Abstract
Community Marriage Initiatives (CMIs) are a relatively new endeavor that emerged from the marriage education movement. Their goal is to strengthen marriages and reduce divorce rates by increasing access to marriage education and relationship skills-based programs within a local geographic area. Whereas CMIs consist of a collaboration of numerous community stakeholders, church institutions and their clergy are the primary partners. The purpose of this study was to discover the extent to which a national sample of practicing clergy were aware of CMIs’ supportive efforts, their subsequent participation in CMI-sponsored training, and the perceived influence of that training on their premarital education practices. Generally, clergy were aware of the Community Marriage Initiative (CMI), and the resources offered, and reported being somewhat involved, particularly in reading emails, letters, and newsletters, and answering or returning phone calls from the CMI. These clergy also were aware of trainings offered by the CMI. However, almost half did not attend due to the lack of time and other unspecified reasons. The clergy reported generally covering the same content in their relationship education practices, and, on average, use a similar format (number of sessions, minutes per session). Further, although clergy with training report using efficacious programs more than those without training, upon further examination, there is little difference regarding the frequency of implementation compared to their non-trained counterparts. Overall, many clergy never or rarely used programs following training. These findings question the potential contribution of CMIs in improving clergy’s premarital education practices, particularly in regards to programs.
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