Love Reboot marriage intensives
Highly effective help
for troubled
and hurting marriages
BY AMY MORGAN
B E A CON W R I T E R
You may suspect your marriage is
headed the wrong direction. Arguments
have become more frequent and
intense. Or maybe you’ve discovered an
affair or financial crisis. You might
have even entertained the idea of
divorce. Or maybe your marriage is
strong, but you’ve seen warning signs
in the marriage of a friend or relative.
Couples may consider counseling,
but often spending an hour a week
with a therapist is just not enough to
turn things around. This was the
experience of relationship coach Jon R.
Anderson, founder and president of
Growing Love Network. Jon began
leading three-day marriage intensives
in 2005, and has since led 118 such
courses – almost one every month –
and has seen tremendous success in
marriage restoration.
“In the first seven years, two different
groups of graduate students
studied our intensives and found that
an average of 75 percent of the couples
who went through the marriage intensive
were still together,” Jon says—and
those were marriages identified as on
the brink of separation or divorce.
A study found that after the intensives,
75 percent of couples were still together
seven years later.
"Couples come to me when they are
in crisis. At that stage, counseling is
not the best first step, although it is
often the best second step,” he continues.
After a couple completes a
marriage intensive, they are more
ready for counseling to be fruitful.
Once they are “out of the ditch,” they
can see more clearly and be in a much
better position to move forward and
gain ground, he says.
Jon likes to use a medical analogy to
explain why a marriage intensive is
more effective than traditional retreats,
books or even mentoring.
“If a person is critically wounded,
you wouldn’t take them to a doctor’s
office. They don’t need a diet and
Jon R. Anderson, Founder and President of Growing
Love Network, and his wife, Joanna, go the extra mile
to get couples "out of the ditch."
exercise plan. They need emergency
attention to stop the bleeding,” Jon
says. “Likewise, a once-a-week visit to
a counselor is not adequate to be
lifesaving to a marriage that is heading
toward divorce. In both cases, immediate,
specialized treatment is needed to
be effective.”
In Love Reboot, Jon helps couples
break down barriers and stabilize the
relationship so subsequent therapy can
begin at a more effective place and
growth can start to happen, he says.
The goal is transformation—changing
hearts so thoughts, attitudes and
behaviors start to look different.
Jon recruits churches to host Love
May / June 2019 www.saBeacon.com 9