Prepare & Enrich

Marriage is a metaphor God uses throughout the Bible – whether in the Old Testament as God relates to his chosen people or the New Testament as Jesus displays love for his bride, the church. This is a glorious truth and one He calls married couples to reflect. There is often a substantial amount of time, energy, and resources spent by couples during engagement as they prepare for the wedding day. This is a wonderful day to celebrate and is appropriate and biblical to celebrate. It is also true that as ministers or disciplers we do well to encourage building a foundation for a lasting and God-honoring relationship. Marriage is beautiful and a blessing; yet it is also challenging and refining. It is praiseworthy to continue to find ways to support engaged and married couples in a flourishing and God-glorifying relationship.

Prepare/Enrich is a research-based assessment that has been around since the late 1970’s. This assessment is available for any couple (engaged or married) to complete. Prepare is designed for engaged couples whereas Enrich is designed for married couples. The Prepare/Enrich provides opportunity for increasing awareness of both self and other, objective results on relational strengths and growth areas, as well as primes healthy and intimate conversation between the minister / discipler and the couple – often leading to conversations that are healthy but seldom engaged outside of a way to facilitate such conversations.

One thing to keep in mind is this assessment cannot be completed without access to a facilitator – both Ted Witzig, Jr. and Kaleb Beyer at ACCFS are certified facilitators. Once a couple completes the assessment, there will be both a couple’s report (given to the couple) and the following link is helpful to see the type of information available in the facilitator’s report – Sample Facilitator’s Report

For additional information regarding this assessment please see below:

For a short video of a couple talking about their experience in going through the Prepare/Enrich click here – https://www.prepare-enrich.com/

For a short video of a facilitator sharing his experience and the value he sees in the Prepare/Enrich click here –  https://www.prepare-enrich.com/facilitators/

If you are an elder, deacon, or minister and are interested in using the Prepare/Enrich with a couple in your local congregation, this link will provide the information regarding the process to make this happen – Prepare-Enrich Assessment Process

Other Prepare/Enrich Reports / Resources:

Pre-Adoption or Pre-Foster Care – this report is for the purpose of understanding the couple’s relationship, underlying dynamics, and possible assumptions about the transition to adoption or foster care and how it will impact their relationship. A sample report is available at the above link.

Parenting – this report helps parents understand their particular parenting styles, delineates how they relate to each child, and provides opportunity to consider child behavioral concerns.  A sample report is available at the above link.

Couple Checkup – this report is for couples who would like to assess their relationship without the use of a facilitator. The couple can go directly to this website, complete the assessment and obtain the results along with discussion questions.

Workbooks For Couples – this link will take you to workbooks that can be purchased and used in conjunction with the report. The workbooks are designed to guide couples through exercises, based on the content cover in the report, to deepen their relationship.