Category Archives: Church

You Are Not Called To “Singleness”

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As I got older and remained unmarried, one of the questions that more and more people asked me is if I felt like I was “called” to be single or if I had the “gift” of singleness.  I have had different times in my life where I’ve considered and prayed about that.  This is one of the areas we just don’t talk enough about in the Church.

Now, I’ve already talked a lot on here about the gift of singleness, taking advantage of singleness, and about 100 spiritual platitudes on singleness.  Lately I’ve been talking more about the idea that we as a Church must have a theology of singleness.  But the question becomes what does that mean.  It has to start with what we talked about last week and focusing on Jesus and His family first.  It has to.  Without that, nothing else will fit.

The next thing we have to do is begin to rescue what we mean when we say “called to singleness”.

Singleness, is not a good category in general.  It’s way too big if by single we mean unmarried.  We need to understand that there are many, many different people who are unmarried.  There are never married, divorced and widowed.  You are not called to be “single” in the way we talk about it today.  You may be divorced and unable to remarry, widowed and choose not to remarry or called to celibacy for the kingdom.

Neither Jesus nor Paul are talking about being called to a lifetime of dating.  They are not talking about being called to be unmarried because you can’t make a commitment to another person or don’t know how to get a date.  They are not talking about a call to a lifetime of selfishness and self focus.  It is not a call to be alone.  They are also not talking about some sort of gift where you never have sexual desires.  You are not called to a lifetime of trying to get married.  You are for sure not called to a lifetime of adolescence.

What Jesus and Paul are talking about is the call to or gift of celibacy.  We have completely ignored this in the Protestant church and mostly only focused on the full time ministry part of it in the Catholic church.

The call to a celibate life is not a call away from marriage.   It is a call to something.   It is a call to serve God from an unmarried context. You might look at it like this.  There is a first vow we make to God.  This is first and most important – our response to the gift of salvation and committing our life to Jesus.  But then we make a second vow.  We either make this vow to God to live a celibate lifestyle and follow and serve Jesus from that spot, or a vow  to another person with God and therefore get married and follow and serve Jesus from that spot.

Both of these are a calling and we have the choice to either obey and follow it or not.  They are both good and honorable in the kingdom.

So when we ask someone if they are called to singleness what we really need to ask is are they called to celibacy for the kingdom.

This does not mean by the way that because you are not called to celibacy and not yet married that you are somehow sinning (although you might be).  What it means is that we need this question to be our starting point.

The problem with our current state of affairs if that we have lost this whole thought process. We need to have a good theology of celibacy and marriage.  We need a good understanding of both so that we can freely seek our particular calling.  I think that in general the Church does a good job of talking about what marriage is.  However they do a terrible job talking about celibacy.  Most don’t even acknowledge it beyond a sentence or two here and there. They typically don’t help us pursue either one.

The reality is we are either called to celibacy or marriage.  We need to determine that and then pursue it (with Jesus of course).  We are not called to sit back and see which one “happens”.  

When you think about the call to singleness – what does that mean to you?  Have you considered that call?  Would you be open to either call?

For more reading on celibacy I’d refer you to what John Morgan has written on the gift of celibacy here.  It is easily the best thing I’ve found on the subject so far and it sheds a lot of light on what I’m talking about above.  I’d encourage you to read it. It is more in depth but very clear.

The Church’s Family Idol And Singleness

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Here’s the truth about our culture right now. Close to 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Stats show that nearly one third of first marriages will end in divorce within the first 10 years.  When you add in out of wedlock births, close to 60% of kids in high school don’t live in their “nuclear family”.

The Church has seen this and tried to respond. . . mostly by talking about marriage and family.  But as an unintended consequence we have sometimes made family an idol. And for all of this attention to family, we are not winning.

We have this idea that if we do enough teaching on marriage and family that everything will turn around.  We have hundreds of books.  We hold seminars and conferences.  We have Focus on the Family, we have churches named the Family Church.  We have outreach to families.  We say, “We are going to be doing a sermon series on marriage so invite your neighbor.”

We’ve created this idea of the Biblical family.  This is a little crazy when you consider that there probably isn’t one marriage in the Bible that you would want to emulate.

Now to be sure there are great principles in the Bible for marriage.  But really they are mostly the same principles for all of life.  How do you love another person?  If you’re married, that should be the number one example of that. It’s your number one covenant relationship.

