Christian Cafe president and co-founder Sam Moorcroft says his dating service is meeting a need he felt keenly in the 1990s and which is still felt by single Christians today. With Christian Cafe, users have the option to go into detail about their faith and what they want in a partner; they are also required to be specific about certain areas of life, including their body type, fashion sense and salary range.
“Our dating website was created out of a personal frustration I had as a newly single male in his 30s, and new to a big city, where I knew hardly anyone,” Moorcroft told ChurchLeaders. “As a Christian from an evangelical background, I found it hard to connect with women of faith. I wasn’t into dating pagans (as I call them:-), so the logical place to find them was in church. Or singles groups, or other places where I was likely to connect with someone with a similar faith background. I am pretty outgoing, but even I found it difficult to do that in those venues.”
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There are a number of dating apps (eHarmony, Hinge, Bumble) any single person can choose from nowadays and even dating apps geared toward Christians (Christian Mingle, Christian Connection, Upward). But despite the fact that online dating is no longer stigmatized, many find it frustrating and discouraging. Some people’s experiences are so negative that they refuse to engage in online dating at all.
Moorcroft said that when he was looking for a spouse in the late 1990s, “the Internet was just becoming a thing, with all these new dating websites coming online.” He tried some of the secular dating apps, but said “they didn’t meet my needs as a Christian single.” The Christian dating apps “were okay, but not great. I felt that there was more they could be doing. They were also pretty basic: some information on a short multiple-choice form, one or maybe two generic questions, a photo, and that was it.”
“It’s still like that today,” he says, “almost 25 years later, with most services, even the really big ones.”
When a friend suggested that he build a better dating service, Moorcroft took up the challenge and, with some programmers and one of his brothers, launched Christian Cafe in February 1999.
When people create a profile on Christian Cafe, they are required to fill out answers in the following categories: Personal, Appearance, Faith, Children, Schooling & Employment, and Lifestyle. All of the questions in these categories are multiple choice and mandatory. In Personal, users must list their marital status, region, race and the type of relationship they hope to find. Under Appearance, people must select their height, body type, hair length, hair color, eye color and fashion sense.
Other questions in the mandatory section include users’ level of involvement in church, their denomination, and whether or not they want children. If users want children, they are required to say how many they want. People are also required to list their salary range and their personality type.
The next part of the profile, which is optional, contains 11 sections that users can fill out in as few or as many sentences as they wish. One of the prompts is, “Describe your Christian faith. Where are you at and what are your goals? What scripture verses are important to you?” Another is, “What would be the perfect setting for a first meeting with a new friend or date? Describe it :-).” Other questions allow users to go into more detail about their personalities and what they’re looking for in a relationship.
