Category: Church

Well here we are, Part 4.  This series has brought about a ton of great conversation in my real life relationships.  I hope it has sparked some good things for you as well. I started writing about this topic because I knew I needed to start using my unique voice to speak into topics I’ve experienced to be difficult.  I’ll be writing more on Church community, on singleness and other things in the future. But for now we’ll cap this series here.

As a reminder, here’s where we’ve been with this conversation:
Part One was from the point of view of the Church and church leadership.  
Part Two was a bit of a Married Friends Gut Check
Part Three was a bit of a Single Friends Gut Check
Part Four is a few models of relationships that can help us with practical steps forward.

I was saying just today to my fellow staff members about how we need more honest conversations about how we do church community.  Because people are leaving the church. People are walking away from the church for a lot of reasons, not just the loneliness of being single.  But time and time again I hear my single friends talk about how they don’t feel fully a part of the community at their church. So we need to be talking about this.  

As we look for practical steps forward, I thought we could take some time to look at a couple of models of relationships across marital status that I have found really helpful and honoring.  I honestly believe that we can only step into these types of relationships when we are all in healthy spaces or trying to get to healthy spaces. If you want to know what that looks like, head on back to parts Two and Three and see what I mean by that.  

Here are a few models I’ve come to find helpful within the church and in general life:

Intergenerational Life Groups.  Or small groups.  Or D-Teams. Or Sunday School classes.  Whatever your church creates for community space.  So often, as a church, we think all community needs to be life-stage specific.  But often times, most of our lives are spent in life stage specific settings. What if in the church we mixed it up a little more.  Of course Moms of toddlers need time with other Moms of toddlers and college students want to hang out with other college students – that’s fair.  But in the church, could we mix it up a little more intentionally. When we intentionally mix it up, single people don’t have to feel so ostracized because conversation doesn’t naturally default to toddlers, parenting, empty nesting, etc.  

This can require some intentionality from the church leadership but it doesn’t have to entirely rest on their shoulders.  When thinking about starting up something, invite the single people you know. Make an effort to invite them to sit with you during service, or more radically – go sit with them.  Intentionally choose a table not with people who are just like you but people who are at a different life stage.

You may be asking reading this and thinking, “But Alicia, what will we talk about if it’s not _______ (fill in your blank with whatever you usually talk about with your peers who are exactly like you).”  Start with something easy, like the sermon or something that happened in worship. Ask about their plans for the week. Ask about their job, where they like to hang out, what are they reading/watching/listening to.  I promise you it’s not that hard – you just have to intentionally try!

The Tricycle Theory.  This is of course an Office reference.  Michael Scott once said, “My mom always said that the third wheel is what makes it a tricycle” in reference to him always hanging out with his mom and stepdad.  Two of my best friends are married (to each other) and when we all lived in Chicago I started calling us the Tricycle. When we all first met I was working with the husband in youth ministry and I decided to force the wife to be my friend (not really but I tried real hard).  One thing that works so well in our friendship is that I never feel like a third wheel. It’s a joke we make but in reality our friendship is so strong and balanced, it’s not like adding a third wheel to one of the wheels on the bike, it’s really like having an evenly balanced tricycle.  

I alluded to this in another post that we need to also treat married people as whole developed individuals and this is kind of where the tricycle theory comes from.  There are times in our friendship when the husband and I are talking about church things and ministry ups and downs that the wife is only kind of interested in (or not at all if we’ve been talking too long about it.)  And probably more so there are long periods of girl talk that the husband could care less about. And there are just as many times when we’re all talking about stuff that we have in common. I am not more friends with one of them over the other.  

Even now as we are juggling a long distance friendship, we share the ups and downs of our lives with one another.  Obviously the two of them have a deeper relationship than I have with either of them, but they never make me feel bad about being single.  In fact they are two of my biggest cheerleaders. I get the best dating advice from them because they usually balance each other out.

Spiritual Family in practice.  We talk about Spiritual Family a lot in the church.  But sometimes I wonder if we really are that good at it across lines of age, gender and family status.  Family is messy – we all know that. We all have family drama that can be tricky to navigate, so Spiritual Family is no different.  But we cannot allow that to keep us from trying, especially because this is exactly what a lot of singles are looking for.

Even if their own families are nearby, singles want to be a part of a broader church community.  They may have a desire to have a family of their own and they don’t yet, or they may just like being around the hustle and bustle of kids.  There are families in my life who have let me into their family spaces on a regular basis and I cannot express how good for my soul that is.

