Missouri-Based Institute Successfully Negating Society's Take on Marriage
by Bill Fancher
October 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - In a day in which divorce ravages marriages around the world, the National Institute for Marriage (NIM) is experiencing a phenomenal success rate in saving troubled marriages.Located just south of Branson, Missouri, the Institute has managed to help 98 percent of troubled marriages that come there for help. Dr. Robert Paul, the Institute's director, explains why its system works.
"I'd say probably the thing that has been the most successful for us is recognizing our place in the process and that, honestly, we serve a God who is very interested and willing to meet people in their struggles," says Paul. "We just help people to get out of the way and just be available to that."
The Institute director says couples from all around the world come to NIM's "Marriage Emergency Room" where husbands and wives learn that society has taught them the wrong concepts of marriage -- and while there, says Paul, the spouses, with God's help, rediscover each other.
Paul says his organization's high success rate is no easy task because of what society is doing today to marriage. "We have a society that has been teaching us things for many years that on the surface seem like they should be workable and help us have great relationships, but actually set us up to fail," he says.
According to Dr. Paul, "individuality" dominates many marriages -- and the idea that a husband and wife or a "team" has, for the most part, been lost.
Included in its ministry to marriages are NIM's conferences -- "Marriage Is a Dance" and "DNA of Relationships for Couples" -- and marriage curriculum geared toward couples, small groups, military families, and professional counselors. The Institute also distributes the NIM "MarriageNews," a monthly e-newsletter containing articles on marriage, related research, and upcoming conferences.
Bill Fancher, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
