Help the separated and divorced in your community navigate the difficult holiday season, which will be flooded with memories of happier, past family celebrations. Offer a special Surviving the Holidays seminar to provide practical holiday coping strategies and hope for brighter days ahead.
Surviving the Holidays is designed for two audiences:
“People are so hungry for it.”
Surviving the Holidays is a freestanding, two-hour event structured in two distinct parts, designed to be led by a lay team. First, your group will view a holiday-themed video session, and then your team will lead a group discussion about the material presented on the video. Each seminar participant is provided a special Holiday Survival Guide.
Surviving the Holidays is designed so that anyone facing the pain of separation or divorce can attend. It’s an outstanding way to minister to people who are hurting within your church and throughout your community.
“We were hoping for 25–30 people. Last night 60 people came.”
When you promote Surviving the Holidays to your community, it becomes a very effective tool to help that will draw people to your church.
There are two reasons for this:
Best of all, once people are exposed to the helpful material and warm environment, many will be drawn to your church and its ministries!
“Thank you for providing us with the proper tools to have this outreach ministry in our community.”
Additional Survival Guides:
Additional Leader’s 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 on the Surviving the Holidays video.
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.
No. Surviving the Holidays is available to any church that wants to minister to people hurting because of separation or divorce.
* Find out more about the full DivorceCare weekly support group program.
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:
Yes. The DVDs have a menu option that allows you to activate English subtitles.