One of the debates that I’ve seen in churches and even among singles in churches is should we or should we not have singles groups. I’ve seen a lot of different approaches in my over 20 years as an adult single. I’d like today to offer a few practical thoughts on this.
Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge that this can be a really tricky conversation for churches because there are a lot of different voices. It is however extremely important that churches think about unmarried folks. As I’ve written there is an extreme lack of this in most of our church culture. We have created a nuclear family idol which I’ve written about at length.
It is vital that churches stop doing this. Not only does it alienate singles that are following Jesus, it also keeps non church attenders away. 66% of the people who don’t go to church in the United States are unmarried. This means that if you want to reach out to the “unchurched” there’s a better chance than not that you are reaching out to unmarried folks. If there are more unmarried folks than ever before . . . well you see the problem.
In general, grouping people at church into separate groups is a bad idea. An example is the youth group that is completely separated from the rest of the community. This leads to youth only knowing how to integrate with their own age and therefore less likely to integrate in a church in the early twenties when they are out on their own.
This is why I’ve never been a fan of the singles group per se for several reasons.
First, what does single mean? Singleness is not actually a biblical term. There are not yet married, those called to celibacy, divorced and widowed. Those are all completely different from a biblical and pastoral care perspective. Completely different. I guess you could try to have a group for each, but that seems a bit crazy. Treating all of these as the same is one of the huge mistakes of the modern church.
Secondly, what happens to the single that gets married. Do they then “graduate” into the married group? Let’s say you are in the singles group or singles small group, building relationships and community in the church. Then you get married. Now you leave those relationships and move “up” to new married friends? Just typing that seems ridiculous and yet many times this is exactly what happens.
For me personally what I wanted as a single in the church was to be seen as an equal, not a special case. In fact one of the reasons I chose the church I did at age 30 and single was that they didn’t separate singles out. Small groups were mixed. Leadership was available to singles. I even led small groups with marrieds in them – as a single. Crazy I know.
However this doesn’t mean that we can’t minister to singles specifically.
While I’ve railed against the church’s nuclear family idol, I’ve also said and believe that a lot of the ministry to marrieds in the church are pretty valuable. I don’t understand why we can’t do the same for the unmarried.
This to me is how we can bridge the gap between two contrasting ideas that most singles seem to want. They want to be equal and part of the bigger picture. But they’d also like to meet other people in their context as well as learn how to live as a single following Jesus and even how to get unsingle in a Godly way.
What I would propose is this: Don’t segregate singles out from the other things that you are doing. Don’t do this on purpose or by accident. Some examples of making singles feel unwelcome:
- Constantly making church about the nuclear family in message or method
- Women’s bible studies and small groups that only meet during the day (which is really a stay at home moms’ bible study, not a woman’s bible study)
- Having no place for those that are called to celibacy to be celebrated or supported
- Creating all of your small groups (or Sunday school or what have you) based on marital status
- Not including singles in leadership opportunities
Does you messaging and group dynamics feel inviting to the unmarried person that walks in your door? If not that’s problem number one. Start there.
Do provide singles with opportunities relevant to their context. We do hundreds of marriage seminars, retreats, mom’s nights out, parenting helps etc. We need to do the same thing for the unmarried. This would include things for the more specific groups such as those called to celibacy, the divorced as well as the not yet married. This does several things:
- It says that we have something to give and/or teach them. Which we do.
- It creates space for some singles to meet each other.
- Sends the message that we value those living in those contexts
- Creates the space for actual pastoral care for those people
In other words, we can have ministry to “singles” without having “singles groups”. If I had a large enough church I’d have a staff person committed to this. We have a pastor for everything else under the sun, why not this?
More Than Don't Have Sex 
I moved recently and am looking for a new church… this is so hard, without the ready-made slots of college student or family to fit into.
It is hard. Church is actually one of the hardest places to go by yourself. Don’t quit trying.
Every singles group I attended was a “meatmarket”.
