Single men & churches
- Thread starter celras
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My old church tried to do a bingo night to get people to come in the doors and maybe come to church. Poor pastor fielded a lot of calls asking if we had $100 prizes (we had dollar store items as prizes). But it did seem to be a bit of a fun community intiative that people enjoyed (even if they didn't start coming to church).
Going to Phillipines for that is a bad idea from my point of view.
Some churches had trivia nites, I would go along to those. I remember trying to make buildings out of marshmallows aside from the trivia, which was too easy...of course it would be Bible questions.
I'm truly sorry for the harsh treatment single men get, both in the church and in society.
Cinder hit the nail on the head here, and all in one shot. Single women are at least seen as somewhat useful (such as in children's ministries, but then comes the problem of automatically expecting single women to be free babysitters,) but single men are eyed with suspicion, as others here have pointed out.
I can certainly understand why it might seem very unwelcoming for single men to attend most churches. I just read an article saying that even in churches with singles ministries, there seems to be more emphasis on helping the ladies find husbands rather than helping the men find wives. Part of this could be leftover whiffs of the thought that a woman absolutely needs a man to survive, but men are supposed to be strong and self-sustaining.
It's going to be interesting to see what the church morphs into within the next 10, 20 years. When I was young (at a conservative Lutheran church,) those who were divorced and/or single parents were looked at as a much lower and less-than-desirable social class.
These days, most churches are full of people in those categories -- along with those on 2nd, 3rd, etc. marriages.
While God's Word is eternal, I wonder how churches are going to have to adapt in order to survive. I recently heard a statistic saying that a time is coming when 60% of people in church will be singles.
In other words, the churches are about to have a collision course with something they've never seen or dealt before -- singles now being the majority. It's going to be a bumpy ride, because churches have always been built by and around those who are married. Most churches have no idea how to minister to singles or blended families (at least, not that I've seen, but I'm sure there are many variations.)
So what happens when these populations become the majority of the churches?
I'm guessing that churches are going to have to learn how to minister to singles, the divorced, and the remarried -- because if they don't, they're going to die off.
I'm saying if you a single man with a best friend who's a dog, some churches do accept dogs. But they might not welcome the single man.
Humility, commitment, ignore minor issues, probably are needed to stay in local church.
Over the years my church had quite some single men. Some stayed till goes to heaven, some hopping in and out.
It all comes down with our understanding of scripture. If Jesus command us to get together in person, then we have to do it, right?
Every commandment is blessing for us, no to burden us.
Over the years my church had quite some single men. Some stayed till goes to heaven, some hopping in and out.
It all comes down with our understanding of scripture. If Jesus command us to get together in person, then we have to do it, right?
Every commandment is blessing for us, no to burden us.
"These days, most churches are full of people in those categories -- along with those on 2nd, 3rd, etc. marriages."
I am surprised about this. I thought people who attended to church dealt with marriage in a different way. I'm from Spain.
Remarriage and blended families (those in which the spouses have had previous marriages and usually have children from them) is very common in the USA.
It's actually becoming rare to find "original, intact" families -- ones in which the mom and dad are still married, and all their children are only from each other -- not from previous partners.
You brought up an excellent topic that rarely gets talked about -- welcome to CC, @celras!