Marriage Preparation

It is interesting that nowadays some of my messages are preceded by dreams, but not exactly that surprising since the Bible says that spirit filled old men will dream dreams. And I am now an old man, a Biblical elder as I have been learning and sharing.

In it, some young people had started meeting for a short prayer through some break in their work station. And it was thriving and becoming so sweet that they wanted me to tell them whether it was okey because the group consisted of both sexes.

Allow me to answer them here.

Growing together through prayer and fellowship is one very healthy practice because it exposes the people involved to an accountability structure and fellowship, especially in a workplace with majority unbelievers.

It is also a swell way to make one’s witness visible and acts as a block to temptations at the workplace.

But allow me to get to the main point of the message.

Such meetings are excellent preparing grounds for ministry and marriage.

Why do I say this?

As people pray together, they tend to open up more. They become increasingly vulnerable to their prayer partners, exposing not only their insecurities, but also their spiritual makeup.

They will comfortably reveal what could be wrong with the way they were brought up because they have a safe haven to do so. They will be able to lay bare some of their long-held prejudices and habits because they are among friends.

Allow me to give an example.

A person raised in alcohol and abuse will seek help to deal with that trauma and overcome and replace it with something healthier. A person raised by a single mother will expose the rebellious heritage and hatred or dread for marriage and open themself to healing through those safe friends.

What that will do is not only open them to the transforming power of prayer and accountability, it will help them know themselves enough to desire to change since they know that the person they are is not a good enough specimen when it comes to life and marriage.

It goes without say that some matchmaking will happen in that group. But that is not because it was planned. It was a simple product of people growing together.

And chances of marriages coming from such failing is almost non-existent.

Since none of them was looking for marriage when starting and attending the meetings, they had been able to know each other better than they could have done so elsewhere. Meaning there was no acting involved.

An old saying in our tribe goes thus, if you are looking to court a girl, court her male agemates (from her village of course)

This will apply in this instance.

Allow me to give a funny incident to demonstrate this.

A young man came to me wondering why in a church with so many members it was difficult to get a wife.

I showed him a girl I had discipled, telling him that from my vantage point she is a good girl to consider.

He then thought to ask for an opinion from his friend, probably giving him my opinion in the process. And this friend had been in the discipleship group with the girl.

Before he could get a response, this friend was getting married to the said girl.

Growth groups are the best places to ‘hunt’ for spouses for the simple reason that there is rarely any acting involved because they are not united for any reason apart from growth and glorifying God.

Very few in those groups will get married within the group. But they will ultimately get married to close friends of those in the group.

Even there the chances of success will be very high since this friend guiding you to a person in the group will give you adequate background to enable you to make very informed choices.

Someone could be very sweet but have a terrible temper. You can’t tell your friend to overlook the temper or hide it from them. On the other hand, you will not want your friend to trash this sweet soul for a temper that you are praying about and they are working on.

This person who looks at marriage as a prison may be a spiritually healthy specimen otherwise that you know will add immense value to your friend if they could deal with the unhealthy upbringing, something a group is handling in a very healthy way.

One reason I trash dating is because it brings two actors together who will reveal their true natures after signing on the dotted line.

Dating for years has never guaranteed marriage, or even a successful one for that matter.

Or you haven’t heard of people who dated for over five years yet divorced after a few months or weeks!

When marriage is the end goal of a relationship, everything is shaped to ensure that happens.

A fiancé must be convinced that I am the right person under all circumstances unless I change my mind about it.

Though the narrative about dating says that the purpose is for the couple to know each other, the dynamic of that knowing each other is altogether absent. It could as well have been a waste of time since it offers insurance for nothing.

Growth groups will deal that a death blow.

And it is because it creates the village atmosphere. People will know and accept one another completely. Beyond that they will be helping one another grow towards Christlikeness.

But not only that. They will look out for each other, and not for selfish reasons. And that is what genuine friends are like.

On the ministry front you will allow me to also use an incident in my life.

When I responded to God’s call about four decades ago, I was in school.

With a friend we started meeting for a few minutes to share in a short devotion and prayer before going to the school assembly.

In a very short time, it grew into a huge meeting where other students would come to hear that short word and prayer before going to the assembly.

That was the first time and place people started calling me pastor, a title I have never called myself to date.

Although it was a catholic school with the headmaster being clergy, they started calling on me to share a devotion during the school assembly every once in a while.

Other students started looking for me for counsel and to offer some scriptural explanations of this or the other.

I remember once being woken up in the middle of the night by a young man who wanted to get saved. And I gladly led him to the Savior who had drawn him at that hour.

Doors of ministry continued opening even as our group continued growing.

There are many other benefits of growth groups, spiritual growth groups.

The heathen have their own groups, normally called table or pool banking or cooperatives though many are quite small and informal. And they are able to accomplish much in the material realm.

What then would you expect such a group centred on the edification of God’s people?

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)

What do you expect of marriages formed in that environment?

Or what does Psalm 133 promise?

Allow me to then define what a growth group will be like.

First the essentials.

The word of God and prayer MUST be the drivers of that group.

I do not want to say Bible Study because I know many have completely corrupted that word and concept.

But in the group, there will be some discussion about what each person in the group is learning from their scriptural intake, however brief that will be.

It is not some ‘expert’ taking people through their study. It must be each member of the group sharing what God is teaching them.

Further to that is sharing what God has been doing in their lives, many times building on the items the group has been praying about. Call it testimony time.

This gives their prayer great impetus as answer to prayer always does.

That will be followed by sharing of challenges and prayer requests, followed by actual prayer for those needs.

How big should a growth group be?

It should not be too small or too big.

Ideally it should have between five and eight members, probably with a core group of two or three. If possible it should have one or two mature believers, what I will call elders. Though in most of the ones I have been involved in ministry we were simply a few young radical believers choosing to grow together, probably due also to the times we were in.

But it will ultimately grow because it will be changing lives and drawing so many others inside.

Even then, it is very important for the leadership to probably break up the group into smaller groups and have the large group meet, though not as often as those growth groups and probably not at the same place those groups meet.

And this is because it has actually become a congregation with a completely different dynamic.

I remember once when my brother and I started such a growth group that became a fellowship, later a church. It is now a full-fledged denomination. And I doubt they know how it started since we withdrew from it very early in its growth.

I pray this is not giving you greedy ideas. But the truth is that there is no limitation for a growth group if it is centred on the essentials, prayer and the study of scripture. And there is nothing inherently wrong with a church starting out of a growth group, though many times it is a hyena that hijacks that good thing.

It is wrong to start a growth group with the sole object of starting a church because you will overlook some very key things, the key one being the individual growth of each member.

It is also wrong to attend a growth group with the sole object of getting a spouse, though many have been transformed all the same irrespective of their motives. But it is interesting to note that many who attended for that purpose met with their like since like the Bible says we reap what we sow.

Will you consider a growth group in your church or even secular organisation?

Let us talk