For someone who enjoys being arounds kids but has no kids of my own and is far away from my own nieces, it is amazing to have families who let me hang out in their family.  This doesn’t have to be a big planned out evening, it can just as easily be inviting someone who is single into the everyday messiness of being a family.

Here are some practical ways this has looked like for me and the families in my life:

• Lunch after church
• Letting me sit with their family at church
• Inviting me to soccer practice / band concerts / special events
• Running errands together
• Going to the park
• Family dinner (NOT a dinner party – normal family dinner where we talk about our days and our lives)
• Hanging out on bad weather days – sledding, reading by the fire, card games
• Riding to church events/retreats/outings together

A lot of these things are not difficult to invite people in – don’t assume your single friends don’t want the hustle of your family.  I recognize that this takes a level of trust and vulnerability to let people into your space, but I also recognize the strength of kids having multiple adults in their lives who care for them.  Being single can be very lonely, and we don’t need to constantly be in your space, but knowing there’s an invitation in helps the isolation feel less intrusive.

Lastly, I feel the need to add a disclaimer that I obviously cannot speak for every single person in your life.  These posts are trying to get us to think outside of our culture determined boxes – but please, if you are wondering how to better pour into your single friends you can just ask them.  Go ahead and blame me, here’s how that conversation can go…

“Hey, I’ve been reading these posts by some girl about what it’s like to be single in the church, what’s been challenging for you in our community?”  

FULL STOP.  

After you ask that question, just listen.  Humbly give them the space to answer you as honestly as they feel they can be with you.

And remember, these conversations always go better once you have an established relationship with someone.

So start first by building up a relationship with the single people in your life. See them as a whole person and treat them with the dignity and respect you would a married friend of yours.

Just as a reminder, we’re in a series on singleness in the church that will be a four part series (for now).  

Here’s where we’re going to (try) to go with this conversation:
Part One was from the point of view of the Church and church leadership.  
Part Two was a bit of a Married Friends Gut Check
Part Three is a bit of a Single Friends Gut Check
Part Four is going to be some practical steps forward.

It was great reading comments and hearing from so many of my married friends last week.  Thank you all for engaging in this conversation and sharing it with your friends. Keep sharing your thoughts and any feedback you have for me!  

This week’s gut check will be for our single friends.  Full disclosure – this is the post that I was the most nervous about writing in this series.  For obvious reasons, I can’t write a gut check for single friends without first looking myself in the eye and gut checking myself.  But hey – we all have our stuff right? And we all have to deal with it, so here we go!

Just to remind ourselves, our hope in these conversations is to talk about how to have better community across this relationship status divide.  We want the church to be a place where we can find good, God honoring community between people of all relationship statuses. So when we talk about singleness here, I’m coming from the angle of how we can better be in community with others who are not single.

Single friends, we need to deal with our loneliness.  There is a lot about my single life that I love.  I doubt that I would have had the ability to move as many times as I have or go on new adventures if it hadn’t been for my singleness.  The “freedom” that comes with being single is appealing for the most part.

But there are other parts that are just really hard.  They range from silly things to laugh at with my friends to deep wounds that are easier to push down and not deal with right now.  

However difficult though – we need to deal with those things.  We need to deal with the parts of being single that are hard and frustrating not because of what people say or think about us but because of what we say or think about us.  I’m an extrovert, albeit a shy extrovert but an extrovert nonetheless.  So being at home alone can sometimes be isolating for me. When I moved into my first apartment alone I wasn’t sure I could handle it.  I was really nervous about all that time alone with my thoughts. It didn’t take long for me to realize that in my loneliness of living alone, I was actually just numbing my mind rather than dealing with it. I needed to deal with it because when I was just numbing it with TV, music, other friendships, etc – the loneliness always came out sideways.  

And when it comes out sideways, it can cause us to be bitter about our relationships with people who are married.  It can build a wall between us because of the perception that they have something we so badly want. But the problem is, a spouse will not solve our problem of loneliness.  In fact, married people can be just as lonely.
If we don’t learn deal with that loneliness in a healthy way not only can it build resentment and bitterness in us, we can inappropriately try to fill that loneliness with other people.  We need to find the root of our loneliness and look to the true source of security and comfort – God. And not in a “Jesus is your husband” kind of way, but in a comforting, fulfilling way that recognizes that only God can perfectly love you and be in your corner perfectly.  

