Tag Archives: Christian dating

Is Attraction Secular?

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Two summers ago I was in a rough spot emotionally in terms of dating.  I’d worked through a lot of my personal stuff and had been on quite a few dates via online and set ups etc. But I just wasn’t excited about any of it.  It’s not that some of these ladies weren’t great but I just wasn’t into it.  I joked that my give a shizz was broken.

One night while hanging out with my brother, his wife and some other friends this subject came up.  My sister in law said basically, “well marriage isn’t all about attraction.  I mean it’s tough sometimes and really it’s a decision.  You don’t always ‘feel it'”

Now those are true and wise words.  And in a sense there is an even deeper truth – you could marry anyone and if you are committed great stuff could happen.  But, as I pointed out that night, that is not how we typically start out and almost no one marries someone they aren’t attracted to.  No woman wants this as a proposal:

“Hey Sally.  These last few months have been ok.  I know we don’t really have much spark but I think we match up pretty well.  I know we’d both be committed.  We love Jesus and could learn to love each other.  So what do you say?  Let’s get married.”

Now I’m not saying that it couldn’t work.  Heck, I’m not even saying that it shouldn’t work. But what I am saying is that is not the world we live in.

Here’s a question we need to ask in the Christian dating scene.  Does attraction matter? Or better asked, is attraction a secular phenomenon?

There are some in the Christian culture who would say, it’s not about attraction.  Now there is some wisdom in this.  It’s important for people to gain an understanding that marriage is not all about sexual attraction.  This is where the secular idea of romance has led us astray.  The secular model implies that you must always feel this or something is wrong and you should end it.  That is consumer dating/marriage and it is for sure wrong.

But, in the Church, often times we act as if attraction shouldn’t matter or at the very least, we don’t know what to do with it.  We know that it can’t be the only thing, but we don’t seem to know what role it should play.  Often in an attempt to push back against the secular idea that we must always be attracted, we end up negating it almost completely.

I think this is a huge mistake.  Attraction has to be part of the conversation.  We can’t just attack the secular version without owning the reality of attraction.

It’s a mistake we make all of the time.  Too many times throughout history the Church has denied the obvious.  We’ve basically said that science or reason or philosophy is wrong, just because we don’t like the reality.  Or, maybe worse, we acquiesce parts of the battle and fall back to a defensive position.  In so doing we end up with a God of the Gaps.  In the science example God becomes the God of the stuff we can’t explain by science.

The biggest problem with this is that God owns it all, including science and in this case, including attraction.

God created us and he gave us the feeling of attraction.  It’s not a bad thing.  It is part of what makes us want to get married.  Yes the secular world has perverted it.  But that doesn’t mean we get to ignore it, we have to instead take it back and put it in it’s proper place.

We don’t get to just say that it’s not all about attraction and move on.  We have to actually deal with what healthy attraction looks like.

I get that “back in the day” there were arranged marriages and you got what you got.  (In fact one of the theories about the origin of not seeing the bride before the wedding was so that the neither party would make a run for it because they weren’t attracted).  But unless the Church is willing to go back to arranged marriages (future blog) then we are going to have to deal with attraction.

The truth is we need some serious help here.  There are some who unless they are “perfectly attracted” won’t commit.  That’s completely unrealistic and we need to step in. There are others who don’t know how to handle themselves when they are attracted and we need to step in there as well.  Finally there are those who unknowingly keep making themselves less attractive.  In true community we need to have the guts and honesty to help them as well.

We need to own and understand attraction because God does.  It’s not the problem, our response to it can be.

What has the Church (your Christian community) taught you about attraction?  Has it helped or hurt your singleness and/or marriage?

The Single Christian’s Anguish

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This last weekend I borrowed a buddies truck and went down to my parent’s town to pick up some various items from my Grandmothers house that had just sold.  Things like a bookshelf, patio furniture and oddly enough Christmas dishes (some things really do change when you get married – Christmas dishes?).

At any rate, it’s about a 3 hour drive and since I didn’t have my ipod, I grabbed a few random old cds.  As I slid one of them in and the music came on, I just smiled.  It was a cd that a friend and I had made in a studio just over 10 years ago.

Now I wrote all kinds of songs but most fell into one of two categories.  The first was worship type songs – I mean I’m a Christian right?  But the second, was songs about the hurt I had in the dating world.

This cd was no different.  But it was the third song that made me famous among my friends.  It’s a great song.  It really is. It’s so full of emotion.  I wrote it in my basement at age 23, literally in under 10 minutes.  I had just been told by another female that she just saw me as a friend.  To be honest it wasn’t really about her, it was about the whole damn thing.

