We are looking for churches that want to help their communities very significantly and also have room for more new church members.

What the church and parachurch organizations have done to help families and marriages has not been enough. During the last 40 years the Christian divorce rate has climbed from 3% to over 50%.

The Treasure Cards Ministry provides the two ingredients that must augment sermons and education: (1) tools for implementing what has been learned and (2) the warm, caring touch of weekly encouragement by your church members.

THE TREASURE CARDS MINISTRY CAN HELP
SAVE MARRIAGES & BUILD FAMILIES
&
IS GREAT OUTREACH THAT CAN
BRING PEOPLE TO JESUS
AND GROW THE SIZE OF YOUR CHURCH

Churches can battle the high rate of divorce and family pain in America through our Marriage and Family Treasure Cards Ministry. However, this ministry is also a powerful outreach and evangelism tool.

Our Marriage and Family Treasure Cards Ministry is:

(1) a way for church and community families to have great conversations that build stronger family and marriage relationships, and

(2) a way to fight divorce and its many harmful consequences, and

(3) a very important ministry that brings each of your church households into continual contact with at least 3 non-church families to help them and tell what your church has to offer, and

(4) an easy outreach ministry for almost every family, single person, child and senior in your church – anyone who has contact with other families at work, in the neighborhood and elsewhere, and

(5) a great resource for discipling your members into Christian ministry and service.

Treasure Cards are 4 and a quarter inches by 5 and a half inches.

Treasure Cards teach dialogue and stimulate hundreds of helpful and fun conversations. Your church can distribute them to strengthen marriages and families as well as give kids critical skills for lifetime success. This will fight divorce and family pain as well as be excellent outreach to bring people to your church.

Each of your church households (families, singles, marriages, seniors) can hand out Treasure Cards week by week in loving service to your community. This personal touch can be quite effective.

For only $5 a month, each household can have their own servant evangelism ministry that helps families, couples, and kids. For $30 a church household gets 4 sets of 26 Treasure Cards for a six-month ministry in an attractive Ministry Kit Box. One set is for the church family to use and the 3 others are to give to non-church families, one at a time over 26 weeks.

The first Treasure Card is given out with an instruction sheet and
a ten-sided die to add an optional fun game-like atmosphere
in a clear plastic, zip-lock bag.

This will help reduce drug abuse, underage drinking, alcohol-related car accidents and deaths, delinquency, poor school performance, lifelong underachievement, sexual molestation by step-parents, child abuse, teen suicide, unwanted pregnancy and other serious societal problems.

Let your members follow Jesus into your community where He wants to help others through you!

A WEEKLY TOUCH OF LOVING CONCERN

At the beginning, your members ask three families outside your church if they would like to receive the Treasure Cards weekly to better their marriage and family, as well as give their kids important skills. These families are usually readily available as friends, neighbors, relatives or people at work. Then, each week your members give them their next Family Treasure Card or Marriage Treasure Card.

Each Treasure Card has 15 dialogue items to build family and marital communication. This deepens relationships and gives family members a wealth of skills, including verbal, social, thinking and problem-solving skills so necessary to the success of children and teens. A ten-sided die is included to add an optional fun game-like atmosphere to the conversational experience.

WEEKLY CONTACT IS NECESSARY FOR EFFECTIVENESS & MAKES GREAT OUTREACH

One Treasure Card is given out each week. The reason the whole pack is not given has to do with effectiveness, not outreach manipulation. Receiving all of the cards at once seems overwhelming and the full pack gets placed out of sight and out of mind.

Handing out one a week is more effective to get families and marriages talking over time – a habit critical to marriage and family success. (America needs what we do to help families to work - effort is just not enough.)

Weekly contact, however brief, makes your people available to care about the non-believer's family. This continual contact emphasizes how much Jesus and your church cares for that family.

(However, there may be cases where the whole of Course One must be handed out all at one time. While not ideal, it is still better than not giving a family anything to help them have helpful conversations.)

THOUSANDS OF HELPFUL CONTACTS IN JESUS' NAME

For example, a church with 50 participating households will have weekly contact with 150 family units outside of the church. That makes 3,900 helpful outreach contacts every six months, 7,800 in a year if you use Course Two.

It is our hope that three times the number of households in your church will appreciate your concern. And when the Holy Spirit moves them to try church, yours will likely be at the top of their list.

Just as important is that your church will be battling divorce and family breakdown in your community. The divorce rate is out of control! Let's reduce it.

BUILD THE FAMILIES OF YOUR CHURCH

Even before outreach concerns, using Family Treasure Cards to improve the marriages and families of your church is critical. Each divorce in your church is very painful. And, every time a child or teen goes astray, it makes church leadership wonder what more could have been done.

HELP YOUR PEOPLE INTO MINISTRY

This is a real ministry. As such, it has a bit of work attached to the effort. That is good.

Your members want to do something that "really counts" in the long run. By spending their own $30 for a six-month ministry they can call theirs, and by putting a few minutes into that ministry each week when they pass out Treasure Cards, they make Jesus Christ known to your community, build up their confidence for serving, and promote your church's concern for people.

TREASURE CARDS BUILD BOTH FAMILIES & MARRIAGES

Family Treasure Cards and Marriage Treasure Cards are mixed at a ratio of 2 to 1. Family Treasure Cards are given on Week 1 and 2. Then a Marriage Treasure Cards is given on Week 3. This rotation repeats.

This means that the family has three weeks to have conversations from the two Family Treasure Cards they receive during that period. The couple, provided it is not a single-parent family, has three weeks to have the 15 conversations on the Marriage Treasure Card given out. (There are alternatives for single parents and married people without children.)

26 weeks

The 26 Treasure Cards in Course One provide a ministry for six months. But, there are five more Courses. A church can choose to keep this weekly contact with community families going for 3 years, matching the amount of time Jesus walked this earth in ministry.

Additionally, there is tremendous educational value for children if the outreach is continued for the full three years. The 108 Family Treasure Cards (1,620 tiems for dialogue) are also a training package to give kids the verbal, social, thinking and problem-solving skills they need for lifetime success with people. This training also helps them develop important values, wisdom, a positive "can do" attitude, and a sense of responsibility for people and tasks, including chores.

The 48 Marriage Treasure Cards (720 items for dialogue) in the six courses cover most of the important things couples need to talk about.

It only takes about 15 minutes a week to pass off the Treasure Cards. So, it could be kept up for years and years. Concerned and loving contact by the families of your church can demonstrate Christ's steadfast love for your community.

PROVEN EFFECTIVENESS

The effectiveness of this approach to building families and marriages and fighting social ills has been shown in Wyoming. After a year's testing, the First Lady of Wyoming used our Great Family Conversations Tool Kit statewide for National Family Night on September 26, 2005. Many churches participated and about 3,000 families participated. The 600 items of this tool kit are included in the Family Treasure Cards.