9 - The Pastor's Handbook

For Better & For Ever ™ – The Pastor’s Handbook     [5-27-2023]
                                 

The following are best practices in the use of For Better & For Ever ™.

1) Sponsor Couple ™ ministry.  The pastor identifies and invites couples he deems suitable for this ministry.  Asking for volunteers is NOT recommended.  Those who accept the pastor’s invitation attend a Training session on ZOOM in the privacy of their own home.  In this Training they will learn to establish a trusting relationship with the engaged and accompany them through a marriage preparation process hosted in their own home (or on ZOOM if that is the best option for their meetings).  They will follow up with the newly married couple after the wedding and help them participate in the life of the parish.  This is peer-to-peer ministry, not mentoring.

2) The Coordinators.  The pastor identifies a Sponsor Couple who has good communication & organizational skills and delegates to them coordination of the program.  The Coordinators keep records of sponsor couples and whom they have sponsored.  They report to the pastor periodically and can assist in recruiting additional sponsor couples, as needed. 

3)  The parish structure for marriage ministry will be a process for welcoming those who are already members of the parish.  But the structure must be flexible and welcoming to those who may have no previous connection with the parish, those who are not members of the Catholic Church, or those who are baptized but non-practicing Catholics.  The parish office worker(s) are trained to get information from those seeking to be married in the parish and pass it on to the pastor or his delegate (e.g. a permanent deacon).

4) The pastor, or his delegate, contacts the couple seeking marriage to determine if they are free to marry in the Church.  If they are, he directs them to get copies of For Better & For Ever ™ workbooks from the parish office (or order them from the website) and complete the “homework” listed on page 7 of the book, i.e., chapters 1, 6, 13 and Appendix D (if applicable).  When the couple completes the Homework, they initiate a meeting with the pastor to go over their “homework” and determine whether the couple is ready to move forward in the marriage preparation process and begin the meetings of the Sponsor Couple ™ process.

5)  When the pastor thinks an engaged couple is ready to begin meeting with a Sponsor Couple, he refers them to the Coordinators.  The coordinators assign them to a sponsor couple.  The sponsor couple contacts the engaged couple and meets with them to set up the meetings that will take place in the home of the sponsor couple. 

6) Completion of the process.  When the engaged have completed the process, the sponsor couple notifies the Coordinators about this fact.  The Sponsor Couple ™ program does not give a recommendation (pro or con) about whether the couple should be allowed to marry in the Church.  However, if at any point the engaged couple fails to cooperate with the process or has any objection to the process, this information is to be communicated to the coordinators who pass it along to the pastor or his delegate.  A family emergency (for the sponsors) might take immediate and indefinite priority so that it would be best to assign the engaged couple to another couple.  

7) Assistance for the Pastor or Coordinators.  The pastor, his delegate, and the Coordinators can always contact Fr. Rob Ruhnke for assistance, by phone (210-557-3660) or via internet https://marriagepreparation.com/ or ZOOM (no charge for this service).