Singleness and what we can do!
Most Christian singles and I include myself in that, look forward to being married. Involuntary singles ness has never been easy, but what is different in todays society us that in both the Christian community and society outside the number of unwilling solos in on the increase, more and more of our generation are staying single for longer, despite wanting to get married, which suggest that the process of finding a mate is becoming ever more difficult.
What we can do
what you can do as friends
What the church could do
Quit
fantasyland
There are so many
secret fantasies that we all have, and some of them are so
unrealistic that it is almost impossible not to have them
shattered at some point in your life.
Take for example that fantasy, that when you fall in love, it
will be with the right person, whom you will love forever.
Forget it! falling in love is a purely selfish act, nothing to do
with the unselfish act of loving someone. Falling in love is that
marvelous rollercoaster ride, where the whole world seems to be
in bloom and everything is hunky dory! well that is untill you
realise that that rollercoaster is going to stop one day and
there you will have to carry each other, instead of the love
carrying the two of you!
Or the fantastic idea that only one person is meant for you and
that person is perfect!
If you believe that you can forget all possibilities of future
relations, because no one is perfect. And you will find that out
soon enough. Once the infatuation of falling in love fades, you
are left with reality. Sometimes God will speak clearly to people
about who to marry, but this is not always the case, and even a
marriage brought together by God can still fail. The husband and
wife each have free will to rebel against God's will and to stop
loving each other. Whether or not God intended a certain person
for us is not a cover for us to evade responsibility!
And no where in scripture does it say that there is only one
person meant for you. Proverbs 31 speaks about "finding a
wife" and Paul in one Corinthians 7 speaks about
"looking for a wife".
God gave us the gift of marriage, He gave us the marriage, we
have to find the partner, although don't get me wrong I believe
He will guid us in this matter, but if there would only be ONE
PERFECT PARTNER, we will find our search for a partner taken over
by fear of goign for the wrong person, instead of faith to find a
good suitable partner.
And talking about the partner being perfect, well this is a very
nice theory, but by definition we are all human, and therefore
will all fail somewhere, it is intrinsically impossible for any
of us to be perfect, so come back down to earth and look for
reality! Get of your behind, and get active, start working on
ourselves.
And how nice it would be if the Lord gave our perfect partner to
us in a little wrapped package, rather than us having to go out
and look. somethings need some work and effort from us, and
finding a partner is one of them.
Look at the great people in the Bible, while God guided them,
they had to find the way, often through trial and error, but
always in the care of the LORD. Their faith was not only
demonstrated in their prayers, but also in taking the right
actions, trusting they were guided by the LORD!
And while recognizing that our partner might not be perfect, he
or she will not turn perfect overnight after entering marriage
either. True friendship and partner ship can only flourish
between people who regard each other as equals - where there is
an opportunity for mutual sharing of strength and weaknesses.
Marriage needs interdepance to survive, you need to be able to
support each other and hang on to each other, an unequal
relationship where one depends on the other is not a healthy
relationship.
Unequally yoked relationships, where one is dependant on the
other, or where one of the partners is not a Christian, in many
cases these marriages end up where faith might be lost and in
divorce and pain.
Another fantasy that a lot of people believe in, is that when
they can't find a partner straight away they think that the Lord
called them "to be single". I am not saying that no one
is called to be single.
There a clear Biblical examples of people who were called to be
single. What I am questioning is whether YOU have been called to
be single.
Too many Christians regard the fact that they have not found a
partner to date as evidence that God wants them to stay single
for the rest of their lives.
This is a wrong view of God, He is a God who wants to bless us
and who delights in marriage. If your desire is to marry, then I
suspect that that is a desire given by God. What people confuse
is accepting the reality of the moment with a genuine purposeful
call from the Lord to being single for a lifetime.
The
dating game
Let's just
start by asking you this question: Who are you after?
So where
do we find them?
If we can't find them in our own church where should we look?
So where do we go from here?
