It’s definitely easy to feel invisible at church as a single. Especially if you're a single person who would rather be married. There’s just so many ways that you can be “reminded.” Personally, I don’t like critiquing “The Church" with big sweeping blanket statements (after all, I only attend one of them) but I do find it a bit therapeutic to talk about the experience of being single, at least.
During a sermon, you’ll likely be sitting in a row of seats at the sanctuary. Sometimes it’s just little things. Often you’ll be seated behind a dating or married couple, and you’ll see them do things like lay their arms on each other’s shoulders or play with each other’s hair. There might be announcements made during the service, which will likely include some events related to marriage, but nothing about singleness. The pastor will make references to his wife during the sermon, perhaps. There might be engagement or marriage announcements, which will make you wonder why things are going so well for others and so wrong for you. You’ll take a glance at the shelves of the church bookstore and see some books on marriage, and perhaps fewer, or none, about singleness or dating.
Also, when was the last time you went to a church where the pastor, church elders, worship leaders, and ministry leaders were unmarried? I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church like that. It does help your mind reinforce the impression that they don’t really know what it’s like. It might just be an impression, but still.
One time at church we had a big marriage conference that made the announcements and the bulletin, and the pastor always announced it rather excitedly. I don’t think we’ve ever had a church event about singleness or dating, except once during my days in the high school ministry. It’s like it’s just assumed that all the adults will marry in “God’s timing,” no need for anyone to talk to you about it. Our church doesn’t have a “singles ministry," either. At one point, I did raise the idea of starting one, but the pastor said it would need to have separate groups for men and women because he didn't thought people might start attending such a group for the "wrong reasons." Which I get, for sure. I also don't know how, exactly, you could keep a singles ministry going for month after month and year after year when there's, like, only two chapters of the Bible that talk about it.
All sort of things! It can just accumulate and pile up and suffocate you, for sure. And it’s hard because nobody notices the effect it all has on you. Everyone ignores you or assumes you’re doing fine. And it’s not their fault, really. People aren’t mind readers. it takes vulnerability to talk about these things to people.
I currently work in my church bookstore, where the shelves are organized by category, and for the longest time, the only “relationship books” we had were about marriage (and we didn't even have too many books about
that, curiously enough). For a really long time we didn't have anything about singleness or dating. Thankfully, we’ve started working on that. Those books actually sell pretty well, so it does seem like there was a need for it.
It was just one of those many little things that made me feel invisible at church as a single. Small victories like that can feel kinda good, haha.
Also, at my own church, we go through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, as we go through different books. I think it usually takes us around seven years to go through the whole Bible. So in seven years, there's usually, like two Sundays where the topic of singleness comes up, in Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7. And these passages don't even talk about temporary singleness, really. They talk about lifelong singleness. Yay. And when the topic of sex or sexual immorality comes up, the Big Lesson is always "Don't have sex before marriage. Let's move on to the next topic." Yes. Thank you. Very helpful for the adult unmarried guy with normal sexual desires. Thanks.
And the Bible has more to say about marriage than it does about singleness. So there's that.
Don't get me wrong, I love my home church and I love the people there and I can't imagine going somewhere else, but as a single adult you can definitely feel invisible lots of the time. Or at least at certain moments. Even if it's not intentional.
Let's not be creepy!