The last lines go like this:

Outside, looking in/ You’re using that excuse that you’ve used again and again and again/ It may be your loss, but it sure as hell ain’t my win/ It seems I’ve been caught, following my heart once again.

As I listened I had a range of emotions.  In a way it is so long ago.  That song is almost 20 years old.  And yet there is so much of my story there.  When it came to dating and marriage, I really was outside looking in.

There is anger in the song but anger it too simple a word to describe what I felt for really 15 years of my life.  A better word is anguish.

Here’s your google definition – Anguish – Severe mental or physical pain or suffering.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Now there were all sorts of parts to my story and why I felt that.  I was not good with the ladies and I knew it.  I also had come to know Jesus at the end of high school, so now I needed to date not only someone where there was attraction, but also who knew Jesus. So as I left college, I was now looking for the one.

To be honest, as I got older, the anguish got worse, not better.  As I hit my late 20’s doing ministry in a college town, I was surrounded by great women who liked Jesus -none of whom I could date (or at least that is what I thought then).  Toss in some religion and self righteousness and I was in trouble.  To be honest, I just shut it down.

Then I moved to St. Louis and all of a sudden, there were options.  But the problem was, now I was screwed up.  I was a complete mess in this area of my life.  It was like somehow my awkwardness had grown.  All of this was exasperated by religious platitudes about how God just hadn’t sent me the person yet.

I share this because the anguish of many singles (especially in the Church) is completely underestimated and un-dealt with.  There are a lot of really hurting people.

Not everyone who is single wants to or should be married.  Some are called to celibacy for the kingdom.  But most are not and frankly it hurts.  And as you get older it raises a lot of questions.

The Church needs to deal with this by loving these people well.  We need people who step into our lives for real, not just with passing judgement and advice.  If we are going to face our anguish and get free of it that probably won’t happen alone.

But we as single people must actually face it.  We have to because if we don’t it will grow.  Anguish doesn’t get smaller.  You can disguise it, funnel it into work/ministry as I mostly did, or even just try to kill it.  But if we don’t deal with it and the wounds that both caused it, and come from it, we are screwed.

For me it came crashing down as I began to see that I was broken.  A woman I had pursued told me that she wanted to like me but didn’t.

I knew stuff was off.  All the things that I thought were holding me back, actually weren’t.  I had completely lost my way in this area of my life.  I remember thinking over and over again, “No!, No, No, No.  This isn’t right.”

All of it kind of came to a head and instead of going home, I sat in my office all night.  I literally sat on the floor and cried.  The anguish was real.  I told God, “just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

I was 35 and I was lost in this one.  I sought counsel and God provided.  People stepped up, mentors fought for me and frankly I had to do some hard work.  It was humbling.  It was awesome.  God changed me.

As I listened to “Outside Looking In” I smiled.  It’s a great song!  But I’m glad I’m not there now.

If you are in anguish may God step into your hurt.  May you one day be free from it.

Here’s the song Outside Looking In

Don’t Just Aim For “Christian” Singleness/Dating/Marriage

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The first thing you are required to answer if you are dating someone and you go to church is this, “So are they a Christian?”  Then if you answer yes, your next goal is to date in a Christian way, and then of course have a Christian marriage, and raise Christian kids.  But here’s my question – what does that actually mean?

One of my favorite scenes in the Bible happens in John 6. Jesus starts out by feeding the 5000. For an encore He walks on water.  Now the crowds figure this out and so they show up to greet Him and the disciples.  The conversation goes essentially like this.

Jesus says, “You are here because of the miracle yesterday.”  They say, “Um obviously.” Jesus says, “You need to work for the stuff that lasts, not the bread that you need more of.”  They then ask what they need to do.  Jesus says, “The work of God is this, to believe in the one whom He has sent.”  In other words, “Stake your whole life on me.”  Their response is classic.  “Give us a sign that we may believe.”  He of course refuses and they all leave.

Here’s what’s funny.  If Jesus would have answered the work question with any sort of job, they would have done it.  If He would have said, “Stand on one foot and dig a ditch 100 meters while saying the levitical code backwards,” they would have tried to do it.  But actually staking their life on Jesus, not so much.  They didn’t want much to do with Him.

This is a constant battle as we think about singleness, marriage and the Church and really any other area of life.

It is easy to get wrapped up in formula and for that matter religion.  The real question is, what is your identity in?  Are you, your relationships, friendships, singleness, marriage and church about Jesus?

We end up with the wrong goals.  We want a family centered church.  Everyone wants a Christian marriage and certainly to have a Christian household.  And if you’re single, then your job is to not have sex (because that’s not Christian) and if you do date, do it in a Christian way.