Have
fun!, dating should be fun, not a time-consuming ordeal
that we spend every other waking moment worrying about.
Agree on the ground rules, when you go out with someone
it is not a declaration that you are in love with the
person, but merely a chance to have some holy fun with
someone for a couple of hours.
The more we date in a relaxed manner, the more
friendships we will build up and the more chances we get
to get to know more people.
Stop assessing each single person of the opposite sex as
a 'potential' partner, get to know them and become
friends and from there you can assess a lot better.
Asking someone out is not solely a task for the men, girls, do ask the blokes out! it is not immoral to do this, or a sign of desperation, merely a signal that you are a woman of determination who knows what she wants, and isn't prepared to wait for it for the coming decade.
Only God knows how many brilliant romances have passed u sby because we could not muster the courage to make ourselves clear. If you summon up the courage to ask someone out, you must be fair to yourself and be utterly clear about your intentions to the other party, for you are making yourself vulnerable, showing your hearts desire and risking rejection.
Now
just to put things into practice, think about some five
people that you would like to date, what is your strategy
for asking them, how you are going to approach them.
Just as nobody gets a job wihtout talking to the manager,
so none of us gets a date without talking to those we
want to date.
But
just like any situation, it is likely that there are
setbacks, rejections, but also new opportunities, so
don't loose heart, keep at it!
Dreaming is not enough, thinking is not enough, You
have to take action!
What
do you think of your single friends, this is a question
you should ask yourself.
Do you see them as people you care about and you want to
be part of their lifes, or do you see them as helpful in
filling seats during your dinnerparty where there is one
chair left empty.
Have
you ever realised that your single friends would like to
meet other single people?
Well this is your chance, why not help them, and
introduce some of your single friends to each other, the
whole system of setting up relationships depends on
knowing the right people, and how can your friends meet
the right people if you keep hiding them from each other.
Being
part of the body of Christ means that we form a family,
you support each other in prayer and practical help.
You cna help your single friend by being there for them,
when they are fed up and feeling hopeless about ever
finding a partner, but you can also help them, not by
being a matchmaker, but by introducing your friends to a
wider group of people, to give them the same happiness
you know in your life.
Have
you ever realised that your single friends would like to
meet other single people?
Well this is your chance, why not help them, and
introduce some of your single friends to each other, the
whole system of setting up relationships depends on
knowing the right people, and how can your friends meet
the right people if you keep hiding them from each other.
10
unhelpful things that married couple say to singles:
Christian
singles don't just leave the church because they feel
pulled by the world, but because they also feel pushed by
fellowbelievers.
Creating Healthy male-female relationships is something
we Christians should be good at, but unfortunately our
theology of romance owes more to Mills and Boon novels
than it does to the Bible
It is not requiring a matchmaker to act as go between, but it comes down to simply providing additional choice of candidates with the right qualification - namely sharing the faith.
Across
all ages, from young-never-marrieds to elderly widows,
involuntary singleness is a national diseace which is out
of control.
What an opportunity for our churches, For as our society
slides, we ahve the opportunity to become each others
community's alternative culture that shines in the midst
of darkness; a sanctuary from that darkness, where stable
relationships can be formeed and nurtured and where
morality is not only taught but seen to work.
But till this day many churches seem to be missing their big chance, 35 percent of adults in evangelical churches are unmarried, and that number is still rising, our churches are becoming singles clubs where people don't get paired off.
The effect of several post war trends like the rise of individualism, social earthquake by free sex in the sixties and the invention of the pil, as well as the rise of feminism, besides the decline in church membership, the effects can be seen in the rise of involuntary singleness.
Many leaders stay silent on the issue, afraid to tred toes or their views are so timewarped that they are not listened to. And you won't hear a word from our clergy on the struggle of being a single Christian in a sex-obsessed society, silence born out of ignorence of embarrasment. And when singles aren't being ignored they are so often patronised. Too many of the faithful singles have a fear that their church membership is becoming a life sentence of sexual and emotional isolation.
