Ministry and Marriage--Nigeria Style!

My wife, Anita, and I have now completed our first full week here in Nigeria and have finished two of three scheduled seminars on balancing ministry and marriage. For me, it’s been a special treat to have Anita accompany me this time, as opposed to working solo as I have the past two years.

The emphasis of our presentation has been to challenge couples involved in ministry work to find biblical balance between the demands of work and the priority of their marriage. We’ve been contrasting perspectives on both of these from current popular culture and Scripture. We’re trying hard not to let our Western cultural biases color our conclusions but, instead, help participants make their own comparisons between traditional Nigerian viewpoints and what the Bible has to say about it.

As a result, we’ve learned so many interesting aspects about traditions and habits here in Nigeria even among couples who are strongly committed to their Christian faith. Here are a few:

·         ***African culture says that men should always be the authoritative and domineering head of the home. Men in ministry struggle with living out this expectation from their extended family along with also knowing the Bible says they should love their wife sacrificially, as Christ loved the church.

*** Nigerian pastors have inherited the role of the tribal high priest, whom everyone venerates with the highest respect and seeks out for all life decisions. As a result, many pastors experience a status of huge respect among their parishioners that sets them apart and easily leads to excesses of pride and self-glorification. 

*** A wife’s expectation of submission to her husband often extends to the extended family as well, meaning that she can be routinely ordered around by her husband’s parents or elder brothers.

All of these realities and many more have led to some stimulating discussion times during our sessions as we’ve attempted to encourage a biblical worldview on both ministry and marriage.

Frequent power outages have impacted our seminars, causing major interruptions in our PowerPoint presentations.  Then there are the heightened security conditions. This has meant that some participants have been delayed up to several hours just trying to get to our meeting venue because of the multiple police checkpoints along the way. In one case, we waited for over an hour to start the session and had only three people there. By the end of the session, however, there were twenty-five!

Tomorrow we will begin our third seminar, this time in the city of Jos that is higher in elevation than Abuja, so the weather is quite comfortable. We’ve learned that announcements have been made on the radio, and posters with our picture have been displayed all over town. So, we’ll see just how many people show up this time. Whatever the case, we’re praying that God brings those who will benefit the most from our seminar and, therefore, become more effective than ever in both their ministry and their marriage.