Category Archives: Church

Is There “The One”?

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If you’ve been single long, you’ve had this conversation about why you are single, and someone says these words, “Well I guess you just haven’t met THE ONE yet, but it’ll happen”.  Now if you are younger you might say this yourself, but usually the older you get the less you say it because you realize, 1. it might not happen – after all it hasn’t yet, and 2. there is not just one.

You read that right.  I’m declaring it right now, right here.  There is not THE ONE, at least not in the way we usually talk about.

Now I can hear some married people disagreeing with me (mostly women – no offense just being realistic) but I don’t think there is any biblical, empirical or any other ‘cal evidence that backs this up.

You could maybe, and I mean maybe, make the case before the fall that there was just one.  But even that is shaky.  Marriage is pre-sin, but I think THE ONE is a post sin way of coping.  What about when someone marries someone and then they die, and they remarry – did God have two “the one’s” for them?  This idea that God has chosen just one for us sounds very romantic, or very Oprah, but I don’t think we are promised it any where. Which I think is actually good news and good for us – which might be why God set it up that way.

THE ONE is killing us out there.

For starters, let’s realize what most of us mean when we say this is – the one who is everything I want, the perfect one, (or more religious sounding – the perfect one for me). This is not marriage or realistic.  Getting married is not about finding someone who meets all of my needs or fulfills me. That’s romanticism at it’s best and consumerism at it’s worst.

This stuff can lead us, sometimes for years, to think that if I can just meet THE ONE then everything will be alright.  No it won’t! Because even if you could, THE ONE gets old, or sick, or hurt, or is mean to you, or veers away from God, or breaks your heart, or lets you down.

When it comes to finding fulfillment there is only one THE ONE and that is Jesus.  I know it sounds cheesy but it is essential we keep this in mind.  If we get this wrong everything will be messed up.

If we don’t get ahold of this we will be continuing to make marriage and THE ONE an idol.  

But there are even more side problems, including but not limited to:

  • Getting married, being let down and being able to declare, “Oh I must have gotten this wrong.  There must be a different ONE for me.”
  • Searching for a person that we are 100% attracted to all the time.
  • Thinking I’ve found THE ONE and then messing it all up because of the weight I put on the relationship or living in fear of losing THE ONE – which leads to all sorts of mistakes.
  • Putting huge pressure on every dating relationship because I have to figure out if they are THE ONE. This is a crushing pressure that almost no one can stand under.  And for free – if they can, something is off – everyone messes up – everyone.
  • Waiting for God to bring me THE ONE instead of engaging others and getting to know people.
  • Thinking someone that got away is THE ONE and spending all my time and thoughts figuring out how to make something work that is long over.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that we should just go marry whoever.  Not at all.  I’m also not saying that God doesn’t bring you someone.  He brings people into our lives all the time (and not just romantically). We need to choose wisely and with the Spirit because even though there is not THE ONE we will hopefully only do this one time.

So here are some practical helps.  Maybe start by fighting the idol of THE ONE.  Jesus is the only person who can fulfill us.  Next, when dating people maybe instead of asking God if this is THE ONE ask questions like, “Do you want me to marry THIS person?”  If I’m not dating, maybe ask God, “send me someone You’d like me to marry” instead of, “Send me THE ONE.”

Finally, don’t ask, “Is this person THE ONE for me?” but instead ask these big questions:

1. Am I good for this person?  Are they good for me?  Are we good together? and if yes, 2. Do I want to covenant to love and care for this person the rest of my life, no matter what?

Once you answer yes to those – you will have THE ONE.

Singles Segregation

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I remember the first time I walked into my church 7 years ago. There was a lot of things I liked.  I’m not gonna lie, as a 32 year old single guy, one of those was that half the church was single.  But here is another part I liked, there was no singles group.  Now at first this might seem odd.  But here is what went through my head when I first found that out, “So, we are equal here.”

Now I want to come clean and admit that I’ve never actually been a part of a big “singles group”.  But I don’t see how it helps the overall community of the church.  I’ve never been one for dividing everyone up.  It seems to me that if we want community then we should mix it up, not split it up.  We have so much to learn from people that are different from us in context, age, and every other demographic.

A lot of this stems from the fact that we church shop these days with two questions in mind.  One, are these people like me (affinity church shopping) and two, what are they going to do for me (consumer church shopping).  So what we end up with is a program for everything.  Of course the bigger the church, the more programs. It makes the church less local, and more like Walmart.  So if I’m married with kids I look for the best youth program church.  If I’m single I look for the Church of the Hot Chick. In the process we miss hanging out with all sorts of people.

I guess it is easier if we are all coming from the same place, so to speak, because we have common experiences etc.  I get it.  I just don’t think it’s worth what we lose.  Truth be told many singles like it because it’s a way to maybe meet their spouse.  But what if you don’t?