Singles who remain in the church, and many don't are confronted with a minimal or non-existant choice of partners. Marriages which do take place are often poor matches where compatability was the sense of mutual desperation, any surprise then that divorce has increased in the church?
Christian singles don't just leave the church because they feel pulled by the world, but also because they feel pushed by fellowbelievers. It is often the 'higer' status given to the married that intensifies the pressures to escape from singlenes. Next time when your church asks the singles to wash up after the valentines banquet or the marriage reception think again!
As
well as pressures from the world, and pressures from
married believers in the church, Christian singles also
have to deal with the pressures within themselves. There
are no prospects for marriage, there is a feeling of
standing on your own, the 'no-hope' situation.
The failure of many congregations to offer such hope
shrinks the church. Great preaching can lead many to
faith, but it is only a great church community that will
retain them!
A
woman who reached her thirties, yet longs to be a mother
without there being an eligible man in church, what can
she do, wait for abraham, or start a relationship with a
non-christian, think about the older batchelors in
church, often with a shortage of social skills, their
cause is not helped with the advancing years.
It matters not only because Christ is not honoured by a
church which allowes so many of its young people to
flounder on such a crucial issue, but also because far
too many previously faithful followers fall away from
church at this hurdle.
This is not a call for tolerance of sexual sin, but a
plea for sympathy for our singles.
If church leaders and Christian married couples stopped
sweeping the problem under the carpet but addressed with
both words and deeds, then singles woudl not feel so
trapped.
Talk about our worries and we feel understood. Help us
practically and we feel cared for.
For
church leaders to ignore the matching process is not only
pastorally bad practise, but also a strategic blunder
hindering the cause of church growth.
Of course the desire for a partner should not become the
only motivation for coming to church, but it is
unrealistic to fail to realise that the desire for a
sexual partner and emotional companion is strong in our
society.
If we want a church where singles have their eyes focused
upwards worshipping God, rather than side-ways eying up
the talent, then we must deal with these concerns. It is
only when singles regard themselves as having a strong
chance of finding a good marriage partner that they will
be able to forget about the issue and 'let it happen'.
If
there is a lack of suitable volunteers for the role of
facilitator and not enough couples are willing to
introduce regular opportunities for singles, what else
might the church do to give the singles a real chance?
Some churches arrange weekly or monthly social meetings
which aim to get singles to meet more people in both
their own church and neighbouring congregations.
Some
things to remember:
The social side of church life is just as much on the
heart of God as hymns and sermons, how can unhappy people
worship God?
Secondly just as a starving man cannot hear the gospel
clearly, when his tummy rumbles so loudly, so also until
the social hunger of the single is satisfied they will
not be able to function well in church.
Is it not the heart of God to meet the deep yearnings of
the single? Is it not the work of God for ministers to
use their contacts to encourage the birth of Christian
marriages?
A church where its single population is depleted by
weddings rather than defections is a happier one, with
fewer pastoral cases overloading the clergy
Within
a relationship for a Christian it is 'all or nothing', in
the world there is the halfway home of cohabitation, but
for the Christian it is all or nothing.
There is a failre to preach absolute morality. And it is
that orthodoxy that we single people want to hear, We are
sick of the worlds immorality. And we need our church to
teach the certainties of centuries.
Even when churches do address relationships it can leave
the singles unvalued, sermons on marriage seem fine, but
singleness is ghettoised into special seminars and talks.
The message that singles need to hear is not merely the
narrow one of sexual discipline and purity. They need
help in countering today's secular gospel of
individualism and short-termism.
The pain of isolation is such that if singles hear, see and feel that within the church they are a vital part of the community, then the attractions of the world are not glowing so brightly anymore.
Let the church not be a cause to loose the faithful
The Bible and singleness |
Singleness today |
No sex before marriage, is it possible? |
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© 1998 Emy Böning,
last updated 1st of November 1998
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