But the Bible isn’t about family. It’s about God and us, mainly God actually.  Jesus says unless you hate your wife and children, you can’t follow me.  How do we reconcile that with how we teach all this stuff?  Jesus is obviously not saying to hate anyone.  He is however saying that He comes first – and that is true regardless of marital status.  So the real question is regardless of my context how do I follow Jesus?  Seems to me we ought to talk to the other half of the peoples’ context.

Now before you rip me, let me say that I’m not against any of this.  I think it is vital the Church talk about these things.  I know that I have been impacted, even as a single, by these teachings.  I’m for it and I’ve encouraged us as singles to learn from it for a variety of reasons.  I’ve seen marriages and families be saved by it.  But this focus on the family will not turn the tide because singles aren’t there to listen to it.

Married people already go to church.  Most of the people that don’t go to church are not married.  According to Barna 37% of them have never been married at all.

What used to happen is the Church would lose the young 20 somethings and then when they got married they would come back.  The problem is that now they are not getting married.  Only 20% of those 18-29 have ever been married.  That means that we are losing the late 20 somethings.  It means that the neighbor you are supposed to invite to the marriage sermon series – they are single.

We can’t just say let’s save marriages because if we’re not careful, there won’t be any marriages to save.  We need a theology of singleness to go with our theology of marriage.  We need to offer some practical help for single people.  We can’t just say get married and then we will help you.  We need to help people figure out if they are called to celibacy or marriage and then help them do it.

Let me give you an example from my own church (which I love).  At my church we have what we call position papers.  These are “brief” papers that say where we stand on certain things.  So for example we have papers on baptism, communion, the end times, etc.

So of course we have a paper on marriage.  We also have one on divorce and remarriage. We have one on Christian sexual ethics.  We even have one on “dating” (we’d be better off with a position paper on how to get a date).  But we do not have one on singleness or celibacy.  And our church at one point was 50% single!  If we don’t have it, who does?

I’m not mad, bitter or whining. That’s not my heart at all.  But, we are losing and this is part of the reason why.  We need to deal with it.

Catch this:  Most of the battle for sexual purity, Godly marriage and family, and even the hot button issues like homosexuality and abortion, cannot be won without a right theology of singleness. People are lost and confused.

You CANNOT change this without a right theology of singleness.  And that theology has to go WAY beyond what not to do on a date.  Until it does it’s going to get worse, not better.

What is your church’s theology of singleness?  What is yours?

Would Jesus Snuggle?

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The other day one of my friends posted a link on facebook that just stopped me.  I wasn’t even sure exactly what to do with it – it’s just dumbfounding.  And yet . . . it’s not.  Which is why she posted it.

There is a new place called The Snuggery.  Basically the idea is that we all need physical touch and intimacy.  It brings healing and comfort.  But sense most people don’t have it, this lady has started a business.  I’m not making this up.  For $50 you can have a 45 minute snuggling session.  There are two professional snugglers.  You can snuggle with both for $100.  Again, I’m not kidding.

It’s not to be sexual and it must be fully clothed (pajamas are ok though).  Just wear what you are comfortable in.  You can talk or not talk.  Whatever you want.  You just snuggle. You get to be touched.

I’m literally not sure whether to laugh or cry.  Seriously.  In a way it breaks my heart.  This is where we are at as a society.  We are this alone.

Now I guarantee there are some married people who haven’t snuggled at home in a while, which is tragic.  But as a single person this is a huge issue.

I mentioned this in one of my first blogs.  One of the absolutely hardest things as a single is the lack of touch.  And the older you get, the more this is true. What these ladies have right is that touch matters.  Under the heading of WHY SNUGGLE they list out the benefits of intimate, nonsexual touch.  They aren’t wrong about any of it.  And as their lead sentence says, “Why Snuggle? Quite simply because it makes us feel good.”

But if you are single what do you do with this?  If it is true that we need touch, what do we do?

The problem is exasperated by several things.  First off we have had a lot of bad physical touch in our culture.  Over the course of their lifetime 28% of kids age 14-17 have been sexually violated in some way.  This doesn’t even begin to include physical abuse or physical neglect.  That is the world we are growing up in.

