The General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor William Kumuyi, has announced key modifications to the church’s long-standing marriage rules, clarifying that they are administrative guidelines and not biblical commands.
Speaking during the 2025 Global Family and Marriage Conference on Sunday, Kumuyi revealed that the ban preventing a lady from visiting a man she intended to marry has been cancelled.
He explained that intending couples may now visit each other during courtship, provided an elder accompanies them.
The cleric also disclosed that the six-month mandatory courtship period is no longer compulsory, stressing that it was a human arrangement and not from the Bible.
“We just felt you needed some time to know one another. And then we said one month will be too short, two months too short. So, why not six months? But it is not from the Bible,” Kumuyi said.
He urged Christians to differentiate between God’s commandments and church traditions, warning against treating human regulations as divine.
“As a Christian, you need to be so mature that you know the difference between the law of God and the principles in the church. Six months is all right, but it’s not something inflexible.
“If we change it to three months, we’re not changing the Bible, because six months is not in the Bible,” he added.
Kumuyi further explained that marriage committees were established only to provide guidance and not as replacements for biblical authority.
“There’s no marriage committee in the New Testament. We created it to help you, not because we can give you a chapter and a verse. It is church administration,” he stated.
He cautioned church leaders against overstepping their limits, noting that marriage committees should not exercise authority beyond what is written in the Scriptures.
The development comes as Kumuyi continues to review several church practices which, according to him, were introduced for administrative purposes and not rooted in the Bible.
