Called Together is about marriage preparation and postmarital checkup, review and counsel. Couples are spending 200 plus hours preparing for a marriage ceremony that is over in a matter of hours and does not prepare them for a lifetime together.This book is about preparing the couple whether it is a first time marriage, intercultural or interracial, or remarriage for a relationship that will stand the test of time through foundation building. There are a lot of good marriage books and marriage preparation books.This is not a content book that one reads one time. It is a workbook that is best utilized with marriage mentors. It asks questions that most books do not ask and that couples do not think of asking one another. It addresses postmarital which is rare. It addresses remarriage after divorce, remarriage after the death of a spouse and when seniors remarry. It addresses intercultural and interracial marriages. It has many practical helps in appendices and it has a counselor s guide section. It is an all in one volume that is not overwhelming in size. The six premarital chapters cover the major areas of married life and are followed through via postmarital in the first year of marriage when the highest incidents of divorce occur. It is built upon training the average lay couple sitting in the local church with years of a good marriage under their belt and puts them to work providing marriage mentoring (rather than a busy and difficult to get to pastor).Who of us would not have benefited from marriage mentoring on our way up the alter and then in that tumultuous first year of adjustment? It is an equipping tool and it helps to provide a form of accountability for the marriage mentors as well as the couple being counseled. There is a theme in the book that starts in chapter one in which each individual has a life call, a life mission. This builds by the couple identifying why God is calling them together their marriage call/mission. This is a missing ingredient in most marriages today - a mission as a couple. This couple will actually write their marriage mission statement and then rewrite it in postmarital. Couples are going to marry all over the world. Marriage is not Christian, it is a creation act of God it predates Christianity. We want to help couples prepare and then stay together through the glue of the Holy Spirit by helping them to identify and fulfill their marriage mission like Adam and Eve had in the garden.
