Singleness and the Church - Opening the doors to robust community

Hello!  

Its been a while and it seems a little crazy to return to Saturdays by posting a blog on Singleness and the Church, but for many this is perhaps the longest "Saturday" of all.  It deserves a shout-out as we, the Body, are invited to consider each other's stories and learn more fully how to live in community together.  It has been a challenge to me as I worked on this. I'd love to hear your thoughts too! - M

It was a warm fall morning as I sat in a crowded café having coffee with a friend. Tears formed a familiar road map along her cheeks. She was cautious not to share them with the passer-byers that crowded the long brick patio. A couple’s small group meeting in the corner only added to her pain. Kim, who attended church since childhood, was now a thirty-something single adult, well established in her career, and searching for a place to belong inside the community she’d known for years. Maybe it’s because I am married to a pastor, maybe it’s because I like coffee houses, regardless, I’ve had many opportunities to witness stories like hers.  Often, as they unfold over shared sips and a biscotti, I sit quietly with more questions than answers.    

I remember learning about community for the first time as a new Christian. I was 15 years old and the radio-show Focus on the Family was emerging onto the scene. Though not yet married, I enjoyed how it discussed the ideals of what a Christian family might be like in practical ways. This show, and others like it, had a growing influence on the American church. Today, over 30 years later, congregations everywhere have adopted an emphasis on family within their church programming.

  

Churches offer support groups for struggling marriages and hold all-church family movie or “fall festival” nights. In February there may be a couple’s Valentines dinner. We encourage the whole family to participate in things like Vacation Bible School and have developed marriage small group Bible studies. We have a special morning for moms of preschoolers and Sunday school classes for all seasons of marriage or parenting.  Some even plan family camp-outs. Sermons are peppered with application points or examples that fit well inside family life. I’ve watched husbands and wives reunite, as they become part of such a church culture. All of this has been remarkably beneficial and, personally, as a wife and mother, I am glad for it.  Yet many, like my friend Kim, struggle to find their place within it.  It seems in the church’s concerted effort to support the family; it has inadvertently marginalized those who are single. 

Real Stories

            Several months ago, after our Sunday morning service, I listened to a conversation between two women.  Sandy shared that she and her husband, and a few mutual friends, enjoyed a movie together the night before. The second woman, Margaret, who was recently widowed, hadn’t been invited.  Sandy saw her friend’s disappointment, but her well-meaning efforts to console did not help as she responded by saying, “Oh don’t worry, it was just couples anyway.”  Apparently by those qualifications, Margaret would have been included four weeks earlier when her husband was still living, but now when she may need those outings the most, she wasn’t. I don’t fault her friends; they were simply acting within the context of the culture. But what does that suggest about the culture?

The struggling single mom or dad faces similar realities. Often their friends don’t know what to do when divorce has restructured their family. Once included in the Friday night dinners or Sunday lunches, suddenly single parents find themselves out of the loop or inadvertently not invited. After all, most tables are set for six or eight, not seven. Family outings with those friends begin to dwindle too, and slowly over time, they don’t happen at all. Without intention, the single parent along with his or her children drift quietly to the side lines at a time when being included could provide much needed support and healing. 

Some, like my friend Kim, long to be married but Mr. or Mrs. Right hasn’t come along. For others, marriage isn’t in their immediate sights and may never be. But in all cases there is a common desire to be a part of a community and be regularly included in it. One specific story stands out, but it is by no means the exception, my friend Julie was asked by several of her friends, who happened to be married, to help plan a party. Thrilled to be included, Julie obliged.  She spent hours with them designing the invitations, creating the centerpieces, and planning the food, only to find out as the day approached, that because she was single, she was not invited to the event. On another occasion, Julie’s well-meaning friends said to her, “We need to find you a spouse so you can come to our small group Bible study.” This was a study that was not specific around marriage. It’s clear her friends like her, but they don’t know how to include her.

It seems increasingly difficult for the family oriented culture of the church to embrace and enfold those who are single. Yet in 2014, the percentage of the world’s single adult population exceeded the married population for the first time. As a result, this is a demographic that cannot be overlooked. Their hurt, pain, triumphs and joys do not happen outside of the community, they happen in it. Their stories, just as remarkable and complex as those of married couples. Their contribution, profoundly needed in the church and in our own lives. Yet it seems, with the exception of a singles group (which rarely gains traction in most churches and usually accommodates a rather narrow age span), the ways a single adult can connect are slim at best.  Many of these individuals are asking the question, “Where do I belong?”  Often our response has been suggestions for how to serve rather than a welcome to the dinner table. How, with such good intentions, did the we - the Body, become so exclusive?

A Few of the Factors

With every cultural dynamic there are factors that contribute to it. Some in regards to this particular dynamic seem fairly subtle. First, there seems to be a stigma around the “odd number.” We use familiar phrases like: “Don’t be the odd man out” or “I felt like the third wheel.”  On the other hand, even numbers are everywhere - at dinner tables, on amusement park rides, they’re even on dinner menus as a meal option! I wonder what would happen if we set the visiting tables on church patios with odd numbers instead of even. At least a few. I wonder how inviting that extra chair may be for someone.

