No abstract

Throughout history, families have dealt with stress and crises. Hill's 1949 ABC-X model of family stress remains a useful tool for identifying the different components that affect how successfully families cope with stress. Paul's letter to the Philippians expands and illustrates this model. Therapists working with Christian families and individuals can use this model and Paul's epistle as a structure to help identify the type of stressor being experienced, explore family resources, and evaluate the individual's or family's meaning of the stressor, helping them to respond successfully to stress.

Clergy provide the majority of marriage preparation in the United States; however, little is known about the use of premarital assessments and their relationship to clergy effectiveness in providing premarital education. A nationwide survey investigated the use of premarital assessment questionnaires (PAQs), specifically Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding, and Study (FOCCUS), PREmarital Personal and Relationship Evaluation (PREPARE), and RELATionship Evaluation (RELATE), in marriage preparation provided by clergy. Three demographic variablespositively predicted whether clergy use these instruments: the number of annual weddings performed, the number of continuing education opportunities related to marriage preparation, and the size of church membership. An ANOVA revealed that clergy who used a PAQ had significantly higher perceived effectiveness than clergy who did not use any premarital inventory. These findings suggest that training clergy to use premarital assessments can increase clergy's perception of marriage preparation effectiveness.

Although government-funded community healthy marriage initiatives (CHMIs) often focus on clergy-provided premarital education, little is known about the influence of a statewide initiative on clergy attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to compare Oklahoma clergy over time and Oklahoma clergy with clergy from other states. The findings suggest that the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative (OMI), one of the earliest and largest CHMIs, has influenced clergy attitudes and perceived effectiveness but has had a limited effect on clergy behaviors. In addition, the findings suggest that Oklahoma clergy did not significantly differ from other clergy in the United States regarding premarital education attitudes and behaviors despite the efforts of the OMI. Based on these findings, policymakers should reevaluate approaches to clergy involvement in CHMIs.