I went to high school in a small town about 30 minutes north of K.C.  There wasn’t a lot to do there so when my friends and I got our licenses we would cruise down to North KC. We would hit the mall or whatever but eventually, almost without fail, we would cruise North Oak Trafficway.  Now the reason we did this is two fold, first we were bored but also it was to see who else (i.e. girls) were also cruising around.  We’d pull up next to a car of girls and then they’d drive forward and we’d cruise by and so on.  Rarely did we actually talk to them, just kind of window shopped.  We’d do the same thing by stopping at places like Sonic where there was a girl on skates that we could look at  – again not really to do anything.

We were kind of like the dog that chases cars.  Great idea, really attracted to the car, but no idea what to do if we actually caught it – and we’d probably just get run over anyway.

The amazing thing is this same thing happens in our church communities all the time. Especially in what I call the Church of the Hot Chick.  These are the churches where all the “hot” young single and married people in town hang out.  My church is one of these.  Now what happens is that we guys know that available women go there and then because more guys go there, even more women go there etc.  The problem is that for the most part all we do is look at each other.  People literally drive 30-40 minutes to come to church so that they can sit in the same room with the Christian “Hot Chick”.  But they don’t do anything about it.

I’ve had this conversation with a few different women.  I asked one twenty something friend of mine who I think is really attractive, “So is it kind of like a meat market for you at our church?  I mean do guys always ask for your number and stuff at church?”  She just stared at me and said, “No because it’s not like any guy is going to actually do anything about it.” I had the exact same conversation with a woman I went on a date with who attends one of the other “hot person” churches in town and she said the exact same thing. She said, “I’ll be sitting there in Church with no one next to me and no one ever sits next to me or says hi.”

Why is this?  Now maybe part of it is not wanting to “hit on” anyone at church, which is fair. But the reality is that most guys are scared.  We have grown up knowing how to look but not ever really being taught how to approach, and certainly not how to talk to, women.  It’s like we are still cruising the road – except now it’s sit in the back so you can see them, watch them during the communion line, or stand in the foyer in the back and hope for a reason to talk to them.  It’s the exact same thing, except now you are 25, 30, or 35 years old. Hows that working out?

Look I’m not suggesting that you go and get numbers at church. I’m not saying we should see a church service as a singles bar, and for heaven’s sake I’m not suggesting you should ask out a new girl from church every week.  I know there are guys that do that (I’ll get to you all later) but what I am saying is that we need to learn to engage the opposite sex in a normal, non threatening way.  And if we can’t learn that in our church community then where exactly can we?