Long day yesterday, taking minutes for almost 6 hours for Project One a new exciting toolbox a bunch of us developing about singleness to churches. Being a single Christian this has been on my heart since I became a one during an Alpha course at HTB in 2006. I remember having all sorts of questions in the first couple of years about how to live life to the full as a single Christian, whilst the church clearly promotes marriages, but haven’t really got any direction for singles apart from the frustrating all over chanted advice: `It is between you and Jesus, just pray!` and `Just Enjoy your singleness!`. Well, singleness comes in all sizes, shapes and forms and there are times when one feels rather having enough of trying to enjoy something, that is an overwhelming burden instead of a place of tranquillity as our married Christian brothers and sisters try to make it sound. Well, the grass is always greener isn`t it. But in reality as I was told, it is greener where it is watered. Well, once I got to that place of willing to water my grass and become a conscious and content gardener my grass is actually start looking green instead of that burnt out cracked barren land it used to be. The soil has been prepared with many tears and unanswered questions though. That is why I`ve spent a considerable amount of time since 2006 praying that God would raise up people to take on the delicate subject of The Challenges of Singleness and Loneliness in and outside the church. Jojo with all her amazing organisational and project coordinator skills got theologians, sociologists and experts together and we had our first meeting yesterday to set a clear vision.
I came home very happy and very tired with no intention to open my laptop for the whole evening, in case I got one of those over-staring-the-screen-eye-aches I had in Hungary a couple of months ago and wasn’t able to do any thesis writing for a whole weekend. That was when I decided last minute to visit the Steigervald Horse Farm.
We are all bombshells and I would argue my case with anyone who has anything say against it with the Biblical truth: God has made us into His image and everything He did was good. That to me means we are all beautiful, handsome, smart and valuable.
One of the challenges I had to encounter on my epic journey over the years as I was banging the doors of my church at that time that the churches in general don’t want to be seen as dating grounds. Yesterday one of the theologians said mosques and synagogues are set for single men and women to meet and there is a real awareness in the community of helping people to find their marriage partners. We all agreed whilst the church promotes marriages, they don`t want to be seen as dating ground, therefore leave the singles on their own and wonder why there are not enough Christian marriages. I mean church here as a generalisation, but do bear in mind some of them have brilliant singles ministry. Also I think one of the problems is even if someone was single for a long time and ministered to singles by giving talks and encouraging them once they get married they are automatically written off and discouraged to carry on encouraging singles. The biggest encouragement for me personally hearing people`s stories who were single for years and got married, no doubt about that. I can whinge with my single friends, whenever I want to but all of us love encouraging stories.
Going back to the dating ground. The male - female ratio in churches are 2/3 women and 1/3 men. That can wary from 60-40% to almost a female congregation. As I learnt yesterday women 20% more in tuned for spirituality than men, therefore the ratio of females would always be higher. I have also learnt yesterday that one of the churches 6pm service is called the sex o`clock as all the girls in their 20`s are trying to get the few guys attentions and to achieve that their skirt is getting shorter, their boots are longer and they look more like prostitutes than anything. I totally understand their logic: where would you try to find a good Christian guy if not in your church and as the guys say the world is their oyster having so much choice, the girls are really trying hard to make that pearl look bigger and shiner. This whole Oyster-Syndrome led the church leadership to try to find ways, how to educate the sex o`clock service to dress modestly, completely missing the point that they need to attract more men to come to church and stop telling single people to `Enjoy their singleness` without helping them to learn how in their fear of being seen as a dating ground, which they are already and there is nothing wrong with that as far as I am concerned.
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