But this can be a trap for all of us.  It doesn’t matter what you call it, or if you follow all the rules, if you don’t actually walk with Jesus.  It gives us the wrong identity and it can make us come up short.

I’m not saying all the rules or ideas are wrong.  For example, not having sex outside of marriage is right.  It’s Biblical.  It’s from God.  And the truth is that if I’m following Jesus, He is not going to lead me to have sex unless I’m married.  But the problem is that I can abstain from sex and still not follow Jesus.  It’s not the having or not having of sex that makes me about Jesus.

This is so important as we are seeking a spouse.  We can’t just say, hey that girl/guy goes to church so it must be good to go.  We can’t just date, go to church, be in a small group, not have sex, and call it good (although again, those are all good things).  The real questions are more like, “Is this other person really trying to follow Jesus?”  “What is the fruit of this person’s life?”  “Does it seem like Jesus is in this?”  “Am I brought closer to Jesus by the relationship?”

But this goes way beyond who to date.  What do we want our marriage to look like?  There are so many marriages that are “Christian” more in name than in action.  Marriages without fruit and growth.  Marriages where we are “good people” and “plugged in” but yet don’t really seem to be about Jesus.

And finally, the Church get’s wrapped up in this too.  They get so concerned about the nuclear family, marriage and single people not having sex, that pretty much that’s all they are about.

We end up with our identity being in a religion, self-righteousness, our kids, family or marital status that we miss actually walking with Jesus.

Our first call is to know and love Jesus.  This is true regardless of literally anything else in our lives.  This is what brings us together.  It’s what makes US the family that matters most. It is what keeps things like marriage and family from becoming idols (whether we have them or not).  It’s also the hardest thing to do.  Which is why Jesus calls it work.

My thought is this.  What if we didn’t worry about Christian singleness/dating/marriage.  What if we worry about trying to follow Jesus and all of that will take care of itself.  I get the dangers of that statement, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Are your relationships Jesus centered or just “Christian”?  What kind of marriage or singleness do you want?

Approaching Women

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A few years ago I was sitting at a party with some friends when I ran into an attractive woman I knew who goes to our church.  Kind of in jest I asked her if she felt like church was a meat market.  In other words were guys always asking her out.  She looked at me incredulously and said, “No because it’s not like any guy is actually going to do anything about it.”

I wrote about this a while ago, but this deal of guys not actually approaching women is a very real issue in our “Christian” culture.  There’s a plethora of reasons for this.   But some of it is that we are just not trained as men on what is a good way to approach women.  The older you get the more important this becomes.

I’ve talked some about approaching women online.  I want to offer some thoughts about doing it in person.  Now most of this I learned by doing it wrong – a lot.  So don’t think I’m some sort of guru.  Also, keep in mind that I’m not trying to give you a formula.  I actually think you coming up with one at first could be good.  But the problem is if you give a man a hammer, everything becomes a nail – and that will backfire.

First and foremost is having our identity in Christ.  Go back and read last week’s post. This is essential.  If you aren’t working on this, nothing I say here will work.  You’ll just be faking it.  Now that doesn’t mean you have to get it perfectly before you can do this, I don’t mean that at all.  But you need to be working on your insecurities and fears in light of your relationship with Jesus.  If you’re not then this isn’t going to end well – even if you fake your way into marriage.

That said, here are some keys (remember all we are talking about here is the initial approach).

  • When you see someone you want to approach – act quickly.  Don’t be in a hurry but don’t over think it.  Don’t let it build up.  When you make eye contact and she smiles – you have maybe 15 seconds max to act.  Otherwise you send one of three messages – that you aren’t interested, interesting, or you are afraid of her.  All bad.
  • Body language is everything.  Women naturally pick up on this stuff.  Learn to control yours.  If you are slumped over or in a submissive posture or jittery – that sends the message you are afraid (which you might be but that isn’t the point).  Don’t be rigid – but don’t be cowering.
  • Along with that, make eye contact and keep it.  Smile.  Again not in a forced way but smiling means warmth, and comfort.
  • Talk to her like you’ve always known her.  Really almost like she was your sister.  At ease.  And talk slow.  When we get nervous we speed up.  Dead give away.  Be thoughtful and intentional.  Think taking a walk instead of going on a run.  Seriously.
  • Ask questions.  It can be good to have a couple of questions ready.  These should not be deep questions.  They should also not be critical questions.  In other words, what did you think of the sermon followed by a critique of it = bad.  Think fun questions.  Which brings us to:
  • Fun is good – always.  That doesn’t mean “ha ha” fun necessarily.  But girls are attracted to fun. They are stressed out enough emotionally already – they don’t want that from a guy – they want the guy to be the escape – where they can relax.  Fun is your friend.
  • Don’t apologize for talking to her.  Don’t say things like, “I’m just kidding”.  Don’t act like she holds any power over you.

