The 2021 celebration of St. Valentine’s Day took a new turn as a church organized a programme to explore God’s perspective of relationships different from the secular understanding of the spirit of the celebration.
Earlier, in his address to the congregation, the Minister-in-Charge of Rhema Chapel International Churches Port Harcourt, Pastor Abiola Ajadi, said that in marriage relationship, the parties involved will keep learning till last day as he joined panel of discussants to proffer solutions to the programme tagged “W.W.W-What Went Wrong.”
He disclosed that the church decided to come up with this kind of arrangement in order to ensure healing for homes, to correct certain ills and perceptions about relationship, thereby upholding the principles of God’s word.
The clergyman denounced the prevailing circular perspective about relationship and said: “There is nothing like dating, fling relationship. These are imported ideas, what we have in church is courtship to ensure a solid foundation is laid for homes: Moderator of the programme, Minister Abosele Adebayo took a broad perspective of all kinds of issues related to marriage and relationship, upon which the discussants did justice to issues based on their years of experience in marriage and their understanding of the word of God.
About the concept of dating among Christian youths, a couple Mr. and Mrs. Eze shed their perspectives on the matter. For Mrs. Ronke Eze, “dating is not biblical culture but courtship in the Lord is our culture as Christians.”
She argued that any relationship with marriage in focus, every child of God must receive a clearance from the Father before embarking on courtship. She noted that people of the world start their relationship on canal level and as such they are faced with peculiar challenges.
She also expressed her opinion about ideal duration for courtship, saying this should not be long and warned that no child of God should prolong his or her courtship.
On the issue of settling disagreement between Christian couple discussant, Mrs, Eze stated that it is better for married couple to settle the misunderstanding between themselves without the third party, she warned that third party influence in marriage could cause more harm than good. She emphasized importance of prayer in marriage as to help their home in boosting understanding and unity of purpose.
As part of what may have gone wrong in marriages and relationships, the panelists were unanimous in their opinions that heartbreak are caused when those involved were not in the will of God for their relationship.
They appealed to the youths to explore the opportunities offered by courtship period to get to know each other more as they would have the opportunity to be guided by people of God through the Bible.
According to them, courtship is not a time for merriment but a time to find out what marriage is all about.