To me this sort of division makes no sense and here’s why.  First and foremost we need each other.  I recently corresponded with someone who wanted to help single people, but even though their church had a huge singles program they didn’t know any of them. Why? Because they meet in the married small group.  How can we learn from and about each other if we aren’t ever together.

Secondly I think in a way it devalues friendships and frankly singles.  So let’s say I’m in a singles group for three years.  Then I get married, heck let’s take a step further and say my plan of going there to meet a spouse works, and I marry someone from the group.  So now what?  Do I “graduate” to the married group?  Do I leave all my single friends that I’ve spent all this time with?  I mean one week I’m at the singles small group, the next week I’m at a married one?  Really?

What if I’m called to be single?  If I’m 60 and single am I still in the group?  Hahaha, no, now I probably have to lead the singles group – except that all the young singles are scared to follow me for fear of ending up single.  What if I’m a single parent – single parents’ group? Yikes!

I get that it’s hard.  I know we struggle with this at our church.  Someone who is single ends up in a small group with all marrieds and a single person 15 years older than them.  A married couple with kids end up in a group with almost all singles.  Believe me I get it.  But I still think that the value of true cross context community is worth the cost.

Now this isn’t to say we shouldn’t have specific ministry to marrieds and singles.  I think it’s great to have events, forums, studies, and retreats on all this stuff. If you have a study/forum/reatreat on marriage, it will be mostly marrieds that go, but would it be wrong for singles to be there?  If you had a study/forum/weekend on singleness it would be mostly singles who would be there (ok probably just singles – but that’s part of the problem).  But if you are going to study Matthew or Genesis, I don’t get it.  Wouldn’t a variety of viewpoints  be beneficial?

So talk to me.  What has been your experience?  Should we be segregated by marital status or should we fight to be in it together across that status?  Why?

The Singleness Glass Ceiling

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A few posts ago I talked about the fact that your pastor doesn’t get it (the singleness thing that is).  But today I want to take that a step further.  Here is a real question that I think merits discussion.  Is there a glass ceiling for singles in church leadership – and if so should there be?

In other words can a single person hold an elder, deacon or other leadership position?  At first glance this may seem like kind of a weird question but think about your church – or for that matter any ministry.  How is it set up?  Think of the elders and/or deacons at your church – are any of them single?

Now one of the reasons is obvious – through recent history most of the older folks who would lead most churches were married.  So it really wasn’t much of an issue.  But times are a changing.

Now the Church has no problem with married people leading single people (obviously) so the real question is, can single people lead married people?  I think there are three answers from the church.  1. Yes, 2. No, 3. Biblically yes but we don’t know how to handle it, so practically no. (Perhaps 4. If a person is called to singleness then yes – but we aren’t going to help anyone determine that.)

I think the Yes group is smallest.  This would be a church where you see all sorts of people in leadership (assuming the other qualifications of course).  I think the 2nd group is the next largest.  This is the group that would point to 1st Tim. 3 and say that Paul is saying that if you haven’t managed your wife and kids then you can’t manage the church.  To me this isn’t a very good argument – although at least they have the guts to make it.  They would say Paul’s point is, how can an unmarried person mentor/counsel/lead others with families if they haven’t experienced it.  Based on this argument though almost no one could lead anyone.  How can I lead a person who is homeless if I haven’t been homeless.  I haven’t experienced it, how can I understand.  I get it, I just think it’s a reach.

This leads us to group 3 – by far the the largest.  This is the church where anyone can lead but yet no single person ever mentors a married one. It is the one where even though they know they could have single leadership they don’t know how to integrate it.  What if an elder dates someone in the church, or worse from another church, or worse yet if they break up?  Or what if they mess up and have sex or give in to sexual sin (because that’s never happened to a married elder).  They don’t know what to do even at a small group level.  Can a small group of mostly marrieds be led by a single person, or gasp, by two single people – that aren’t dating?  Should they just lead other singles (and marrieds just lead marrieds)?

Some would say that single people don’t typically want to lead, or volunteer at that level.  I think there is some truth to that, especially as it has related to age in the past.  But I also think that they aren’t asked as often, and many of them just assume they can’t do it.  If they look around and see all married people in leadership why would they think they can do it? (It should be pointed out that there are some less “grown up” ministries that it seems only single people can lead).

There are about to be more thirty and forty something single people than ever before in history.  Right, wrong or otherwise, it’s going to happen.  So every church and ministry had better ask this question.  What can single people lead?  If the answer is not certain things -that’s fair, but have the guts to say it.  If the answer is any position, then we need to figure out how to integrate it and build the leadership community together.

