Articles by “Biola CMR”

Kenny and Rylie began dating as college students and decided to get engaged. Soon, they recognized that her history of a painful past relationship and their poor communication and conflict management skills were damaging their relationship. They wanted to be intentional about building a marriage that would last a lifetime, so they sought help from the CMR.

Allow us to introduce you to Joey and Theresa. In asking them about their relationship, Theresa shared that at one time “I was at a point where I never wanted to get married again. I had already been married once and had never seen a good marriage. I was done. I had my son and wanted to stay single the rest of my life." Yet now they have a strong marriage and are mentoring younger couples. How did that happen?

As 2018 comes to a close, Biola's Center for Marriage and Relationships (CMR) has been blessed to help strengthen all kinds of relationships from marriages and friendships to families and roommates. Using successful tools like our podcast episodes, our Marriage Mentoring curriculum, and events at universities and churches around the country, our impact has continued to grow this past year. 

The CMR is completely donor-funded by generous people like you. To ensure our future impact, a couple has given a generous gift of $25,000, and they want to challenge you to match that gift by the year's end. Would you prayerfully consider making a year-end gift to the Center for Marriage and Relationships by December 31? Together, we can continue helping people build and sustain healthy, Christ-centered relationships!

Do you find yourself disagreeing with your spouse on a regular basis? Maybe it’s about money or division of household chores or how to raise your children. It seems like there are a thousand things to argue about. However, according to Dr. Tim Downs, every one of our conflicts can be boiled down to one of seven basic topics, including loyalty, security, and responsibility.

Key marital research has proven that couples who participate in premarital counseling are 30% less likely to get divorced. This is why the Center for Marriage and Relationships provides a small, pre-marital group for students at Biola University. Zack Seals ('18) and Amber Gokey ('19) recently participated in one of these classes and now feel much better equipped with crucial relationships skills for their future.  

When an affair takes place in a marriage, it can be devastating. However, even the most hopeless of situations are not without God's presence. Hear the story of one couple who prayed for their marriage and fought with God's help to stay together. 

Biola’s Center for Marriage and Relationships offers an upper-division undergraduate course called "Christian Perspectives on Marriage and Relationships." The course in 2018 is team-taught by Dr. Chris Grace and Alisa Grace, Dr. Tim Muehlhoff and Noreen Muehlhoff, and Dr. Rick Langer and Shari Langer. Students can take the class with the concentration in Psychology, Communication, or Biblical Studies. Hear what two best friends said about the course!

Hear the story of how the CMR's Going Deeper Together Marriage Conference impacted Liz and Eliseo Hernandez so much. The couple attended once as they were just starting out in their engagement and then decided to attend again after getting married. Take a look at some of the things that they learned!