Pastors trained to be marriage celebrants

By EHEYUC SESERU
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has trained 12 pastors at Morobe Mission in Lae to be marriage celebrants.
The 11 male pastors and a female pastor from mission headquarters were trained to conduct pre-marriage counselling, weddings and officiate at marriage ceremonies.
The training was conducted by Pastor Simon Vetali, family ministries director of Central Papua Conference of the SDA church.
“The participants were trained on types of marriages that church wants to encourage, able to document marriages properly, register births, registering church members and to do counselling before marriages,” Vetali said.
He said the pastors would be able to do birth and marriage registry.
“While we are carrying out training, we also do awareness for good, strong, healthy church marriages.”
He said they received training in civil and religious marriage celebrations and could be celebrants for religious and non-religious marriages.
“Increase in church membership has placed demand for marriage celebrants,” Vetali said.
“This would help us keep records opf our church members, marriage records and it is also usefull for making yoor identification cards and passports even simpler.
“Thus, while the training may be deemed only for church and marriage purposes, it also has some other advantages.”
The female participant was Dr Pastor Agnes Kola, the first female pastor of SDA church in PNG. She was the director for family, women, and partners in ministry, which catered for female spouses of pastors.
The concluding part of training last Thursday saw a participant, Pr Elizah Kepmewato, 33, from Aseki in Menyamya, Morobe, and his traditionally-wedded wife Omari Kepmewato, from Tawa in Aseki, Morobe, officially sign their legal marriage certificate.