Nurturing Spiritual Formation through Relationship Education for Married Adult and Graduate Studies Students of Evangel University

摘要

The growing trend of adult learners in Christian universities offers an opportunity to enrich their marriages and spiritual formation. A marriage enrichment seminar was presented to sixteen adult and graduate students enrolled in the Adult Graduate Studies program at Evangel University, and their spouses, in a two-day, eight-hour relationship workshop based on an overtly Christian adaptation of the PREP curriculum. The goal of this relationship seminar was to impact knowledge, attitude, and spiritual formation with a biblical view of marriage.;The results of this project illustrate measurable impact through pre- and post-seminar assessments and student responses that reinforce this strategic need and value of spiritual formation in marriage for adult students, meeting a goal of the university and creating greater Kingdom impact. Pre- and post-seminar assessment data indicated a significant effect size difference on 30 measures. The moderate (.5 to .7) and strong (.8 +) effects were in the areas of the objectives of communication, conflict resolution, biblical and spiritual aspect of marriage, love languages, and marital satisfaction. The highest effect was a significant shift in the understanding of the holistic satisfaction of marriage intimacy and connectedness. In addition to the differences found in the effect size, a statistically significant difference (p < .05) was found in nine of the pairs and a highly significant difference (p < .001) in eight of the pairs when a paired samples test was applied to these 30 measures, further confirming the beneficial effects of such a seminar.