Secondly, we have a much more isolated world.  We are way more likely to work alone, and 28% of us live alone. (Now if half of us are married that means that 50% of single people live by themselves.)  That does not lead to good touch.  It leads to isolation.

Finally, partly in response to all of the above and the sexually immoral culture that we live in, the Church has told us not to touch anyone.  Kiss dating goodbye.  Don’t touch or it could lead to sex.  I get it, I really do, but man, if we don’t touch at all, that can’t be good.  We can’t live in fear and call it religion.

I can speak from personal experience here.  I went 10 years without kissing anyone (age 25-35).  Most of that was spent with very little touch.  There were lots of reasons.  But to be honest as I turned the corner of 30 I was messed up, and I’d say lack of touch contributed to that.  I remember feeling awkward even hugging sometimes.

I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure how to fix all this.  I’m not suggesting the Church start establishing Christian Snuggeries.  But I know that we need an answer.  We need something different than “don’t have sex” and “don’t go to far”.  Why should two women be addressing this while we stand on the sidelines?

Appropriate touch is vital.  I can’t remember where I saw it but there is a video of nuns in a poor country taking in dying children.  You know the first thing they did?  They hugged them and held them for extended periods.

In Mark 2 a leper approaches Jesus.  Back then, lepers were separated out and seen as unclean.  They were to avoid contact with the “clean” people at all costs.  In fact there was a six foot rule that said no one was supposed to be within six feet of them.

But as this guy approaches Jesus, he doesn’t move out of the way.  Now Jesus could have said the word and this man would have been healed of leprosy.  But he still would have been untouched, and maybe people would have wondered, “is he really well?”

In one of the most simple, powerful moments in Jesus’ ministry, he reached out and touched the man.  He knew he needed more than a physical healing – he needed to know he was touchable.

Somehow we have to rescue this.  We have to know that not only are we “Christian” or “Saved” but that we are touchable.  Whatever message we send the single person, that has to be part of it.

Have you ever suffered from lack of touch? Where do you go for appropriate touch?

Sexual Immorality Is Not Just About You

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About two weeks ago I was relaxing at a hotel bar where I often go to chat with friends or write this blog.  I was just about to shut it down when a gentleman showed up who was from out of town.  He sat down and started to share about why he was in town etc. Anyway after a while he asked if I had a family and I said no, but I was about to get married.  He of course congratulated me and shared he had been married for 20 years. Then he said this, “Of course you know, that once you get married, you’ll have less sex.”  I laughed.  I sure as heck hope not, because we are not having sex now.

It was the same when I was in college.  I was literally the only person in my suite of 9, that didn’t have sex my freshmen year.  They used to joke about it.  I was also the person they came to when stuff in their life was hard.  They knew I was different.

You see we don’t just flee from sexual immorality for ourselves.  It’s one of God’s ways of separating us out – as a witness.  It’s not just about you and me and our little moral battle.

One of the big misconceptions that people have is that sexual immorality is worse today than at other points in history.  There is the idea that all of a sudden it’s “crazy” out there and that marriage is being devalued etc.

This leads to a couple of problems.  First, there a lot of people who think what the Bible says about sex is “old school” and not relevant for today.  On the other hand the Church ends up running around shouting that the world is ending, making an idol out of the family and longing for the past (which I think is the 1950’s America).

Now it is true that American culture is changing.  But none of this is new.  Neither is our call to live differently than the culture.

When you look at the sexual practices that God lays out in the old testament it needs to be understood that God was giving them these specifics for a reason.  That reason is that all the other societies in the Near East were not practicing them.  When God says, don’t sleep with an animal, He says it because others were.  He’s not making up random stuff.  The Near Eastern cultures were crazy, even by our standards.  People were having sex in every way, with everybody and everything.  They even worshiped to it.

God was saying to the Israelites, “You will not be like them.  You are my people and this will distinguish you.”

The same is true in Paul’s letter to Corinth.  They had written Paul and they asked him what they should do.  How should they practice sexuality and marriage now that they had Jesus?  Paul starts that whole message by saying, “Now for the questions you asked about – here’s how to apply God’s teaching and live the way He would want in your context.”  Which was a completely pagan and dualistic context.  Sound familiar?