Keep the following thoughts in mind.

  • It’s no big deal.  Keep remembering that
  • There is always someone else.
  • You have no idea who she is or what she’s about.  You want to find out – that is why you are approaching her.  You’re investigating, not asking her to marry you.  You are a high quality person – is she?
  • Attraction (sexual tension & fun) + comfort (safety) = date*.  Think about it.
  • In the beginning less is more.  Don’t ask her out the first time you talk to her.  If you can, you want to be the one to end the conversation. Maybe something like this, “I’m glad I met you (or you met me – if you can pull that off).  I’d like to talk more.  Do you have email (a card, phone number) etc.?”  This whole thing might take three minutes.

If you are not good at this at all, here is what I’d suggest.  I’d practice.  I know that sounds funny but really.  It’s like golf.  You have to go to the driving range before the course.  Don’t ask for everyone’s number.  Just meet them.  Catch how that feels and how you react. See what works for you.  Build sort of a formula for you.  Once you do that, assuming you are working on the identity piece, you won’t need a formula long.  Have fun.

 

* Formula adapted from Mystery’s Attraction + Comfort = Seduction

The Myth Of The Christian Soulmate

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This last weekend my fiancee and I were discussing our attempts to read Christian Fiction. First, what does that even mean exactly?  Fiction written by Christians?  Fiction about Christians? Is it always about white people living in the old west?

At any rate, one of the biggest genre is the Christian Romance Novel.  So I decided to go to my favorite resource for books, Amazon.  Wow!  Ok, here we go.  For starters apparently only Christians can write “religious fiction”.  Anyone else I guess either never writes fiction or they just don’t get a section.  Then we get to the breakdown of different types of “Christian Fiction”.  There are 183 books under Biblical fiction 3700 books under historical fiction and . . . wait for it. . . almost 8000 books under Christian Romance.

Moving past the fact that most of these appear to be about Amish people let’s get to why I’m bringing this up.  The Christian culture has been inundated with a false sense of romantic love.

It’s not really about the books which even most Christians don’t read.  It’s about the fact that we play along with what the world says and just Christianize it.  The world says that I have to have another person to be complete, that there is someone out there for you who is exactly right for you.  We say, God has someone for you.

This reminds me of back when Christian rock was getting started.  Here was the sell.  “Hey man did you hear these guys?  They are just like Metallica man – except Christian.” Really!?

One of the things that drives me the most crazy about all of this is we are never first. Never. Everything we do is a freaking reaction to what we see as “wrong” with culture.  There’s hard rock music, let’s make a Christian version.  There’s romance novels, let’s make a Christian version.  Ahhhhh.  The latest is of course, there’s online dating so let’s make a Christian version.

The truth is we should have thought of most of these first.  But we didn’t.  Worse though, most of the time “our” version isn’t as good, and we end up preaching mostly to the choir. The most effective way to make a difference as a Christian artist – don’t get labeled as one.

But here is my point today.  We have invented what I call the “Myth Of The Christian Soulmate.”

It’s everywhere.  Christian Mingle’s about section reads, “The ideal place for Christian men and women to find friends, dates, and even soulmates.”  I can’t count the times in my 20 years of singleness that someone has said something to the effect of “God has someone for you” or “God just hasn’t brought you the one yet” or “Make sure you wait for “the one” God has – don’t settle”.  What could be more paralyzing than that last one?

All of this is some sort of weird cross between romance novel, misplaced Calvinism, and what I call Help You Sleep At Night Theology.  And it is no where in the Bible.

In an attempt to encourage the hurting and lonely, as well as be protective (and often controlling) of the flock, we end up giving platitudes that aren’t really helpful in the long run and just aren’t true.

There is nothing in the Bible about soulmates.  Nothing.  It is not there.  There is nothing about how to find someone to marry.  There are some, and I mean only some, principles for marriage and getting married.  But there are no promises about God bringing you a spouse, let alone a perfect one.

The soulmate idea is bad for a lot of reasons.  The idea that I’m incomplete without someone and if I just find this other person I will be whole.  No person can fill that role. We need to be complete in Jesus.  That doesn’t mean that because we have Jesus that we shouldn’t want a spouse.  But a spouse (real or wanted) should not be put in the savior role.

It can make us mad at God.  If He has my soulmate and hasn’t brought them to me, then it’s His fault.  This is also a convenient way to avoid any responsibility what so ever. Perfect.

Finally, judging every encounter through the soulmate lens pressurizes the whole process. Some of us can never even get into a relationship at all because no one “meets” the soulmate criteria.  Others think everyone they fall for is their soulmate and then when it doesn’t turn out they have to either try desperately to hang on or beat themselves up for “missing it.”

