Educational Resource
The Art of Accompaniment in the Discernment of Relationships by Deacon Kingsley Nwoko, STL (2018)
This is a Forum White Paper, part of the National Leadership Forum on Ministry with Young Adults Conference, December 5-6, 2018, Tampa, Florida
This two-day Forum, designed for those who minister to young adults at all levels, allowed attendees to dialogue with national leaders integral to these major events, as well as young adult ministry peers applying insights to local efforts.
The Art of Accompaniment in the Discernment of Relationships by Deacon Kingsley Nwoko, STL
Relationships are hard. Most people treat relationships too casually unlike a rigorous job that requires attention and some dedication for success; like a career that does not require any effort. The fact remains that a relationship that leads to a mutual covenant is a big commitment and there is no doubt about it. It could be rightly said that the decision to get married will impact one’s life more deeply than almost any other decision in life. The modern trends seem to indicate that most young people are not only anxious about the prospect of marriages, but shun it as well. This could be as a result of the fear of losing the marriage. Numbers never tell the accurate story, but in the case of divorce, the statistics are startling. The bottom line is that there are compelling statistics about the divorce rate in the Western cultures, which continues to hover around fifty percent, and the highest percentage of divorces occur within the first 10 years of marriage. I refer to this time frame as “marriage on the threshold”. Regardless of the specific figures on divorce or struggling marriages, the most important fact is that couples with relationship struggles face traumatic experiences and it can leave them with emotional and physical scars that last a lifetime.
The problem that I have observed is that people rush into marriage with little or no knowledge of the truth about their prospective spouse. Alternatively, most young adults have concerns about their ability to maintain a successful relationship and it compels them to cohabitate rather than to get married or to stay forever single. When it comes to dating and choosing a life partner, most young adults feel left alone by the Church. They try to figure it out on their own or rely on fate and hope for the best. The vocation to marriage in effect comprises two callings: one, to marriage in general as a basic lifestyle; the other, to marriage with a specific person as one’s life-partner.