If we are going to flee from sexual immorality we have to define what that is. The good news is that currently most folks are not sleeping with animals or temple prostitutes (at least I’ve never been tempted by either).  So in our day, we can’t just take one liners from the Bible and try to make them mean what we want them to.  Instead, we need to take the overall meaning of sex, marriage, and celibacy in the scriptures (which is pretty dang clear) and apply that to our current context.  In legal terms it’s like law and case law.  How does the law apply to our case today?

But beyond that we need to realize that our call to flee from immorality is not just as a set of rules to keep us out of trouble.  God called Israel out.  He made them His people and commanded them to live in a way that demonstrated Him to the world.  One of the ways they were to do this was by how they behaved sexually.  Paul tells the early church the same thing.  You are set apart.  You were bought at a price.  You are NEW and different.  Live like it – in the light!

One of the reasons we fail is that even in our morality or lack there of, it’s all about us.  That wasn’t really the point.  God has bigger plans.  When we are set apart, people are drawn to us.  Want to be counter cultural?  Want to make a difference?  Want to point towards God.  Live this area of your life differently than the world.  It was true 4000 years ago and it’s true now.

The Church Doesn’t Get Singleness

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Here’s a fun experiment.  Go to amazon and search for Christian marriage books and then search Christian Single books.  It’s not pretty.  (Then for real fun go through the Christian single list and try to find books written by a guy.)

Here’s the point.  The Church loves to talk about marriage.  They are like the marriage experts.  As I’ve said no matter what your theological beliefs, you can find a marriage book for you.  I mean you name it – you like Keller? Eldredge? Piper? Jakes? Bell?  You can find their take on marriage. Books about how to navigate singleness – not as much, (apparently ladies you are supposed to do a lot of waiting and being satisfied, and us guys are supposed to figure it out without any help whatsoever).

But it’s not just books.  Marriage retreats, forums, conferences, sermon series.  Its even part of churches’ missional approach, “we are going to be doing a series on marriage – invite all your friends.”

Sure somewhere in there they like to throw in the obligatory thought on singleness, which is usually short sided, un-researched, full of platitudes and impractical.  And then the best part is we kind of get a pat on the head as if to say, someday you too can be a grown up married person.

Now someone will say that I’m bitter or just seeing the grass as greener on the other side.  I’m not mad – I’m just right.  In 20 years of walking with Jesus and going to church (including the last eight at a church that has 50% single people) I’ve never had a married friend say, “The church just doesn’t get marriage.”  Single people feel it all the time.  It’s a no brainer and it’s real.

Have you ever thought about why it’s this way?  One main reason that I’ve talked about before if that most pastors don’t get it.  But there are other basic reasons.

First it’s just flat easier to talk about.  There’s more clear scriptures on marriage.  There’s not much on singleness and exactly zero on dating.  Also, it’s more obvious if a marriage is in trouble than if a single is.  So the fact is it’s just easier.

Second, married people fit the church structure better.  They are more comfortable showing up to church to begin with. Much easier to go with someone than alone.  The church knows that if you love kids then you will get parents.  A lot of Christian parents are married – (side note – we are not very good with single parents either.  Holy smokes.  Let’s hold another moms group during the day – that helps – yikes).

The truth is almost everything we do is set up for the family – training the family, protecting the family, growing the family. In fact I would submit that family is an idol in our church today, but that is another post.  Now it is helpful as a single person, especially if we didn’t grow up with it, to see and be engaged with solid families and I’m all about that.  But where does the non married person fit into all of that.  What real practical help are we giving to them for where they are right now?

Third, the church assumes that you should get married.  We talk about being called to singleness but we do absolutely nothing to help anyone determine that.  Our theology of singleness is messed up at best and completely lacking at worst.  

Finally, because they don’t know what to do and what to say, they offer up spiritual platitudes about waiting on God, not settling, perfect definitions of who we should marry, and how to not have sex – which is their biggest concern.

Now some of this is our fault as singles.  Here’s what I mean.  We are way more likely to church hop (in fairness some of that is due to the stuff above).  We can leave any time – we don’t have to convince a spouse or pull kids away from their youth group.  Secondly, married people typically give more money and assume more Sunday leadership roles.  I can’t back that up with statistics but I’d stake any amount you want on that being true. We often have less invested.