As I’ve said before, I believe that God can and does send people into our lives.  But guess what, we get to choose what to do with that.  And isn’t that what we want anyway?  Isn’t it more romantic to be chosen than to be destined?

Religion And Dating Don’t Mix

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When I look back at my twenties and dating I just kind of cringe.  I think a lot of people probably do.  But the reason I cringe isn’t because I slept around, or dated all the wrong people.  It’s because I was too religious.  Religious dating can really screw us up.

Here’s what I mean.  First of all there is this idea that there is a “Biblical” way to date.  As I’ve mentioned in a different post, this is utter nonsense.  No where in the Bible is there any sort of guide of how to get married, let alone date.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zero. Ok, moving on.

There is also the idea that because you should only date to get married that you shouldn’t go on a date unless you know you will marry them.  Which again makes no sense. First off there is a big difference between going on a date and “dating” someone.  I agree that main reason to date is to try to get married, especially the older you get.  But the idea that you should only go on a date with someone you know you can marry is crazy.  It can be paralyzing.  Especially when you pair it with the next religious dating ideal.

There is the idea that we need to guard the other person’s heart.  This one isn’t even possible.  It starts with the right idea of not leading someone on.  I want to talk more about this later but I agree we need to be careful.  If we aren’t interested we shouldn’t date them. We shouldn’t make promises that we aren’t ready to be committed to.  We should never lie.  All those things do guard everybody’s heart but thats just called honesty.  But the idea that I don’t want to ask someone out in case it doesn’t work out and they get hurt is delusional and probably a little arrogant.  It assumes I’m the one controlling the relationship.  I’d be the one to end it.  I don’t want them to like me too much in case I change my mind.  Really?!

The truth is even if my intentions are great, I can’t guarantee that if I ask someone out that it will go somewhere.  And I think we need to give our ladies a little more credit.  Adult women are capable of dealing with hurt.  They can handle it.  I once had a woman flat out tell me, “Hey, it’s my job to guard my own heart.  We can’t find out if it goes somewhere if we don’t go forward.  I’m ok with the risk.”  She was exactly right.  Really, if she wasn’t mature enough to be ok with the risk, then it probably wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

The final problem is if you do go out with different people you can get labeled as a serial dater.  Now I’m certainly not suggesting using no discernment and just dating anyone at any time.  I’m also not suggesting dating just to date or asking out anyone just to get a rush or because you need approval of women.  Motive is everything here.  I’d also say that if you have lots of fairly long relationships that always fail, you need to check yourself and what’s going on.  There could be a fear of commitment.

But it can be a double standard.  Why aren’t you dating anyone?  Why aren’t you married?  There are lots of great women in our church – but you’d better only ask out one, because if you ask out more than one, everyone will think that you just want to serial date our church.

I big timed lived in this stuff in my twenties.  I WAY over thought potential dates.  I’m not talking about people that I didn’t really want to date, I’m talking about people I thought I could be interested in but wasn’t sure.  How the heck were you supposed to find out?

In an effort help people date right (or court or whatever), Christians have unintentionally made it harder to get married.  We are helping to paralyze people from actually pursuing relationships.  We end up over thinking, over analyzing, and over spiritualizing the whole thing.  We end up with guys who have no idea how to actually pursue someone when they DO want to because they can never be sure if they SHOULD.

Non-Christians make it way less complicated.  Like someone – ask them out. We could learn some from that.

We can’t date constantly worried about choosing wrong, trying to protect everyone, worried about what everyone thinks.  We can’t date in a context that says, don’t try, don’t risk, don’t touch, don’t mess up, don’t hurt anybody.  God’s grace is bigger than that.  We need to walk with Jesus but we need to free ourselves from a made up “Christian Dating” culture.

Has “Religious Dating” held you back?  Has it stifled your path?  Has it messed you up.

Dealing With Dating Fatigue

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Once when I was a senior in high school I had two dates in one day.  I went and met a girl for lunch that a mentor set me up with (yes I was already being set up – weird I know).Then that night I went out with a different girl from my school.  Now when you’re a senior who has struggled to get girls to like him, that’s a great confidence boost – I was “the man” for a day.  But when you get older a day like that just makes you tired and there’s not much “the man” about it.

Today I want to talk about Dating Fatigue.  There are a huge group of singles who are suffering from this.  Now some of you are thinking, “I don’t really go on that many dates – I surely don’t have this problem.”  Not so fast.

