Help the separated and divorced in your community navigate the holiday season, which will be flooded with memories of happier, past family celebrations. Offer a special Surviving the Holidays 2-hour seminar to provide practical holiday coping strategies and hope for brighter days ahead.
Surviving the Holidays is a great way to offer comfort and care to people in your church and community who are hurting from a separation or divorce. It’s also an effective way to reach out to people who may not normally consider attending a holiday church event.
“People are so hungry for it.”
Surviving the Holidays is a 2-hour event designed to help divorced and separated people navigate the unique challenges they’ll face this season. During the event you’ll show a 35-minute video and facilitate a group discussion.
Each attendee will receive a holiday Survival Guide with practical tips and encouragement for managing the holidays after a marriage breakup. This free-standing event does not require participation in a weekly DivorceCare program.
“We were hoping for 25–30 people. Last night 60 people came.”
Hosting Surviving the Holidays is a great way to reach your community. Pastors share that people come to this event who might never set foot in a church otherwise. It’s a way to offer church holiday divorce recovery counseling to multiple people—and to build an existing DivorceCare ministry.
In a season where so many struggle with their emotions, Surviving the Holidays draws people to your church. Here’s why:
Best of all, once people are exposed to the helpful material and warm environment, many will look to your church as a place for support and community.
“Many expressed a desire to attend our next group in January.”
Additional Survival Guides:
“Thank you, DivorceCare, for creating a powerful DVD and workbook for the holiday season. God’s presence was evident the entire morning.”
A total of 14 leading Christian counselors, authors, and pastors are featured in the Surviving the Holidays print and video materials.
Dr. Robert DeVries is professor emeritus of church education at Calvin Theological Seminary. His first wife of 28 years died of cancer. Now remarried to Dr. Susan Zonnebelt-Smeenge, they work together to help people in grief and are coauthors of many books, including The Empty Chair: Handling Grief on Holidays and Special Occasions and From We to Me.
Dr. Alfonza Fullwood is the senior pastor of Riley Hill Baptist Church in Wendell, North Carolina, and adjunct professor of preaching and speech at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has led preaching clinics and seminars in North Carolina and abroad and has been in ministry for over three decades.
Dr. Susan Zonnebelt-Smeenge is a licensed clinical psychologist. Her first husband died 18 years after he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Now remarried to Dr. Robert DeVries, they work together to help people in grief and are coauthors of many books, including Getting to the Other Side of Grief and Traveling through Grief.
Consider offering TWO seminars. Schedule one in the weeks before Thanksgiving and the other between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you decide to offer a single seminar, schedule it before Thanksgiving.
As a special event, you are not limited to your standard weekly meeting schedule. Groups have offered very successful seminars on Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, and weeknights.
The video seminar is loaded with practical, hope-inspiring ideas including:
They are not. Group members would get lost because the material is structured differently. Likewise, the new Survival Guides are not compatible with the old videos.
Learn what is new and updated in the latest edition of Surviving the Holidays.
Yes. The DVDs have a menu option that allows you to activate English subtitles.