Something else I’ve seen stand in the way of my relationships with my married friends is my perception of how they feel about my being single.  Let me rephrase – I have a tendency to make jokes about my singleness so that other people know I’m okay with it. It’s a defense mechanism that I’ve picked up from years of people asking me inappropriate questions about my personal life, or setting me up on really bad dates, or even choosing not to be friends with me (or even colleagues) because I’m single.  
I’ve had to get some thick skin and learn to laugh at myself, which is not the worse thing in the world.  But sometimes it can get in the way of my friendships. I’m trying so hard to make it okay that I actually am just making it awkward.  I’ve learned that it’s not my responsibility to make it okay for other people that I’m single.  It’s only my responsibility to make sure I’m okay that I’m single.  And by okay I mean content that this is the season I am in, even if I’m hopeful that it won’t be forever.  

When I am feeling content in my singleness and dealing with my own issues of loneliness, then I’m not looking for my married friends to fill a role in my life.  I get to simply be friends with them. But when I feel bitterness rise up, I see it affecting my friendships, especially with my married friends or my newly in a relationship friends.  

Lastly (for now) single friends, we need to make sure we are honoring our friends’ marriages.  My rule of thumb for my relationships with people who are married is that their marriage is more important than my friendship with either person, even if I came first.  (Side note: this is assuming the marriage is not abusive in anyway.) This lesson was a humbling one to learn. But it was so necessary to learn.

The fact is, my friends that are married stood before their family, friends and God and made a commitment to each other.  They entered the covenant of marriage and some of them I was a witness to, and others I met after that day. But regardless of that fact, as their friend, I have to value their marriage more than my friendship with them.
I know this may sound crazy.  I know this may sound like I’m caving into that “marriage is the end game for everyone” culture.  But in reality what I am actually saying is that marriage is holy – meaning it’s set apart. And I am respecting that.

And actually, respecting and honoring their marriage makes me a better friend, not a more distant one.  It means healthy boundaries in our friendship. It means I would never speak ill of one of them to the other.  It means I will always counsel and push them towards each other. It means I remember that couples need time to be alone.  
You cannot have a healthy close relationship with someone who is married if you don’t respect their marriage.  

So Single friends, before we can really engage in deeper, meaningful relationships with our married friends, we need to look at ourselves and our feelings.  How are we dealing with our loneliness?  How are we finding contentment?  And how are we honoring our friends’ marriages?

We’ll wrap up this discussion for now, I may have more thoughts to flush out as feedback rolls in.  Let me know your thoughts, questions, comments or concerns as we continue to think through this!

This conversation has gotten some interest on here.  As I’ve watched my stats go up and as I’ve heard from people in my life, I’ve realized that we have a lot to talk about in this realm.  This is going to take more than the three parts I had planned out.  So I’m doing a little bit of reorganizing.

Here’s where we’re going to (try) to go with this conversation:
Part One is for the Church and those in leadership in the Church
Part Two is a bit of a Married Friends Gut Check
Part Three is going to be a bit of a Single Friends Gut Check
Part Four is going to be some practical steps forward.

We’ll see how this actually works out.  I’m going to try to do a part each week so we have time to digest and really thinking through these things.  My overall goal with these posts is to take a look at how we can deepen our community across the lines of relationship status.  Often times in the church singles feel separated out because they don’t have a spouse.  That seems like such an obvious statement but I also think that as we hope to deepen our communities and become more of a spiritual family, we need to say that out loud.

So here we go – Part Two – Married Friends Gut Check.

I often hear from single people that their married friends only want to hang out with other married friends.  And I often hear from married friends that they don’t want to make single people feel uncomfortable.  Or both sides of the equation are thinking the grass is greener on the other side.  Married people think that it must be nice to live so independently and single people think it must be nice to always have another person by your side.  And BOTH are true.  It is great to be fully independent – but it’s also lonely and ostracizing.  And it is great to have someone by your side until death do you part – but it’s also complicated and challenging.  But what we’re looking at here is a huge disconnect between our married friends and our single friends.

We need Emotionally Healthy Relationships.  Just like with any relationship or friendship – they function best when all parties are emotionally healthy.  One of the trickiest parts of relationships across the married/single divide is maintaining health and integrity.  We have to name that.  Married couples need to know what their boundaries are in relationships with others, I get that.  But here’s the thing married friends, your single friends do not want to threaten your marriage.  I know there are horror stories of affairs and predatory people and we have to be real that sin exists. But please don’t ostracize people out of your life because you’re afraid.