Dating Fatigue (DF) is more about a feeling and attitude than about how many dates you’ve been on.  Here’s a simple definition of DF – You are flat tired of dating.  You are tired of meeting people, tired of spending money, tired of online searches, tired of wanting to like someone and not, tired of not being excited about anyone, tired of people asking how it went, tired of being rejected, tired of having to reject someone else, just tired, tired, tired.

I’ve been urging you over and over again on this blog to not just sit there and hope it happens but to go out there and get in the game. Nobody gets married if you don’t go on a date, and you have to go meet people to do that.  But the truth is that it can be exhausting.

Even if you are energized by meeting new people (as I actually am) it can still be tiring. This is turned up a notch in a couple of main ways.  For starters we are all busy and we don’t want to waste time dating people we aren’t interested in.  More than that though, as you get older, you don’t have as much time to play around.  If I’m 25 I can kind of ride something out for a few dates, but honestly at 35, not as much, or at least it feels like it.

But most of all, gearing up for hope, and then having it not go anywhere is just emotionally tiring.  Worse, if we aren’t careful, it can affect how we are on the very dates we go on – it can make us bad dates.

Now, I’m talking about dates, not dating.  In other words I’m not talking about relationship fatigue.  That’s another issue altogether.  Nor am I suggesting that getting to know several people is a bad idea. In some ways, whether we like it or not, it is a numbers game.  I’m just saying that sometimes it gets old and we need to deal with that.  So what can you do?  Here are some things that have helped me.

  • Go with hope but with as few expectations (good or bad) as possible.  Just go to get to know another person
  • Realize that this might be the only time you will meet this person, so go in peace and as full of the Spirit as you can.
  • Make the first date short.  This is so key.  You are probably going to know in the first 10 minutes if you want a second date.  If you do, keep it short, and meet again – this actually creates good tension and excitement anyway.  If you don’t, then you aren’t stuck for a whole day (or weekend – yikes that was a tough one).
  • Some people say give everyone a second date.  I totally disagree.  If you know you aren’t interested its ok not to do that.  Nothing adds to dating fatigue more than extra dates to “be nice” or to “try to like someone”.  I would say that most of my dating fatigue came from this (including when I was on the other end of it).
  • Don’t tell the world that you are going on the date.  Others wanting to know how it went just adds to DF.
  • Take a break from dating.  If you’ve been on a lot of dates and are burned out, just step back.  But do me and your friends a favor and don’t announce it.  Just do it.  And secondly, don’t miss on a person you really like just because you are on a “dating break” – for the love – really?! (Oh, and ladies, don’t use this as an excuse to say no to someone.  Just say you aren’t interested – trust me).
  • Self evaluate.  If you have been on a lot of dates and none of them go anywhere, be sure to ask if you might be the issue.  Maybe it’s something you are doing.  It might not be, but it might be worth asking or if you are really brave ask a friend or two.

DF is real!  We slide in and out of it all the time.  Dating shouldn’t be a chore so we need to do all we can to avoid it and then when we do experience it, take a breath, realize that it’s ok, get our bearings with the Lord and community, and then re-enter the scene.

Have you experienced DF?  What led to it?  How have you combatted it?  Help each other out here – what has helped you?

How To Online Date

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Let’s talk about online dating.  This can can be one great tool to meet people. It can be a good confidence booster and it’s a good way to just get out there.  It’s a way to stay in the game so to speak.  Ladies this is a great way to make yourself available without pursuing. But there are some key things to keep in mind.  Please remember I’m talking mainly to guys (because I am one) but I’ll try to help the ladies some too.

Lets get practical.

First off you have to choose a site.  Now there are all sorts of different ones. Singleroots.com has the best evaluation I’ve ever seen.  I think you can work a couple of sites at a time – but not more than that.  Then every six months or so rotate out of one and into another.

Now you need to make a profile.  I’ll be honest and say this is probably not my strong suit. But here are a few things I know for sure.

  • Use current photos – and more than one
  • Have a photo that shows your face and one that shows the rest of you.
  • Do not under any circumstances use photos with you shirt off – I promise you girls laugh at this – no matter how “ripped” you are.
  • Put things in your profile that are important to you – again no reason to hide this.  If Jesus is important put it out there.
  • Be interesting.  List things that interest you and that you like doing. If you don’t have anything interesting in your life, it’s time to find some – and then come back to online dating later
  • Do not lie about anything.  This is a dead end.  Do not lie!

Next comes the communication phase. Guys, you should always be the initiator on this. You need to understand that when you email an attractive girl that she gets a lot of emails from a lot of guys. DO NOT EVER WINK AT A GIRL – THAT IS TOTAL WUSS – SEND AN EMAIL.  That sounds obvious but it is kind of hard.  You can’t just say, “Hi let’s talk”. You need something different.