 

Another factor can be explained as I share one of my own experiences. After I married and began having children, my routine changed and I was less apt to run into friends who were not in the same stage of life I was.  My friend, Elaine, came to me during that time telling me how our lack of connection felt like a divorce to her. I had become so caught up in this new stage of life and connecting with new friends who shared similar things like diaper rash stories, or tantrum strategies, I had no idea the abandonment my single friends experienced. And frankly, at the time, I also had no idea how to do it differently.  I think the newly divorced or widowed adult feels something similar as their friends socially connect with those who share their married status and inadvertently neglect to remain connected with their non-married friends.  It seems like a classic case of “Out of sight out of mind”. I imagine, in this situation, a married couple that does not have children can feel equally set aside.

Perhaps even more systemic than either of the previous two examples is the subtle, yet common assumption that adult life officially begins at marriage. Somehow there is an unspoken belief, especially in the church, that one has not yet fully “arrived” until they are married with children. It is all too natural, then, to begin valuing one particular stage of life over another. Once values are set, appropriate energies are streamlined in that direction – primarily around the nuclear family. With such prioritization on family, singleness can often be perceived as a plane taxiing on the runway; making laps on the ground with no movement yet in the sky. It is presumed they are in a holding pattern, waiting for life to “take-off” and find flight. Yet nowhere does scripture say that real life begins at marriage. Purpose is breathed into us as we find ourselves before the Father, loved and complete, fully equipped by him to do good no matter our age, job, financial or marital status. (Eph 2:8-10)

Finding Center

How do we find center in a hyper-focused family culture? A good place to begin is to re-examine what we’ve made center. While the institution is important, we as individuals, have perhaps created an idol within it, and our programs serve that idol. Focusing on the nuclear family unit is by all means noble, and many such programs are good and helpful. However, family was never intended to be the focal point of our Christ-following or the church’s, and our well-intentioned commitment to it (both individually and institutionally) could be the very thing that prevents us from welcoming the way Jesus would. There is, in fact, a larger family unit to consider, the family of God, where we are all brothers and sisters and children of the Good and Perfect Father. If we can disrupt our programing and crack open the doors a bit to enfold the one standing on the outside, we will catch a glimpse of what Dallas Willard was quoted as saying in Richard Foster’s book The Celebration of Discipline, “God’s aim from the beginning of time [has been] to establish an all-inclusive community of loving persons with God at the center as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.” With this vision of the Kingdom, the distinction between the married and single life begins to fade into something more beautiful and robust.

 The banquet table of God is set one-by-one and not two-by-two (that was the Ark!) In the house of God each of us hold a place at the table.  We are fellow citizens and family members, none less or more distinguished than the other (see Mathew 20:1-16, Ephesians 2:19-22). Each one can find themselves included if they so choose to enter and participate by way of His grace. This is where we sit in the presence of our enemies, it is where our cup over flows and we feast on the love of God, side-by-side, rich or poor, married or single.  And it is God himself who sits at the head as the “Most Glorious” One. As we orient His direction, even when it means releasing our ideals of a nuclear family, He will establish his community among us.  A community that is much larger and more diverse than before. We can trust that in focusing on HIM “Seeking first His kingdom and righteousness” … that “all these things will be added as well.” (Matt 6:11)

 How do we, the Body, find a way to form a community of discipleship that represents this balance? In our current culture it may mean becoming more open to inter-seasonal life stages. After all, isn’t this the way the Early Church did it? It seems that age and stage had little impact on the communities of Christ-following that were emerging early on. It’s only been in the last few decades that we’ve seen that shift, and the rich inter-generational influence has been lost in it. This isn’t to say that gatherings based on age or stage of life are not an important part of the process. We need both. However, it’s often it’s often in the swing where we find a balance. Maybe we need a swing in that direction for a while to allow us to break out of our routines and find the balance. We have been trying this in our church for a while and it has not been without it’s struggles.  However, in the mess, a beauty is emerging as more and more of us dislodge from long-held patterns of relating that once closed the circle of our community. A family of 5 no longer hesitated to call their single friend and together they drove to pick out a Christmas tree, then shared in setting up and decorating them. Another young family invited a couple without children on a weekend get-away and they shared in the responsibilities and recreation together. Sunday after church a couple helped a recently widowed woman find a new car and negotiate the details with the dealership.  My friends who are single are also learning to reach out, knowing they are part of us and their presence is a blessing. Can you feel your heart expand as you consider these stories? Is there a story into which God is inviting you?

Churches are made up of people, and while an institution can create basic structures to assist in culture, it cannot change the culture. Change begins on the individual level. As long as I remained neatly tucked inside my comfort zone within my well-established relationships, this dynamic was difficult for me to recognize.  It wasn’t until I broke out of that comfort zone and could hear the stories of others that I began to understand the pain of exclusion and the joy of inclusion. Like many of you, I still need work in this area. I can be rather hesitant to disrupt my routine to welcome someone new into it. I initially anticipate loss rather than gain. Yet it has also been my experience that as I’ve opened my tight places of circled community to include others, the gains have far outweighed any anticipated losses.

In the end, it is up to us (single or married) to align the way we think about singleness with God’s heart and perspective. His Spirit graciously empowers us toward change as we renew our minds in Him (Rom 12:1-2). When we become more open to including others, His resources of grace will dynamically change for the better how we live and love. Churches will look different because they will be made up of people who have become different. We will be more loving and find ourselves as “family” through the welcoming ways of Christ.