I want to give counsel that before you can really let single friends into your world, you probably need to have boundaries and conversations about how that’s going to work.  I’m a big fan of boundaries and conversations.  (So maybe you and your spouse should chat through that and if you’re both cool with having single friends.  We’ll still be here you when you get back from that convo.)

One of my biggest complaints about the church is when we marginalize single people out of fear that mixing them with married people automatically produces affairs.  I want us to assume the best in people.  Just because a person is single and hopeful they may have a spouse one day does not mean they want you or your spouse. 

Before we can even begin this conversation, we need to really assess what we think about single people around us.  If you are hoping to take some steps towards people who are single, here are some ways to move that forward.
Think about the single people in your community – first, can you identify them?  If not, that’s probably not a great sign.  They are all around you, single by choice, single by situation, single moms, single dads, widows, widowers, divorcees – they are there.  And if you don’t see them in your community it’s a good thing to ask yourself why.
Secondly, think about the last time you interacted with them, especially in spaces where you are already in community with them.  Did you engage them in conversation?  I cannot tell you how many times I have been serving alongside of men and women who seem to not know how to talk to me because I am 32 and still single.  It ranges from straight up leaving me out to not knowing how to engage my singleness outside of some platitude that really makes no one feel better (i.e. Jesus is your husband).

This second step might need some time.  Be aware of the spaces you are in with people who happen to be single.  Be aware of the conversation around the table/room/whatever.  Seek out their opinions, their stories, their interests – even across gender lines.

On some level, I understand the separation between married and single people.  We live in an overly sexualized culture that seems to send us the message that men and women are incapable of being friends.  But like I said before, I want us to assume the best of each other, and if we are Christ followers aiming to live lives of integrity, can’t we assume that two people in a can be talking a public setting without anything shady going on?  And remember that I’m talking about people already in your community – people you go to church with, sitting at a community lunch with you (and probably your spouse).  No one is talking about one on one dinners or hotel rooms.  I’m talking appropriate spaces to be friends with the opposite gender.  (okay- soapbox time is done).

Thirdly, while you’re interacting with the single people in your life, remember a few things – unless you are a good friend of theirs, their relationship status probably shouldn’t be your conversation topic.  You can literally talk about anything else – music, sports, food, family, jobs, the weather, politics – just please don’t start your conversations or interactions asking them why they are single, if they’ve gone on any dates recently or if they would like you to set them up.

Once you get to the point where they are firmly in community with you, those conversations may come up but that shouldn’t be the starting point.  No single person wants a stranger asking them what the deal is with their singleness.

The best thing to remember in community with people who aren’t like you is that you need to be humble in your approach.  In this case, remember that unless you were recently married, you may not remember what it’s like to be single.  Or you may have found your spouse in your younger years and so you haven’t experienced singleness in your late 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.   Either way, what it’s like to be single in today’s culture and world may be a foreign concept to you and that’s okay.  Us single people are not expecting you to 100% identify with what we’re going through; we simply want you to value our presence in your life.

My encouragement to you is to really take some time to think through this stuff.  Especially if you hope to have community with people who are single (if you are not).  Taking a few moments to gut check yourself and be aware of how you interact with single people around you could go a long way in moving forward towards Spiritual Family.

If you have further questions or comments on this topic, feel free to comment or reach out – I can give some specifics/anecdotes if you really want to hear the crazy things my friends and I have experienced in this conversation.

And single friends – our gut check is next, and I promise you it’s going to be just as challenging as this one is to our married friends.

I’ve always looked towards others to be the voice of the single person in the church – well one other cause I only know one author/speaker who is single.  But I’ve realized lately what a tremendous pressure it is for her to speak on behalf of all of us.  So I thought it was time for me to put myself out there as well.

Let me start by saying this – I love the Church.  And not in a naïve way where I pretend we have no problems, but in a deep way where I just can’t quit it.  I am deeply committed to being a part of a church body, not just in leadership as a pastor but in the overall community of followers of God.

When it comes to Church I’m sitting across the table saying, “This thing we’re doing here – I’m in – I’m all in” ala Luke Danes in Gilmore Girls.

All that to say, at times, it’s really hard to be in the Church.  For a few different reasons but one big glaring one is because of the fact that I’m single.  I am not one half of a couple, in fact I’m nowhere near that stage of life yet and while that’s a battle between God and me, at times it’s a battle between the church and me.

