Developing a Culturally Sensitive Pre-Marriage Counselling Curriculum for Nigerian Churches

Pre-marriage counselling in Nigerian churches frequently fails to address the specific socio-cultural challenges of Nigerian marriages, including family interference, bride price negotiations, polygamy pressure, gender role conflicts, and interfaith marriage dynamics. This study develops a culturally sensitive pre-marriage counselling curriculum specifically designed for Nigerian church contexts. A curriculum development design was adopted, integrating a needs assessment survey of 200 recently married couples from churches in Lagos, Abuja, and Calabar, with focus groups involving twelve marriage counsellors, fifteen pastors, and ten marriage therapists. Existing pre-marriage curricula from Nigerian denominations were critically reviewed for cultural applicability. The developed curriculum addresses eight thematic areas: biblical theology of Christian marriage, financial planning and transparency, sexual intimacy within marriage, extended family boundary management, conflict resolution skills, parenting and spiritual formation of children, interfaith marriage challenges, and managing social media and technology in marriage. Each module integrates scriptural foundations with evidence-based relationship skills and contextually appropriate case studies from Nigerian marital experiences. Pilot delivery to twenty engaged couples confirmed high relevance ratings and knowledge acquisition. The study recommends that the Christian Council of Nigeria adopt this curriculum as a standard resource for pre-marriage counselling training and certification of church counsellors across all geopolitical zones.

Keywords: pre-marriage counselling, curriculum development, Nigerian marriages, church counselling, cultural sensitivity