It would be nice if some local churches got together and sponsored perhaps quarterly or half year events in a central location.
That’s actually a really good idea
Thank you. Something else that could be helpful to singles as well as others is to create a list of services that individuals in the church can do to help other members. For example, household duties like hanging shelves or moving furniture. I think it would build up the bond between people too, especially if the person receiving help is one who is used to only giving it.
When my wife and I were “in charge” of the my church’s Singles Group in the 90s (as a layman), those who married did indeed graduate into married departments. We just didn’t call it that.
Married couples who divorced were similarly demoted into the Singles Group. (We didn’t call it that, either). It was pretty funny the Sunday that a formerly married couple independently showed up on the same Sunday morning. This happened exactly once.
Wow
I completely agree. I would much rather see churches do groups based on topics rather than on age, gender, or marital status. For instance, I know that not every church is going to have enough people called to celibate life to have an active group meet every week. But I don’t see why such a topic can’t be discussed in a group setting every six months (?) or so. Larger churches might could host such groups and put the word out on the street. I can think of several other subgroups in singles ministries that might could do this, like military widows who lost husbands in service.
Just having something regularly scheduled would be great. I don’t know if I’d even want to go to ‘singles’ things every week, but once or twice a year? That’s more like it!
Justin,
Have you ever read these two articles? Would you mind giving me your opinion on them?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/churchformen/2015/12/how-we-screen-young-men-out-of-church/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/churchformen/2015/11/why-christian-men-are-playing-the-field/
I haven’t read them until now. But I’d agree with a lot of what is said there. This gets at the overall bigger picture – which is how we do masculinity in the church.
I read these also. It continues to spew the man-bashing nonsense that there is a shortage of godly men. High quality marriage minded women always have plenty of godly men to choose from. If not in real life then she can just go online and have hundreds of men contacting her. The problem is that women are too picky and/or don’t really want to be married. Or they’re not marriage material. Justin explained very well what women really mean when they complain about not being pursued.
Justin,
I be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Often when I share my past difficulties with dating with other people, I hear “Didn’t your dad help you?”. “Not really” is my response.
I believe other institutions like churches do not teach men how to date because that responsibility falls on the father. How prevalent do you think it is in churches – fathers taking on a mentorship role in helping their sons with dating? Do you think it is fair to blame churches/pastors for not teaching men how to date when this responsibility belongs to the dad? I asked some specific questions here – however – I guess I am just looking for some general information (from what you have observed) on this cultural norm – if it is failing men today – and its overall affect in churches?
Obviously it’s a problem. Parents in general, not helping their kids in general in this area. Honestly though there is a lot of confusion and that runs through both parents (often with good intentions) and churches (often with good intentions).
Is it fair to blame churches/pastors for not teaching men how to date? Well that depends. I don’t know that that is their role. It’s not their role from the pulpit probably. However if they teach on it, then it is fair critique what they teach. Silence would be better than much of what gets taught in churches on any of these subjects.
It’s failing everybody including men.
Ok – another David Murrow article.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/churchformen/2015/12/how-the-sexual-purity-movement-drives-young-men-from-church/
Another idea is for churches to select married people (couples or individuals) who are tasked with looking out for people – especially men – who are alone and coming to church for the first time and to greet them and connect them with other people (married and unmarried) in the church. The connections would be based on interest – for example, introducing them to a small group leader in their area of the region or asking if they are interested in joining the choir or the upcoming men’s retreat or whatever. Married people already do this for other married people and families all the time but will ignore the person coming in alone, so I think a church should be intentional about changing that. And while I think it’s fine for single people to greet other single people, I don’t think it’s the job of single people of the opposite sex to do this considering everything that can be misconstrued. I think it will make everyone more comfortable if a married person is the one making the introductions.
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Churches should have speed dating for vetted members who have been there for over 2 years. It is silly not to! Pay $60, speed date with the other singles. At a large place it could really work well.