But here’s the thing, and you, me, married people, the church and everyone else might want to grab a hold of this.  The day of reckoning is here.  50% of America is unmarried and the trend is upwards.  80% of people age 18-29 have never been married and that trend is upwards.  So unless the church wants to get smaller it might want to think about how to help, reach out to, walk with, encourage, engage, and challenge singles.  They might want to figure out how to empower them in leadership.  Perhaps they could help them figure out and pursue their calling to marriage or to celibate ministry.

The church could be a place where singles are welcome, treated equally and held accountable through real relationships.  Or it can keep ignoring reality and miss out on the opportunity.

Is Jesus Enough?

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When I was a much younger single person, I remember a lot of conversations with older folks (mostly married) in which I was challenged with the thought of, “Is Jesus enough?”  In other words, “You’re single right now so Jesus will have to be enough.”

Man that sounded holy to me (It also made me want to sing the Doobie Brothers version of Jesus Is Just Alright – still does actually).  That’s right dang it, Jesus is enough.  I don’t need someone else.  However this is only sort of true, depending on what question you are actually asking.

Part of the problem with the Church’s response (or lack of) to increasing singleness is that we say stuff that not only sets singles up to fail, but also in turn sets marriages up to fail. The reality is that we need a good theology of both marriage and singleness.  One will not work without the other.  We need a lot of help with both.

When we say to a single person that Jesus is enough that implies several things. First off, it could mean that Jesus needs to be enough for right now.  But this makes no sense.  Jesus is enough for now, but not for later?  If you get married, then Jesus won’t be enough?  This goes right along with what I’ve written before about the idea of singleness being a “season where you focus on the Lord.”  This idea is so rampant and so just flat bad.  There is no season where you should not be focussed on the Lord.  And again, if singleness means being closer to the Lord than marriage, no one should get married. Marriage is not a concession to not being tight enough with God.  Yikes!

Which leads to point two.  Marriage happened while Adam had a perfect, sinless relationship with God.  In other words it wasn’t a lack of God being enough that made Him create Eve and put them together.  God looked at Adam and said it was not good for man to be alone.  Wait!  You mean even when he was totally with God, Adam still needed someone else?  Whoops.

Finally there is the idea that gets floated that if Jesus is enough for you, that means you must be called to singleness.  Once again, Jesus wants us to be focussed on Him regardless.

The question in regards to the call of singleness is not a question of how much you are focussed on Jesus.  It is a question of calling to vocation – to what type of ministry you will do.  It’s the second vow, not the first vow.  The first vow we have to make is to Jesus.  We all have the same first vow.  WE HAVE TO GET THIS.

In addition, the Jesus is enough question can lead us to other bad places as a single. Mainly that we don’t find true community.  In other words, regardless of marital status, it is truly not good for “man to be alone.”  We need other people.  We were created relationally, by a relational God, for the purpose of relationship.  If we are told enough that Jesus is enough we can end up not only avoiding marriage based on personal holiness but avoiding true community as well.

At the end of the day Jesus is actually enough in a lot of ways that matter most.  Jesus is enough for salvation – in fact nothing else works for salvation.  Jesus is enough for full life, but when we follow Him, He usually helps us get that by leading us to others and speaks to us not just directly but through the Church (his people) and the Scriptures.  But the truth is that we are not guaranteed that.  In other words He doesn’t promise earthly community and in fact lots of people have followed Jesus without the Bible.  We certainly are not guaranteed a spouse.

But a married person doesn’t have any of those guarantees either.  I could get married this week, and my spouse could be taken away the week after.  Would Jesus be enough? Get what I’m saying?

I think a better question might be, what are you staking your life on?  Now our answer to that needs to be Jesus.  Because at the end of the day He is the one sure thing.  And that has absolutely nothing to do with marital status.

We Are Scared Crapless Of Marriage

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Just over 10 years ago I was meeting with a group of about 30 juniors and seniors.  A female volunteer and I were leading a session on sex and dating (because if you are a good youth person you must do this right?).  But anyway, I asked a simple question that brought me a somewhat shocking answer.  I said, “How many of you think that you will get married one time and stay married to that person forever?”  Only about half the kids in that room raised their hands.  This was in the middle of Missouri . . . in 1999.

We so often refuse to deal with the reality of culture. The divorce rate is 50%.  49% of adults are not married.  80% of adults aged 18-29 are not married.  That is the real world. Why?

There are many reasons.  Last week I said one of the reasons is that we have become more self centered.  Today I’d like to talk about another huge reason.  People are scared crapless of marriage.