Now this is where I kind of invented my own system.  I’m not giving that to you here but here are some keys about the first couple of emails

  • Have fun.  Smile when you type.  Dead serious, women can tell.
  • Say something about her profile – act like you’ve actually read it. But don’t go over the top with compliments.  Be interested but not nice.
  • Ask fun non-threatening questions.  Always, always ask questions.  Give her something to respond to.  Don’t just say “let’s talk”.  Fun easy questions are best – don’t go deep early – go a little deep in a couple of emails.  Never go super deep – save that for offline
  • Remember that this is a person you do not know and might never meet – so for the love don’t write to her like she might be “THE ONE”.  In fact send an initial email to lots of women.

Once you’ve got some communication going here is your goal – within 5 emails you want to take this offline.  This is critical.  You’re not looking for a pen-pal.  Invite her to talk on the phone – ask if she’d be up for it.  Now this whole online thing is much scarier for girls than for us.  I would always state that I would love to call her first, but when I invited her to talk I would leave my number in case she didn’t want to give me her’s online.  If she doesn’t want to talk live after 3-5 emails – walk.  Do it!  Walk away.

On the phone call be fun and interesting.  Don’t talk forever.  Relax.  Smile (seriously trust me here). On that first phone call say you want to meet in person.  Offer to meet for a drink or coffee.  This is not a date – this is a meeting to see if you want to go on a date. (Ladies- when you go meet any kind with stranger – someone should know you are doing it – and guys keep this thought in mind).

Again it is ok (good in fact) to have several of these going on at once.  You want to get from the first email to the actual meeting as fast you can without being pushy.  Online is about meeting potential people.  Don’t make it more than that. There will be another profile.

I’ve met a lot of women for this first meeting.  Most won’t go anywhere.  It can be overwhelming. It can lead to dating fatigue (future post).  But the good news is I’ve met mostly quality people (although I’ve had some wild, hilarious meetings as well – but really that can be part of the fun if you let it),  and, full disclosure – I met the woman I’m going marry online.

So what has been your online experience?  What advice would you offer the people reading this?  I would love your comments on this.

Don’t Just Wait On God

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There was a man whose town was about to be flooded.  He decided not to evacuate before the water came, hoping that it wouldn’t rise near his home.  But in fact it began to rise quickly.  This man believed in God and had such great faith that when he prayed that God would save him he knew for sure that God would.

He went up on his roof and waited.  A man in a canoe came by and asked if he wanted a ride.  The man said, “No thanks.  I’m waiting on God rescue me.”  The water rose.  A man came by in a motor boat and offered assistance.  The man answered, “I appreciate it, but I’ve prayed to God, and He is going to come and get me.”  The water rose.  The man was forced to the very top of his house.  The coast guard flew over his house in a helicopter. They dropped a ladder and said this was the last time they were coming.  The man waved them off and said, “Go and rescue others.  I’m counting on God to rescue me.”

The water rose and the man was swept away and drowned.  When he got to heaven and met with God he asked, “I prayed to you,  believed in you, showed great faith, and yet you did not rescue me.  Why?”  God answered, “You came to me which was great.  I sent you warnings to evacuate, I then sent one of my people on a canoe followed by another in a motor boat.  Finally I even sent a helicopter.  And yet you refused all my help.”

You may have read a parable like this before.  I think it’s so often exactly how we live our lives.  We take our prayer list before God (which is good) but then we kind of pray and forget about it.  We don’t actually pay attention for how God would answer that prayer.  I sometimes think God must just shake his head and think, “Justin, for the love – I’m trying to help you out here kid – pay attention.” Haha.

Now obviously we have to use discernment.  Just because we pray and something happens doesn’t make it from God.  “God, I need a new car,” followed by a Porsche sighting is most likely not God telling you that’s what you need – although that would be sweet.  But we go the other way.  We pray and then go about our day.

We either think we know exactly how God will answer it (our way – arrogance) or we pray unexpectantly (not believing anything will happen – resignation).  Both can be killers as a single person looking to get married.

I’ve heard way to many people say stuff like, “God just hasn’t brought me anyone yet”, “I’ll just do what I do and if God wants to send me someone He will”, “When God is ready for me to be married He will send me someone.”  Really?!

Now if you’ve sought God and you feel like He’s told you that then great.  I don’t mean to discount those as answers that God wouldn’t give you.  But just assuming them is kind of a bad idea.  It’s a way to hide from two things.  First it’s a way to hide from disappointment with God.  He hasn’t delivered me a spouse but it’s all good, He must have a different “plan”.  Second it keeps us from dealing with our own stuff.  Waiting on God often seems to mean, “I’m not doing anything wrong – it’s just that God hasn’t sent someone yet.”  Yeah it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me. Yikes!

