Beauty & the Beast

Need a little family-friendly comic relief? Watch this free video online or order the book from our bookstore.

Wedding Plans?

Have you visited the #1 wedding website with 3.2 million unique visitors a month? TheKnot.com is a great site to help you dream and plan Your Special Day. More than 3,000 new members join each day!

You'll also want to get your marriage off to a great start with a few session of professional premarital counseling. OC Christian Couples in Southern California provides a complete assessment of your relationship plus 6 to 8 sessions with a professional couples counselor to help you prevent problems before they can start! Call (714) 865-2164 to schedule your confidential appointment.

Love & Respect Quiz

Take the "Love & Respect Quiz," adapted from J. Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

Note: All information provided on this website is for general informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for a professional evaluation. If you are experiencing emotional distress, please contact a mental health professional.

What? You've never been to Movies on the Beach?

If you're looking for something a little bit different to do with your family this summer, consider visiting Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort and Marina. Each Friday and Saturday from May through September the resort offers free Movies on the Beach. "Brings the kids, lounge chairs, and treats to see movies for the whole family on our giant screen."

Can you get more "So Cal" than that??

Young at Heart

Looking for a great place to spend a summer evening?

2007 Pageant of the Masters
Where Art Comes To Life!
Laguna Beach, California

July 7th - August 31st, 2007, Gala Benefit Saturday, August 25th, 2007

This year's theme is "Young at Heart." Each night during the summer season at 8:30 the Festival of Arts presents its most famous attraction, the Pageant of the Masters: Ninety minutes of "living pictures" - incredibly faithful art re-creations of classical and contemporary works with real people posing to look exactly like their counterparts in the original pieces. An outdoor amphitheater, professional orchestra, original score, live narration, intricate sets, sophisticated lighting, expert staff, and hundreds of dedicated volunteers have won recognition for the Pageant as the best presentation of its kind.

Breaking the Idols of Your Heart

"In our thirst for significance we, like the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, give our lives our time, talents, strength, heart to anything we think will give us worth and purpose: Power. Relationships. Money. Pleasure. Work. But worshiping these idols has a high cost and still doesn't bring the fulfillment we long for.

"In Breaking the Idols of Your Heart, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman illuminate for us the Teacher's warnings and, after all his activities, his final radiant conclusion: Meaning and purpose come only when God is truly the center of our life and the object of our hope. Using a compelling fictional narrative at the start of each chapter to encourage reflection on our own life and the lives of family and friends, the authors lead us through Ecclesiastes to help us recognize and exchange cheap pursuits for the only One worth pursuing.

"Ecclesiastes is not an easy book to read, because transferring our worship from money, power and fame to God is not an easy road to travel. But as the Teacher discovered and wrote down for us, it leads to one conclusion: life lived abundantly, in freedom, hope, purpose, meaning."

Bad Couples Therapy

According to William J. Doherty (Psychotherapy Networker, November/December, 2002, 26-33),

Surveys indicate that about 80 percent of therapists in private practice do couples therapy. Where they got their training is a mystery, because most therapists practicing today never took a single course in couples therapy and did their internships without supervision from someone who had mastered the art. In other words, from a consumer point of view, coming in for couples therapy is like having your broken leg set by a doctor who skipped orthopedics in medical school.

... it’s not surprising that the only form of therapy that received low ratings in a famous national survey of therapy clients, published in 1996 by Consumers Reports, was couples therapy.

So if you're looking for couples counseling (premarital or marital), be sure to find out what couples training the therapist has received. If his or her training is not posted on a website or in other printed material, just make a phone call and ask! It could save you a lot of time and money and frustration.