There’s this idea in the “Christian” world that marriage is less respected today.  I get that thought and I don’t totally disagree.  But I think it is a huge oversimplification of the problem.  I actually think that most young people actually do respect the idea of marriage, which is one reason they are so scared to commit to it.  They’ll do anything but get married.  They will date the same person forever, keep trying to find the perfect person, try out sex, live together and heck even have kids together.  Anything but get married.  Some of that is selfishness but some of it is just pure unadulterated fear.

What is everyone afraid of?  Several things actually.

First, in a general sense people are afraid of screwing up marriage.  They are scared they won’t be able to do it or that they aren’t ready to do it (which of course no one is).  You see they’ve seen it done mostly wrong.  It’s now more normal in our country to grow up in a “broken home” than a complete one.  Kids have grown up seeing their parents in one of two situations.  Many have seen divorce and all the cost that comes with that.  And if that is the choice then let’s not get married at all.  They don’t think divorce is ok.  They have sworn not to let it happen to them and the best way to ensure that is to avoid marriage. Believe me, I’ve talked to these people.  They’d rather have a kid out of wedlock than be divorced.  Less drama.

Secondly a lot of people have watched parents in marriages that are completely dysfunctional and they don’t want that either.  They believe in marriage but they haven’t really ever seen it work.

People are also afraid of community and commitment to others in general.  I mean think about your small group – who really is committed?  Have you ever really been completely committed to anyone or vice versa?  Marriage is the ultimate commitment. It’s the first human community – Adam and Eve with God in the middle.  That’s how it all started and it’s still the idea.  But if I’ve never had real community with anyone – how the heck do I do that with another person. . . every day. . . no matter what. . . with no exit.  Get what I’m saying? We are scared of what comes with community – fighting, getting hurt, accountability, someone knowing the worst things about me.  And there in lies perhaps the our biggest fears.

Men are afraid of failure.  We are afraid we won’t be able to do it.  Can I be a husband? Can I be a father?  I don’t know what I’m doing – can I take on that fight?  What if I fail? What if I choose wrong?  What if I’m constantly all day reminded of my failure over and over?

Women are typically more afraid of abandonment.  Not necessarily that the man will leave physically although that too.  But that he will leave emotionally or spiritually.  That somehow at some point something will happen and she will be alone.

Marriage is the ultimate test of these fears.  Making matters worse is the fact that every guy will fail and every woman will feel alone, even in the best marriage.  So why put yourself in that position.  That’s crazy scary.

I don’t have space here to go at how to face all these fears (I promise to come back to it). But here’s the point for today.  Many of us need to face the fact that we are scared.  We need to ask where that comes from because it’s not from God.  And the Church, if it is going to love singles well has to recognize and help us face those fears.  Morality is not enough in the face of fear.  More to come. 🙂

So are you scared?  What part of marriage scares you the most?  Where does that fear come from?

How To Survive A Marriage Sermon

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As a single person it’s easy to feel a lot of different things at church.  You can feel marginalized, left out, treated as less mature and worst of all lonely.  People forget the amount of guts it takes to go to church all by yourself.  Now often single people are invited by friends but for example when you are single and you move to a new place it takes some courage.  You don’t have a partner to go with.  I know, I’ve done it.  Same thing with checking out a small group.

But there is nothing that can bring out the bitterness, loneliness, or venom like the Marriage Sermon or worse – the Marriage Sermon Series.

I will admit that there have been times in my 20+ years of singleness that I have skipped those weeks.  Usually for one of two reasons.  Either I was hurting at the time and didn’t want to think about it, or I just figured there wasn’t anything in it for me.  That was wrong.

So today I want to talk about how to survive a Marriage Sermon.

Let’s first acknowledge that a lot of churches screw this up when it comes to singles.  One way is to not acknowledge us at all.  It’s like they just kind of assume we aren’t in the room. Another way is they often throw in a spiritual platitude or two without actually addressing it. This to me is actually worse.  Things like mentioning the gift of singleness without actually talking about it, or saying that we need to know this stuff for the time when we will be married.  AHHHHHHHHH.  Drives me crazy!

But we need to show up and here’s why.

First there is a difference between a sermon (series) on marriage and one directed solely to marrieds.  Most in my church are the first.

