How can we welcome couples marrying in our local Christian church? How can we offer them marriage preparation which is relevent, realistic and readily recieved? Water Made Wine encourages volunteers to form themselves into a parish marriage team. It recognises that they need skills for themselves and a programme to offer engaged couples, and it outlines training which will give them both. Extensively tested by counsellors, this training has enpowered ordinary parish volunteers to start meeting all types of couples before they marry. Water Made Wine is enlivened by the voices of these parish volunteers, whose reactions in training are extensively quoted and whose ministry to those about to marry is a positive and hopeful response by the Christian churches to the fragility of marriage today.
Margaret Grimer is External Services Officer with the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council, where she has a special interest in furthering the scheme for training parish marriage teams to work with couples getting married. She has contributed to Religious Education and Young Adults (ed. Donal O'Leary; St Paul Publications 1983) and is co-author of Life Choices (Geoffrey Chapman 1985).