Pastor Dean Furbert of Crawl Gospel Hall is preparing to launch a community campaign focused on “building great relationships”.

The series starts May 1 and is designed to help people develop the tools to be able to create healthy romantic, platonic and familial ties.

“In the context of society today, I can’t see anything more urgent than the need for people to know how to relate to one another in positive ways,” Mr Furbert said. “We are made for relationships. Being able to relate in a way that is healthy and proper is a sign of true maturity.

“There is a yearning in the human heart to love and be loved and to share our lives with others in a meaningful way. I think the idea of a campaign on relationships, which focuses on what relationships look like and how to build good relationships, couldn’t be more pertinent.”

The campaign was inspired when Mr Furbert became captivated by the daily devotional messages shared by Rick Warren, an American Evangelical Baptist pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church.

“I was captivated by this particular series of messages I observed by Rick Warren. He has become a household name around the world, having sold millions of books. Having seen his series of devotionals on relationships, I thought it would something that our community could benefit from.

“I introduced this to the church, and people were very enthusiastic about it. This encouraged me to go forward with it and open it up to the community.”

The campaign will consist of weekly meetings at the church on Sundays at 10am when a pre-recorded devotional by Mr Warren on specific aspects of human relationships will be shared.

Topics will cover personal relationships with God, relationships between husbands and wives, family relationships and friendships.

“The presentations will be in a different format from our church services. Each session will be facilitated by a group leader and followed by a discussion period, where everyone can get involved,” Mr Furbert said.

“We hope people will be informed, inspired and gain insight for living.”

Mr Furbert has been the pastor of Crawl Church at Crawl Gospel Hall for many years and is well known within the Hamilton Parish community. He hopes that people will join him to explore this important and timely topic as the breakdown of relationships has led to many social ills in our community and around the world.

He believes that the first fundamental breakdown is the lack of relationship with God and with ourselves.

“Maturity really amounts to knowing how to relate to ourselves and then relating to others. If people are not comfortable in their own selves that is the springboard for conflict and difficulty in their relationships with others.”

Having a relationship with God “is fundamental” if we are to have meaningful relationships with ourselves and others, he added.

“I don’t think people fundamentally realise that God created us to love us. He really wants us to be in relationship with Him. When we lack that intimate relationship with God, we lack trust in God and we go our own way because we think we can handle life on our own.”

Mr Furbert continued: “Without that trust in God, we find it hard to trust ourselves and others. Trusting in God first makes it easier to trust others. If we struggle to trust in God, the supreme perfect being, we will undoubtedly struggle to trust imperfect humans.

“All of our relationships spring from the quality of our relationship with God. This series is an opportunity to dive deeper, develop and strengthen our relationship with God and equip us to build better relationships with others.”

• Registration is not necessary. For more information telephone 293-0593