This is important.  Regardless of where we are going to end up, married or not, we need to have a right theology of marriage.  We need this because if we don’t understand marriage, how the heck will we understand whether or not we want to get married.  The more I understand it the more I can determine if I’m called to do it.

Secondly, it’s not just about you.  A lot of our friends are married (please see my posts pleading with you to be friends with married people) so it might be a good idea to know what they are going through.  If we are going to live in community (and for that matter the world) we are going to be interacting with married people.  Whether in community or on mission if I’m going to love married people well – and we are called to love people be they married or single – then having a working knowledge of how that all works would be key.  We like to talk about how the church often doesn’t seem to let us lead married people.  Well, what wisdom will you offer them if you don’t seek to understand marriage?

Thirdly, a lot of marriage issues have to do with selfishness and relational issues.  Hmm, I’m pretty sure we have those.  We ought to be able to pull some stuff out of those messages that could help with our friendships and other relationships.

Another big point is that a lot of marital issues ultimately stem from the colliding of two stories.  In other words marriage has the potential to bring out a lot of wounds from peoples’ pasts, relationships, and upbringing.  I think as a single person it is easier to hide these wounds (which can often be in the way of getting married in the first place).  So maybe, just maybe we could think about how our upbringing and wounds affect us as single people.  This is huge.  Why not face that stuff now?

This is one of the great advantages that marrieds often have.  What most of the people I know who go to marriage counseling take out of it is stuff that is wrong with them, be it wounds that need to be healed or sin patterns that need to be stopped.

I don’t know what the ratio of married people to single people in counseling is but I’m willing to bet it’s pretty high on the married side.  I promise you they are not more screwed up than we are.

I think we need an attitude adjustment here.  Look, I get it.  It can hurt.  It makes us realize what we don’t have and in fairness the church needs to figure out how to do singleness sermons (series).  They are wrong to not address it specifically.  But that doesn’t mean we should skip out on what they are doing right. So go and listen – for your own heart and for the hearts of others.

Singles Are Lost And The Church Is Silent

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A few months ago I heard a sermon on 1st Corinthians 7 in the context of a great series on marriage and love.  Paul writes here that some people should stay single.  That part of the scripture was read, but the pastor literally skipped talking about it.  Hmmm.

Here’s the truth about the Church and singleness:  We don’t know what the heck to do with it.

There are almost no scriptures that talk about it.  There is the idea of a gift or calling to it but we are somehow unable or unwilling to actually preach on it.  Meanwhile the number of singles in our country continues to grow.  What is it we are going to tell them?

We only have one recorded conversation in which Jesus discusses it directly.  Jesus is asked about divorce as a kind of a trick question in Matthew 19 (Mark 10).  The pharisees ask Jesus if a man can divorce his wife for any reason.  Jesus answers that even though the law provided for it that it was not the original intent.  He points out that from the beginning (pre-sin) that marriage was the joining together of two people and should not be separated by man.  As we’ve discussed, this shows us about marriage and that sex belongs there.

The disciples are incredulous.  Basically they say that being married no matter what is too hard.  Jesus then takes this opportunity to say marriage is not for everyone.  Sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance and still other times by calling – people shouldn’t get married.

The over all point here is that singleness for the kingdom is an option.  Marriage is an option.  Both are hard and both can be worth it.  But one is not lifted over the other, or necessarily harder than the other.

That is literally as close as you’re going to get to Jesus talking about being single. However, Jesus was Himself single so we can learn things from that.

We don’t really know if Jesus was tempted by sex.  I fully believe that women were often attracted to Jesus.  To think that this man who was full of life and confidence did not attract women would be crazy.  I would bet all I own that women wanted to be with Jesus.

But, Jesus knew that He was called to be single.  He lived that out. His mission was to live the life that we should have lived and die the death that we should have died.  That necessitated a kingdom calling that didn’t include marriage.

This for sure shows us that marriage does not complete us.  A single person (by calling or by situation) is not less holy, mature, or spiritual than a married person.  Marriage is not a promise, right, or entitlement.  It isn’t necessary for a right spiritual life.  If it was then Jesus would have needed to marry to live the life we should have lived.

At the same time a person called to singleness is not more holy or special than a person who is not.  To me Jesus clearly states this.  Both marriage and singleness are hard and are a calling from God.

