Singles in a World of Valentine’s

By: Colette Aikema, FBB Speaker

From the moment I had someone to love, Valentine’s Day became a day to enjoy. As a married Christian woman, I am glad to say that I am still thrilled to spend this day with my husband. And though it’s not always easy, I’m glad to be a mom to our three little ones and to model for them what a godly marriage looks like. Valentine’s Day reminds me how much love God has blessed me with.

But before I started dating my now-husband, Valentine’s was a day that made me feel empty and incomplete. And as a married person, I need to be reminded that Valentine’s Day is not always kind to some of our single friends. It’s a phase of life for everyone at some point. And yet both the culture and the church have treated singleness as something that needs to be cured or avoided, like the plague.

We can even still find the phrase ‘Not Yet Marrieds’ applied to singles in church ministries and teaching materials. The prevalence of these negative assumptions about singleness in the church has given rise to the idea that God intends marriage for every individual. The church has often contributed to the presumption that singleness is undesirable. And this results too often in practices that don’t build up the church.

Singleness is fended off, and few opportunities are created for singles to flourish in their churches, which causes these believers to be left behind, underserved and sometimes even neglected. As a result, the experience of many Christian singles in Canadian churches has come to resemble that of singles on Valentine’s Day. A consistent shutting out of ministry opportunities and fellowship enjoyed by couples has left our single friends in a place where it is difficult to experience God’s love and intimacy.

At Faith Beyond Belief we are eager to focus this year on rebuilding the church just as Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem’s wall. But rebuilding the church means rebuilding all parts of the church, including those members who are single.

Something we teach in our Identity Project is how God designed us to experience and enjoy several different kinds of love needs through different relationships. God gave us marriage as the appropriate place for us to experience eros love or what CS Lewis calls passion love.

Faithful single Christians of course can’t experience that kind of relationship. However, God has also given us the need for philia love or friendship love, especially with the same sex. Same-sex intimacy (not to be mistaken for same-sex sexual intimacy or behavior) is a fundamental need that we were all created to have, and singles often have less opportunities to feel that deep need filled. In fact, in our culture, where love is love is the reigning slogan of the day, all love is treated the same and is then sexualized. Any legitimate love need for same-sex intimacy is not encouraged in the church or is treated as sexual love by the culture.

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Because sexuality is assumed to be the foundation of one’s identity, it makes sense that there is a constant nudge for people to find romantic love. This pressure to be in a relationship has also infiltrated the church. I have spoken to singles who have experienced rejection by their church community, and entire communities who treated singleness as something unnatural. Comments about dating, prayers for marriage partners, and romantic set-ups are common in the foyers of Canadian churches. One of my single friends recalled how not a week went by that she was not approached by a brother or sister in church about her single status.

Now to be fair, many singles appreciate the help of their church and family to find a spouse. If a Christian person wants to be married, I’m glad they have a Christian community to help them. The problem lies in the assumption that somehow a single Christian must be married. He or she is seen as incomplete or incapable of contributing to God’s work.

But if you read I Corinthians 7, you see that God’s perspective on singleness stands in opposition to how we often treat singles. From this chapter we can learn that singleness is a gift from God, providing opportunities to live for God without distraction. Verses 32 to 35 go so far as to tell us that desiring the single life is a good thing, powered by a motivation to please the Lord. The Bible actually never defines someone who is single as incomplete or inadequate.

God carved out significant roles in Scripture for individuals who were unmarried and used them in outstanding ways. Consider the prophets Elijah and Jeremiah, whose unmarried status gave them unique opportunities to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. Of course Paul and some of the apostles remained unmarried.

And of course, God used a single Man to be the most complete, adequate human being to exemplify grace, love and truth. There was no one more perfectly human and perfectly God than Jesus, and His singleness sends us a powerful message: God uses single people for maximum impact.

Since we can find evidence that God delights in those who are single, the church has a responsibility to become a better place for them to grow and experience God’s goodness. Instead of giving the idea that singleness is a state that needs to be fixed, we are called to choose to love singleness as a fruitful time of life, a time for growth in godliness. The church is uniquely equipped to honor the purpose of singleness in a way the culture does not. Since there is no word from God about treating marriage as a goal every believer must seek to attain, there is time for us to pay particular, loving attention to those who are single.

One way the church can do this is to celebrate all our love needs. Encouraging events just for men, single or married, or just for women along with events for married couples or those who are dating, is a simple way for us to affirm these legitimate love needs. Creating male or female only Bible studies for example, regardless of marital status, is a critical way for these friendships to form.

In order for us to rebuild the church, as is our theme for this year, we must shepherd and nurture all people within it, something Canadian churches have not always done. We look forward to seeing the church rebuild its love for singles by affirming the beauty and exceptional nature of singleness.

Singles in a World of Valentine’s

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