Students navigate relationships in new chapel

Dating, love and relationships are often a battleground of broken hearts, scars and poor decisions.

Oklahoma Christian University Bible professor Mel Latorre said he created Faithfully Ever After Chapel after he heard far too many accounts of relationships on campus handled poorly.

“It’s become clearer and clearer to me that we don’t do relationships well,” Latorre said. “It’s painful, it’s awkward, it’s clumsy the way we do it, and I’ve had so many conversations from teenagers to college students and even married people – we just don’t do it well.”

Originally Latorre planned on developing a class to focus on dating, friendships and love, but the idea evolved into a chapel setting. Latorre said he expected only a small group of students at the first meeting, but was shocked to see 80 students in attendance. The group was so large that the meeting place was changed from the second floor of the Beam Library to Scott Chapel.

“I was surprised, I was happy that so many were interested in the topic,” Latorre said. “It just reaffirmed in my mind that people want to do better.”

In order to help students navigate the confusion and uncertainty of relationships, Latorre interacts with the students throughout the chapel setting. Each chapel begins with Latorre asking a question then allowing students to respond throughout. After students have expressed their opinions, Latorre advises them based on his personal experience and perspective.

So far this semester Faithfully Ever After Chapel has addressed several relationship topics including what girls want guys to know, what guys want girls to know, deciding to break up and the proper way to break up.

Junior Elizabeth Neal said she began regularly attending the chapel after she heard Latorre speak about the differences and similarities between men and women in relationships.

“It was fun to hear both sides and how they compare,” Neal said. “There was a lot of similarities and some complete opposites of what we wanted them to know and what they wanted us to know.”

Latorre said the topics of dating, love and relationships are not something to take lightly, and it is important for individuals to know how to handle them.

“A lot of this is not just fun and games,” Latorre said. “This messes with people emotionally, physically, spiritually – it scars you. There are people that are hurt because of this.”

Latorre said his primary goal of this chapel is to help students develop relationship skills from a Christian standpoint.

“I’m no psychiatrist,” Latorre said. “I’m not an expert on any of this. I just throw it out there and try to guide the conversation to how we can do things better and try to take it from a faith perspective.”

Faithfully Ever Chapel meets every Thursday at 11 a.m. in Scott Chapel.

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