Whatever the case this mostly leads to inaction on our part.  In other words, I don’t have to actually do anything – and I certainly don’t have to risk.  God will bring me the person in “HIs Time”.

Now I want to be very clear here.  I think God absolutely sends us people.  But I wonder if often we miss the message because we are either waiting for the perfect scenario that doesn’t exist, or we aren’t doing the obvious things we know to do.

We get caught swinging the pendulum back and forth reacting to our own sin on both ends.  We either try to control everything and don’t involve God or we react the other way and “leave it up to Him” without taking any action at all.  I don’t think either is very effective. Neither involves acting while interacting with God.  Which is what I think He really wants us to do – to actually walk with Him, not just wait on Him or do it without Him.  He wants us to engage.

Have you ever used “waiting on God” as a way to hide from hard stuff?  How about as a way to avoid actually dealing with Him?  Are you paying attention to who God might send to help?

Can You Date A Non-Christian?

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One thing that almost every Christian organization agrees on when it comes to singles (other than Don’t Have Sex of course) is that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian. Now when you tell young singles this they all nod their head, make big commitments to the Lord and dream of the perfect Christian Courtship.  This is all so simple, right up until that doesn’t happen or you meet someone who you really like, who isn’t a Christian.

Then it’s rationalization time.  “I haven’t met any Christians I’m attracted to.” “Well we aren’t really dating – they are just a friend” which is usually followed with, “well if they were a Christian I would date them but they aren’t so. . .I’ll just hang out with them like we’re dating but not call it that until we are dating and then whoops.”  Or, “Well I won’t marry them unless they come to follow Jesus but I’m hoping that will happen.”  “I’m just sharing Jesus with them.  I mean if they got it then yeah maybe but. . . ”  Here’s the problem – we will always want to date who we are attracted to and guess what, we marry who we date.

This is such a hard deal on a lot of levels.  First we really can’t help who we are attracted to.  Attraction isn’t really a choice.  Now what you do with attraction is and we need to get a hold of that.  But still it’s hard.  Also there are a lot of really cool non-christians. Ha!  It’s true right? And there are a lot of Christians that aren’t cool (funny, exciting, adventurous, hot etc).  Not only that, but guess what, everyone is created in God’s image and everyone can love.  That’s right even non-Christians can show love.  Crazy I know.

What makes this even trickier is that the Bible is not as clear here as we might like it to be. The problem is the Bible doesn’t talk about dating at all and when it comes to who to marry, really we’ve got one passage that says it straight up and another that kind of leads to the idea.

Paul in 2nd Corinthians 6 talks about not being unequally yoked.  While this is not about marriage I think it’s obvious that if we aren’t to be partners with unbelievers then it’s not a very big leap to assume that would include the biggest partnership of your life.  And in 1st Corinthians 7 Paul says that widows are free to remarry but they must marry a believer. That’s about as straight up as you can get.  But that’s it.  And before you try to go old Testament Israel marry within the tribe on me, remember Hosea.

But we have to live in reality and reality is this: If you are following Jesus then your life is heading in a direction.  And that direction, regardless of how much you like them or how much you have in common etc, is not the same as that of someone who is not.

There are all sorts of other problems.  It is easy for this other person to become your mission.  In other words you are somehow going to win this person to Jesus.  Here’s the thing, it could happen, but it could not happen and then you spend the rest of your life in different places.  Not to mention that they might end up pulling you in their direction – away from God.  This is a cheesy analogy but one person is standing on a chair and the other is on the ground.  Is it easier for the person on the floor to pulled up or the person on the chair to be pulled off?  As a bonus you are WAY more likely to fall into sexual sin.

Also, how can you have a covenant marriage with you, this other person and God, if this other person doesn’t believe in God.  Biblical marriage is a covenant, not a contract or an agreement.

But most of all, it is harder to follow Jesus and almost impossible to do ministry.  I have been in full time ministry for nearly 17 years.  I have worked with literally hundreds of people serving in our work.  Like anything missional, it’s hard and people leave for all sorts of reasons.  But the number one reason people get taken out – sexual sin.  The number two reason that usually leads to the first – dating someone who is not following Jesus.  This happens directly and indirectly.  The person who is not a Christian is going to have a hard time supporting you giving your life away for the Kingdom, which if you are following Jesus is exactly what you are called to do.

This raises other questions like, What is Christian enough? and How do I know who to marry?, and I plan to address some of that soon.  I also concede that this might not be “law” so to speak.  So tell me what you think?  Is what I’m saying right?  Are you rationalizing a relationship you’re in right now?  If you’re dating a nonbeliever how has that affected your walk with God?