So I’d love to start a conversation about what it’s like to be single in the church.  To really dig in deep and ask ourselves some hard questions about this divide between married/single people in the church.  I want us all to come to this internet table and talk it out, but it’s gonna take a few weeks to really do this well.

Here’s where we’re going to (try) to go with this conversation:
Part One is for the Church and those in leadership in the Church
Part Two is a bit of a Married Friends Gut Check
Part Three is a bit of a Single Friends Gut Check
Part Four is full of some practical steps forward.

My hope is to do a part each one, this is obviously part one, and I’ll link up each week so no one misses a part.

Here we go – Part One – for the Church and those in leadership in the Church:

I’ve watched many of my single friends struggle in various church settings.  I’ve seen them contemplate leaving the church all together – not walking away from their faith but walking away from the buildings where we meet together.

Even though I know there are many reasons, one big one reason I think that they leaving is because there is no room for them to be single.  It’s almost like the church doesn’t know what to do with single people – so they create a singles’ ministry which trust me when I say, that’s not what we’re looking for.

We’re looking to be seen as who we are right now – not who we could be with a spouse.  A lie that single people have to fight is that we are incomplete without someone in our lives.  So much of the Christian message in America is that you’ll be complete when you’re married – as if marriage is the magic cure-all for this disease of being single.  Everything will be better after you say your “I dos” and walk back up that aisle.

But we all know that’s not true.  So why are we continuing to perpetuate that message in our churches?

It’s in the language used from up front, in the division of small groups, in the way we interact with one another on Sundays mornings and outside of our gatherings.
It’s subtle in most cases and if I’m really honest with myself, I know it’s not overt.  But as one of my married colleagues shared with me recently, “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

The thing is, a lot of people that serve on church staffs or in church leadership are married.  They have beautiful and fulfilling marriages – and that is amazing.  This can also mean that it has been a long time since they have been a single person attending church alone.  Or it’s entirely possible that they have never been a single person attending church alone.

They don’t know how to relate to us.  And they definitely don’t know how to relate to us when dating looks so foreign to them, so different from how things “used to be.”
So fellow church staffers, let’s talk about what we can do to make it a little easier on our singles.

Let’s watch our language.  When we’re illustrating a point or giving an application in our sermons, let’s think about all stages of life.  Unless you are specifically sharing a message about marriage – anything you are preaching on can be related to a single person as well.  Using inclusive language can go a long way to making someone who is single feel comfortable.

Let’s value who they are as individuals.  Seek out a single person in your church and invite them out to lunch.  Listen to their stories and ask about their lives, not why they are single but what excites them about their work, their friends or their family.  Let’s include them in our small groups, on our worship teams and get to know who they are individually. And for that matter – let’s stop treating married couples as a whole, they are two individual people as well, let’s get to know them for who they are independent of their relationship status.

Let’s stop idolizing marriage as the end game. Marriage can be and is a beautiful thing.  I am in no way trying to negate it, I am just saying let’s be cautious about how we glorify it.  When we’re inviting people to participate in services, is it always a nuclear family?  Do we use language about “waiting for marriage” rather than talking about practicing healthy habits?  Do we assume that marriage is the end game for everyone?

Let’s stop asking them why they are single or what they are doing to not be single anymore.  These are intensely personal questions that should only be asked when a pre-existing relationship is present.  Just because we want to explain away someone’s singleness does not mean we get to.  The amount of times that single people have heard a question like this is countless and each time it can bring pain.  Even if we don’t mean to insinuate that something is wrong with the person across from us, that’s how this question is received.  If the single person desires to not be single anymore and they knew why that was the case – don’t you think they would have changed something by now?

I realize that in this realm, I speak from a place of privilege.  I am a pastor which means that the way that I interact with a congregation is much different than someone who is visiting or regularly attending.  I get invited into homes and families because I’m the friendly neighborhood youth pastor.  It’s an honor to serve churches in this capacity.  Most Sundays I walk into the church I serve and am warmly welcomed by the community around me.
And even still, I get the messages the Church is subtly sending that I would be better off if I had a husband.  That there is something missing within me because I am not married.  That there must be something God is still working out in me if I’m not married.

And all of those things are lies.

Single people are not somehow less than married people.  And I know we don’t believe that.  But let’s think about how we are communicating value to our singles.

What else have you seen that’s been helpful or harmful?