Does the church ignore single Christians? Where are we supposed to go?!?

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Confetti. Thats what people need. More confetti in their lives.

Otherwise church would be boring. I think weddings bring in the $$ and then marriage brings in the children. The church needs children to survive. They have free entry into the kingdom, until they turn 18 and are kicked out.
 
I hope I'm not derailing, but @Churchgoer, do you have any thoughts on when to stop giving?

I met a Christian friend for coffee the other day and we were talking about this.

The fact that these days, so many people seem to think they are owed things just for existing, and no matter how much you give/serve, they still think they're owed more.
Interesting. I don't encounter this scenario.
My rule is help emergency, but emergency only. And help a person to be self dependent, meaning get a job, habit of saving....
I started cutting off people (or church groups) who seemed to think that way years ago, and I'm a lot happier now. I think it's an important topic that doesn't get talked about enough.

Singles are always told to use their single time to serve, but no one talks about realizing when you have to cut people/groups off when they start to abuse you -- and that happens quite often in the church.
I have not encountered abuse, I guess. I am sure it exists. I always encourage people to follow God, truly experience God, not to follow human.
I was just wondering if you've experienced the same?


I don't mean to sound like I hate churches. It's just that I've grown up in them, and I saw things that always bothered me that no one ever addressed -- or even acknowledged.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like when important angles of a topic get swept under a rug, so as an adult, I told God one of the things I hoped to do was call things out -- in the hopes of positive change.
My church is small, so relatively less issues?
 
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Actually the more we serve, give to our church, the more ourselves got blessings.
By serving others, we build up friendship. So when emergency happens, we have people to lean on. Even when there is no emergency, friendship is such a blessing that can prevent loneliness, depression.

Giving is more blessed than taken. Experience God s guidance.

Oh, I know that. I've experienced that. I know that to be true.
 
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Santa, church needs more santas' helpers. It is a big job. Most parents can't afford to look after their own children all the time. Grandparents are too old and want to spend the kids inheritance on themselves. We singles are the free babysitters.
 
Confetti. Thats what people need. More confetti in their lives.

Otherwise church would be boring. I think weddings bring in the $$ and then marriage brings in the children. The church needs children to survive. They have free entry into the kingdom, until they turn 18 and are kicked oui kne2w of qa set of parents in northville new york who had 17 kids. every time 1 of them turned 16 they were kicked out!
 
Didn't the Duggar family have 19 kids, or maybe even more? What happened to them? I read one of the mum's books, but I never saw the tv show or read any of the books the children had written.

I just remember mostly the mum put recipes in the book that would feed 19 children and it was mostly bulk pasta with canned soup poured over it, and I was like...no. The poor children!

I think the dad sold used cars or something like that making big bucks, but also, being on TV meant they could get more money and everyone to pay for their house.
 
Interesting. I don't encounter this scenario.
My rule is help emergency, but emergency only. And help a person to be self dependent, meaning get a job, habit of saving....
I have not encountered abuse, I guess. I am sure it exists. I always encourage people to follow God, truly experience God, not to follow human.
My church is small, so relatively less issues?

I think these guidelines are very helpful -- emergencies only, with the goal of helping the person become independent -- thank you for sharing them.

I grew up in a church with a few successful business owners, so a pattern emerged where the church leaders would want to fund this or that project -- then always hit up the same people for donations (and of course, expected them to give a lot.)

When their ideas didn't pan out, they'd just come back to the same people and ask for more money to burn.

The problem I saw as I grew older was that the leaders never asked for, nor did they take any advice from these people who were obviously gifted by God in business. They thought that because God had made them the head of the church, they must be gifted and the most knowledgeable in finances and business as well. They could not accept that their gift might be pastoring a church, but not at all being able to create or stick to a budget.

As an adult, one of the things I pay attention to in a church is if they are able to manage finances well, and if they are willing to accept financial leadership from those who have actively achieved it -- even if they're not pastors or elders.
 
I think these guidelines are very helpful -- emergencies only, with the goal of helping the person become independent -- thank you for sharing them.

I grew up in a church with a few successful business owners, so a pattern emerged where the church leaders would want to fund this or that project -- then always hit up the same people for donations (and of course, expected them to give a lot.)

When their ideas didn't pan out, they'd just come back to the same people and ask for more money to burn.

The problem I saw as I grew older was that the leaders never asked for, nor did they take any advice from these people who were obviously gifted by God in business. They thought that because God had made them the head of the church, they must be gifted and the most knowledgeable in finances and business as well. They could not accept that their gift might be pastoring a church, but not at all being able to create or stick to a budget.

As an adult, one of the things I pay attention to in a church is if they are able to manage finances well, and if they are willing to accept financial leadership from those who have actively achieved it -- even if they're not pastors or elders.
Did your church publish an annual report of expenses etc? All churches are required to do this in NZ. Well the ones I've been to always had them, they had AGMs too and members could go to them.

I always kept receipts of anything I spent on the church library and got reimbursed.
 
We always knew exactly what amounts were in the church budgets and I'm sure they did financial reports every month. We always had two people count offerings I remember and someone did the banking. The admin staff were trained or had proper admin experience. it wasn't just a volunteer pulled of nowhere, the job was advertised.

Certain church positions are paid, but others are not.
 
Family trees...

Or maybe they just didn't have (or use) birth control.
it seems they were an Appalachian type people. this will be fun for you: look up the Allen family of the Town of Day, New York. they also were involved with the Ovitts & Kathlin's. i'll give you a clue & 1 word says it all: "incest"! they even have their own cemetery loaded with lots of people who died at very young ages.
 
certainly, they had 17 suckers!!! i've got none & am proud of it!!!
Were they catholic? Catholics used to be known to have big families because the Pope disagreed with birth control

I recall Celine Dion came from a big family, she was the youngest and her singing got them out of poverty in Quebec. They were French Catholics, and I think the govt at the time, or at least the Catholics, wanted to outnumber the Protestants and they way to do that was to encourage catholics to have large families.

I think that was the reasoning. Governments can and do dictate the numbers of children a couple is supposed to have, esp when it comes to allocating housing.
 
it seems they were an Appalachian type people. this will be fun for you: look up the Allen family of the Town of Day, New York. they also were involved with the Ovitts & Kathlin's. i'll give you a clue & 1 word says it all: "incest"! they even have their own cemetery loaded with lots of people who died at very young ages.
oh

I am not sure I wanna know!

I have read a few books about the Appalachians. Life in the hollers is hard. Some are desperately poor and they have these weird family feuds and a lot of incest.
 
Couple that are poor have lots of children so they can have child slaves to work on the farm, many hands make light work. But also infant mortality was high 100 years ago.

It was a wives duty to have as many children as she was able.
 
The appalachians didn't have schools or access to literature so thats why librarians had to go on horseback to reach them with books.

Many were illiterate, that is why Dolly Parton founded the Imagination Library. She did it for her dad, who couldn't read. She wanted to be known not as a superstar but as 'the book lady'

She never had children, but she reached thousands of children by giving away free books to them as soon as they were born, and so their parents could read them stories and help them learn.