Your Pastor Doesn’t Get It

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So as I mentioned I go to a church that is around 50% single.  We have a great lead pastor and a mentality that we can talk about almost anything from the pulpit.  Unlike most churches we even talk about sex as it relates to marrieds and singles.  We actually have “PG 13” sermons.  It’s one of the things that after 7 years I still appreciate.  Many churches never even mention this stuff and certainly not from the pulpit.

That said, they are fairly clueless beyond sex.  In fact I’ve never heard singleness mentioned in a sermon in which sex wasn’t mentioned.  Almost every example of a single person in a sermon has something to do with sex.  (For free – if all the single people would quit having sex – they’d quit talking about it).

This is mainly bad for what it doesn’t do.  It doesn’t address many of the traps for single people (loneliness, intimacy issues, bitterness, et. al.).  It doesn’t help married people in the church love their single friends. It doesn’t offer much to singles who are already not having sex. It doesn’t help single people feel equal to married people in the church.

But this post is not to rail on pastors.  I want us single people to step back and just realize that they don’t get it.  Some pastors don’t think anything about it but I think most do.  The problem is that most pastors have never been single.  Seriously.  Think about it.  Name the single pastors you know. Single pastor is almost an oxymoron. In fact name the pastors you know that got married after 25.  There just are not very many.

This is not to say that someone can’t teach on something that they haven’t experienced.  That’s a terrible argument.  But it helps to do one of two things before teaching on something – you either need experience or you need study it.  Most pastors have done neither.

It is far easier for me to counsel married friends than for my pastor to counsel single people.  For starters every single person has read books about marriage.  There are thousands.  Heck, you can even get a marriage book to match your theology.  Who do you like?  Piper, Keller, Eldrege, Jakes, Bell?  Everybody has one.  Ok, now name the book your married friends have read about singleness. Whoops  Secondly there are very clear scriptures about marriage – what it is, what it is for, what the roles are etc.  There is very little about singleness and most of it is interpreted wrong (teaser – future post).  The point is that I know way more about marriage (while I haven’t experienced it and I’m not claiming to “get it”) than most pastors know about singleness.

So what do we do with this?  Should we just be mad when our pastors don’t talk about singleness in a way that helps – That’s a waste of time. We’ll talk more about some of this but for starters we can:

1. Don’t tune out the marriage sermons – a proper understanding about marriage can save our butt as we navigate dating and the decision to marry.  And we all have married friends who need us to love them.

2. If we are in a position of leadership (you are serving right?) we can make suggestions that are helpful.  Earn the right to be heard – don’t yell from the cheap seats.

3. Cut your pastor some slack and realize that they love you even if they don’t get your situation.  Seriously – especially if they try.  Pastor’s hearts break for their people.  Trust me I know this to be true.

Haircut Intimacy

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A while back a thirty something friend of mine was sharing a thought he’d had while getting a hair cut.  He had just been in to the local Great Clips or whatever and a woman had cut his hair.  Now think about this situation for a minute.  You’re in the chair and the woman stylist throws the bib on you and goes to work.  Two interesting things happen here.

First she is talking to you the whole time.  She asks you about your day and do you have to go back to work.  She asks what you do and tells you that is a good job when you answer. She tells you some about her, she’s been doing this for years, or she is doing it temporarily and has bigger dreams.  “What are you doing this weekend?” she might ask or, “Did you see the Cardinal game?”  You are having a random conversation with woman.  For some guys I know this would be the longest conversation they have that month with a woman.

Secondly and more interestingly she is touching you the whole time.  She is touching your head.  She is cutting your hair yes but she is also combing it and measuring it.  Several times she brushes up against you with her arm or her body.  It just happens – it’s not on purpose or a move of any kind.  But still it’s physical touch.  Then she gets a look and tells you it looks good – and makes sure you feel the same way.  She’s right there, close, in your face.

My friend said this, “What I realized sitting there was that this was going to be the only time this month that I have any sort of female touch in my life”.  It is the closest thing to physical intimacy he was going to have. . . until the next haircut.

Is the Church’s best answer to this “Don’t have sex?”

Here’s the thing – we are going to need more than that.  This is one of the hardest things about trying to walk with Jesus as a single person.  We have to basically forgo physical intimacy.  And the worst part is that if you grew up without any (different post for another time) you are really hurting and awkward in that area.  This is such a hard deal that we don’t talk about.  We’re told all the things not to do – don’t touch, don’t think, don’t even look.  So what is it we are supposed to DO with that desire?  It’s not just sex we are giving up.  It is touch.  Sometimes for years. This leads to all sorts of traps, like isolation and awkwardness.

What do you do with your desire for touch?  Do you have anyone that you can even say that out loud to?

We’ve got to talk about this and create environments (proper ones) for conversation, community and even proper touch.  Proper touch – I laugh as a I type that – what does that even mean?  I don’t know but we need to figure it out.