Also, the solution might not be to create a group specifically for “older singles.” This depends on the needs of the people within your church, but in any instance, we have to be mindful of how we interact with single people and how our churches include them in the community, not simply create a separate community within the community for them.
Value the Single People in Your Church
The Bible has more to say about singleness than we tend to celebrate within our churches. We must stop acting like it’s a problem to be solved or a concern to be addressed when an eligible bachelor is single. The language we use and the questions we ask matter. If we were to understand the beauty of singleness from a biblical perspective, we would stop rushing people to get married or making them feel “less than” for not being married.
I think we forgot that Jesus was not married, as well as many other well-respected Christians in the Bible.
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul discusses the value of single people in the Kingdom of God. There are great benefits that a single Christian will experience that a married Christian will not. Paul even says that it’s possible to live a happier life single than married, because there are challenges that come with marriage that don’t come with singleness. Paul isn’t just encouraging single people to be content. He is actually arguing that it can be better than being married.
For those who want to be married, I don’t want to downplay the struggle of desiring marriage and it not happening for one reason or another. Nevertheless, those who are married must stop suggesting that it is the ultimate destination, because that’s not what the Bible says at all.
In one study, it was discovered that half of churches surveyed wouldn’t allow an unmarried, single person to lead a small group. This survey of churches also found that many single members felt like married couples saw them as a project to help on their journey towards marriage.
We have to work towards changing the way we view singleness and how we treat single people in our churches.
Counter to what some might say, the unmarried people within our churches constitute a larger demographic than we recognize. It’s important that we talk about singleness and give a fair representation to this demographic of people.
For far too long, we have failed single people in our churches. The biggest way to change this is by seeing the value of singles, which is clearly stated in Scripture. We have to move away from our obsession with married people only and see the many ways singles contribute to our Christian communities. The perspective of a single person is different than that of a married person, so allowing both perspectives to be shared and seen is a step towards making church less isolating.
The church is designed to display the heart of God, and that can only be done when we begin to value all of the members within our churches.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
