Christian Family Education Model for Couples Facing Marital Crisis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59944/postaxial.v4i3.1884Keywords:
Christian Family Education; Marital Crisis; Pastoral Counseling; Family Systems; Spirituality; RecoveryAbstract
Marital crisis can affect emotional well-being, identity, parenting, social relationships, economic conditions, and spiritual life. For Christian couples, these difficulties may also generate questions about faith, meaning, responsibility, and belonging within the church community. This article aims to formulate a Christian family education model for couples facing marital crisis through a descriptive-analytical literature review integrating crisis intervention, family systems, pastoral care, spirituality, mental health, and divorce literature. The analysis emphasizes that family education should not be limited to teaching marital ideals but should develop couples’ capacities to understand crisis, regulate emotions, communicate safely, protect children, strengthen adaptive coping, reconstruct relationships, and integrate faith into recovery. The proposed model consists of assessment, safety, stabilization, exploration, meaning reconstruction, coping strengthening, relationship reconstruction, spiritual integration, and recovery. Child well-being is treated as a central consideration, while pastoral caregivers are encouraged to recognize professional boundaries and establish referral networks for psychological, psychiatric, legal, or safety-related needs. The model positions the church as a supportive community that combines compassion, accountability, hope, spiritual accompaniment, and access to professional care. As a conceptual synthesis, the model requires further empirical examination in diverse Christian family contexts.
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