Witness to Love Work in My Parish?

  • If you have a Marriage Prep Coordinator or a good prospect for one,send them to be trained in Witness to Love. Put an announcement in the bulletin introducing them and their role, and have them introduce themselves at all the Masses. Update your marriage guidelines on your website. The next couple to come through for marriage prep will use this new model. All current couples in the process do not have their process changed, HOWEVER, you can ask them to find a “sponsor” couple and have a similar Witness to Love model that continues after the wedding more in the style of marriage enrichment
  • If you are new to a parish and do not have a marriage prep coordinator or even a potential one, then for the first year  combine the roles and the meetings for Marriage prep coordinator and clergy. Choose one of the mentor couples who comes through and see if they would be a great fit. Send them to be trained. It is great because you know that they know the process and the benefits of it.
  • If you already have trained mentor couples in your parish whom you want to continue to involve in marriage prep, have one former mentor couple be the “team leader.” We suggest an assessment of gifts be given to your team. Based on the results, assign certain couples to follow up with engaged couples and their chosen Witness to Love mentors after the wedding and be part of a marriage enrichment team or small group leaders.
  • If you are worried about the ability of couples in your parish to be mentors or you find that due to location dynamics that your parish is too disconnected or large, have potential mentor couples that you have selected on your church website. Ideally these would be a diverse group of mentors. The engaged couples could choose from these if they are not part of the parish or able to find a mentor from among their married friends. Make their contact information available to engaged couples who need it, but always require the engaged couple to choose their mentor and ask them to mentor.