Run a course

Run The Marriage Course

A global crisis in the breakdown of family and married life presents a huge need – and a huge opportunity. In running The Marriage Course for couples in your area, you can create a space that offers couples practical tools to help them build a strong marriage. 

3 simple steps

How to run The Marriage Course

Plan it

Speak to your church or organization about where and when your course could be run, then simply sign up online using Course Builder to run the course in person or online.

Prepare it

Enjoy the user-friendly training resources that will be provided to you and familiarize yourself with The Marriage Course videos and materials to help you feel completely confident running the course!

Invite guests

Invite couples to attend and prepare each session as a special “date night”. If you are running the course in person – dreaming up food, candles or romantic lighting, and how you will seat your couples.

What is Course Builder?

In order to run a course, you will simply create an account on Course Builder. You will then have access to all materials, training and resources related to running your course, including the option to download the latest series. 

Preview the course

To experience the impact of The Marriage Course, you can view Session 1 below. To access all episodes, please register here.

Training and materials

Watch

Nicky and Sila Lee along with Alpha USA leaders talk about why and how to run The Marriage and Pre-Marriage Courses. Watch now.

Sign up

Check out upcoming training opportunities here.

Study Journals

Each person will need their own Study Journal.

Promote

In Course Builder you will find social media images. If you are looking for banners or invitation cards, you will find a selection of promotional materials here.

Meet with a Coach

Do you want to talk to a coach about getting started? Yes!

Who is it for?

Running The Marriage Course is perfect for you if:

FAQs

When you use the episodes from Course Builder, there is music, and a countdown timer built into each episode.  You can also choose the episodes in “Additional Formats: (No Conversation Timings) where no music is added.  In that situation, choose music without words that is easy to listen to. The main thing is that it is not too soft to enable couples to hear other couples’ conversations, or too loud to force them to shout! 

Yes, The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have been translated into Spanish, Chinese and several other languages. Please log-in here and create a course to see all the language options.

On Course Builder, for every episode you will find a “Share Link” button at the bottom of the Video Download page. You can send a guess who misses a night that link. Please do not put any of The Marriage Course or Pre-Marriage Course Videos on YouTube or any platform that is open to anyone to access, view or download if they are not on a course. 

Running sections of the course means guests don’t get the full experience or the full benefit. The course is written in a way that the different sections build upon each other and don’t work as effectively when done independently. We would recommend you run the courses in full rather than just certain sections.

You can access all of our latest training videos on Course Builder. To access the videos, you must first create your account, then you can locate them on the left side menu under “Learning Center”.

All the episodes are free to download. It is at the discretion of the church whether they provide the Guest Journals, meals and other related costs free of charge or pass these costs onto the guests by charging them for the course.

To get started:  

  1. Log on to Course Builder. 
  2. Watch the training videos in the Learning Centre 
  3. Create a Course 
  4. Download and review the Leader’s Guide in Series Materials 
  5. Order Guest Study Journals: For The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course each guest will require one copy of the relevant Guest Journal which can be purchased.

Both The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have a similar structure, with the feel of a date night and an emphasis on private discussions for each couple. The key difference is that The Pre-Marriage Course is for engaged couples and those considering marriage, whereas we recommend The Marriage Course for couples who have been married for at least two years. The Pre-Marriage Course can also include a Couple Survey which each guest completes in advance of the course. Following the course, they look at the results of their Couple Survey over a meal with a designated married “Support Couple”.

The episodes and training are free in Course Builder, but you can purchase the Study Journals or DVD’s if you prefer either HERE or HERE.

The website requires a start and finish date in order for a course to be registered on Course Builder. Please note that following registration on Course Builder your course dates will show on our Find a Course page. It will remain there until approximately two weeks after your course starts. 

The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course each have their own version of the Guest Study Journal. Each guest on a course requires their own Study Journal (that’s two per couple) and can be purchased HERE or HERE.

The Study Journal is a small handbook that corresponds with the topics of each session, guiding couples’ conversations, prompting discussions, and allowing plenty of space for guests to make their own notes. The Study Journal was created as an additional tool used to help couples reflect on their relationship and the meaning of marriage, as well as to facilitate conversations between them. The Journal is for each guest to keep once the course has finished. 

Course Builder is where you register your course, access training and promotional resources and all the episodes.  

Once the course is registered you will have access to promotional materials, training resources and the option to download the latest series. We will be uploading new training resources and course materials to Course Builder over time, so we encourage you to please keep revisiting the platform. Go to Course Builder HERE.

Yes, it is very easy! All of the talks, training videos and the Leader’s Guide are available online for free. Promotional materials and other resources are also available to customize HERE or in the “Promote” section of Course Builder. 

We believe that anyone who has a desire to see relationships strengthened, has experience of working at their own marriage and enjoys hosting couples can run a course. You don’t need to have the perfect marriage (no one does!) or be an expert to run it. People who are single can also run the course for couples. 

You’ve made a great decision to invest in relationships by offering The Pre-Marriage or Marriage Course. In this short video Nicky and Sila Lee talk about how The Marriage Course and Alpha work together HERE.

The Marriage Course was created by Alpha International, which also runs Alpha courses around the world. Alpha is a multi-week series of sessions exploring the Christian faith. Each week, the session looks at a different question around faith and is designed to create conversation. Alpha is run all around the globe and everyone is welcome. It runs online, in cafés, churches, universities, homes—you name it! No two Alphas look the same, but they generally have three key things in common: hospitality, a talk and good conversation. Click HERE to learn how to run Alpha.

Trusted by over 1,500,000 couples worldwide

The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have been successfully run in over 117 countries worldwide since they were created by Nicky and Sila Lee, authors of The Marriage Book.

Ready to run a course?

Have questions about Alpha?

Checkout our chatbot – Alphie, located in the lower right-hand corner!

ENCOUNTER

This track is full of amazing main-stage speakers who will showcase the power of prayer in every generation, equip you to live a naturally supernatural life and train you to heal as Jesus did. Senior pastors, church leaders, non-profit leaders, this track is you!

Workshops in this Track

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