The huge mistake we keep making in the Church is we toss around this idea of being called to singleness but then we don’t help anyone actually figure out if they are called.  It’s like a footnote in a sermon once every two years.

This is not enough!  We can’t just say to a country that is 50% single, “Hey some are called to singleness which is great.  In fact Jesus was single so we know it can be good.  However we aren’t actually going to help you determine if that is your calling but somehow you will magically know so good luck with that.”

This lack of direction and teaching leads to all sorts of problems.  There are married people who initially were called to be single (They should not get divorced.  God’s grace can cover any mistake we make – including getting married when we shouldn’t have). There are people called to be married who are single because they don’t know how to get married.  And there are single people who just have no idea of what they are called to.  We aren’t helping any of them.

It’s time that churches step up in this situation.  We can’t just drop a line in about this now and then and hope it will work out.  If we are going to help our people as well as be missional in what will likely soon be a majority single society, then we have to actually engage this.

We have to help people figure out which way they are called and then we have to help them pursue that calling.  Anything else is insufficient at best and gutless at worst.

How Do You View Sex?

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A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to be in an Old Testament class with a ridiculously brilliant professor.  I mean this guy might be the most knowledgeable guy I’ve ever met.  At one point we were talking about The Law and I decided to ask a fun question, just to stir the pot.

I asked him, “Does the Bible literally say that I can’t have sex outside of marriage?” Without flinching (have you ever noticed professors never flinch) and he said, “No it doesn’t.  But it does say that if you have sex with someone you have to marry them right then.”  We all laughed.

One of the things that is hardest about being single is not having sex.  I love when married people tell me that sexual temptation doesn’t go away when you get married.  I know that’s true but, it’s not the same thing. We have to choose between not satisfying the desire or sin – you have another option.

This is the one thing that the Church is for sure going to tell single people – Don’t have sex. But that is not enough.  And the way we tell people can often set us up to fail.  It’s shouldn’t be about “waiting for marriage“, making the act of sex unholy, twisting bible verses to make them about sex, making the desire for sex bad, or even pretending that somehow I can crush that desire. It’s about understanding what sex is – biblically speaking.

Our culture has separated sex from marriage.  It says the purpose of sex is pleasure and personal enjoyment.  It’s something that we do to make ourselves feel better.  Now there is some truth to this of course, sex does feel good.  God created it to be pleasurable, which is awesome.  But that is not the end result.

This view ultimately makes sex less powerful.  We’ve had it drilled in our heads over and over that it is just a physical act.  And when the Church runs around telling us not to do it, without telling us what TO do, then it just adds to the problem by basically keeping it as a physical act – just one we shouldn’t do.

The message can end up being that It’s just about pleasure and feeling good in marriage (if I get married I get pleasure) but it still sells sex short and could mess up married sex. Worst of all we sometimes paint sex in such a negative light that when people do get married they struggle to enjoy it.

But the Bible talks about sex as much more than a physical act to do or not do.

From the very beginning, right after He creates Adam and Eve, God says that they will leave father and mother and become one flesh.  Jesus echoes this later of course when he is asked about divorce.  He essentially says, “You don’t get it at all.  Marriage is permanent and sex is part of what makes it that way.”

Sex is not just physical.  It is meant to be a spiritual act.  It bonds two people together in very real, one flesh way.  This is why where ever sex is talked about all through scripture it is always either within the context of marriage or the context of sin. There is no in between.  But we can also know for sure that the desire for sex is from God.  We can’t just throw that out or pretend it away, just because we as singles are not in a position to have the desire met.

We are going to desire sex.  A lot actually. Probably even if I’m called to singleness.  In my opinion trying to kill that desire is crazy.  But here’s the thing, I have all sorts of desires.  I don’t get to do them all, I have to submit them to God.

What I can do is not feed it the wrong way.  Paul (while talking about this subject) uses food as and example.  I can’t just eat what I want all the time.  I want a cookie every day, and if I eat that cookie every day, I’ll want it even more the next day.  We are not to be controlled by our desires.

Also, as I mentioned briefly before, if I separate sex from marriage there is way less reason to get married.  As crazy as it sounds, one of the surest ways to stay single is to have sex outside of marriage.  
Our culture is at set up in opposition to the scripture.  This isn’t new of course, its always been so, but now we are inundated with it.  We have to walk with God and we have to own our view of sex.  What is your real view of sex – the one you practice?