Redeemer Central | The Collective | Single Entry

Some thoughts on singleness

Emma Keenan

18/05/10

Redeem:Women is a chance for the women in Redeemer Central to get together every couple of months, spend time worshipping together and praying for one another, and listening to teaching that is relevant and specific to women. Last Saturday, we spent some time together looking at issues around singleness, and how we address singleness within the context of church community.

I don’t have any great insights or words of wisdom – but I am single, and have a few thoughts on the issue that will hopefully generate some discussion. This is just an outline of what I shared on Saturday – if it makes you think, or if you have something to add, please leave a comment at the bottom, and let’s have some open discussion on singleness – that great taboo topic that no-one likes to talk about!

Being single is as valid a state of being as being married

When Trish first asked me to talk about singleness at Redeem:Women, I was a little bit annoyed! Naturally, I accepted graciously, and didn’t show my annoyance! But I did have to go home and think a little bit about it – it surprised me just how quick I was to react negatively to the invitation. Essentially, it came down to the difficulty I have with being labelled as ‘single’. It’s a fact of life – I am not married or in a relationship, therefore I am single – it’s no big secret. But having someone else verify that fact wound me up a little bit!

Married people tend not to have an issue with being labelled or acknowledged as ‘married’. But single people will often react negatively to the label of ‘singleness’, because we can often feel like it belittles us. Like somehow being single is inferior to being married, which becomes the ultimate goal. It creates difficulties on a couple of levels. One is that the single person can feel like their current state is somehow invalid, and a sign of how they haven’t quite measured up yet. Another is that married people are made to feel like they are supposed to have ‘arrived’, and that can place massive pressure on married people, who realise that all of life’s problems are not always solved by marriage.

Being single and being married are both equally valid states of being – certainly they are in God’s eyes. But they often aren’t in our own eyes, or the eyes of our families or communities, and that’s where we run into problems, and people can start to query their self-worth.

Church teaching on singleness

I’ve only ever heard one talk in a church on singleness – it was a couple of years ago, in Belfast, and the church shall remain nameless! The talk was delivered by a young pastor who was married with children. It may have been more sensible to have asked an older person who had lived with singleness to deliver the talk – perhaps the church realised that in hindsight. The focus on the talk was on the ‘gift of singleness’ – how singleness is to be treasured, even desired, because the church needs single people. Single people have time on their hands, so they can run the youth groups and home groups, help with admin and maintenance, etc, etc. Therefore, single people should embrace their singleness, and be thankful for it, because it will bless the church.

That has been the extent of my church teaching on singleness. No joke.

Realities of being single

There were many key issues that should have been covered in that talk, but were completely overlooked. Here are a few that I have experienced:

Practical: On a practical level, being single can be tricky. Just because there is only one of you doesn’t mean it costs any less to heat your home. General expenses can be difficult to manage – buying/renting/running a house on a single wage is difficult – as it is with families with kids and only one wage coming in. Even things like insurance are more expensive as a single person – apparently you are less likely to crash your car if you are married. Doesn’t make much sense to me! What happens when you go on holiday? As more and more friends marry, who do you go travelling with? There are practical difficulties associated with being single.

Emotional: Life can be lonely. Avoiding loneliness requires getting out and about, mixing with people, meeting new friends. Sometimes loneliness can overtake you, and it’s easy to blame your singleness for everything you are unhappy with. There can be issues of rejection – many people struggle because they have never really been in relationship, and feel that they haven’t been chosen – or people have been in relationships which haven’t worked out, and feel rejected and unwanted. It’s easy to let these emotions take hold. And then there’s the mixed emotions that you can feel when friends get married or have children. Despite being absolutely delighted for them, there can be part of you that wishes it was you – and that can leave you feeling guilty. So there’s the potential for single people to have a lot of tricky emotions bouncing around.

Physical: Being single and choosing to live life in a biblical and accountable way can leave single people having to deal with a celibacy that they never chose for themselves. The desire for physical intimacy doesn’t just kick in when people get married – it’s inherently part of us. And making the choice to be patient and live without physical intimacy can be tough.

Family: Is this a bigger issue for women than for men? I don’t know – maybe some of the guys reading this could comment. But for a lot of single people, the worry that you will never have a family is a biggie.

Incorrect teaching on singleness

There are some things that I’ve had said to me on a number of occasions, which I believe are blatantly wrong interpretations of God’s heart for us as single people. The first is the classic line, “God is your husband”. People have said that to me so many times. I’ve always found it weird – and always wondered if people would ever say such a thing to a single man? It’s taken out of context from Isaiah 54: 5 – “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name”. In context, God is speaking to the entire nation of Israel – not to single lonely women! It’s corporate, not individual. The bride of Christ is not me – the bride of Christ is his church, a corporate collection of people.

The second classic line is “make Jesus the desire of your heart, not marriage”. Again, something I’ve heard many times – or with variations, like “once you come to the place where you are completely content for it to be just you and God, then God will bless you with a relationship”. I think this is completely wrong and unbiblical. It suggests that we can only have one or the other – either God or marriage. Ironic when it was God who created marriage in the first place. This approach can leave single people feeling guilty for desiring marriage, because it implies that they are not desiring God enough. It also implies that married people desire God less than single people, and that is absolutely not the case.

Another thought is that people often refer to ‘the gift of singleness’ – again, I would question where did this idea come from? 1 Corinthians 7 gets quoted as the source, but while Paul talks of married and unmarried people remaining as they are, he does not coin the phrase ‘the gift of singleness’. It is not listed among the spiritual gifts. Where did this concept come from?

Does society reflect the church, or is the church a reflection of society?

The Times carried out some research recently, which produced some scary statistics. They claim that by 2031, 1 in 3 women will be unmarried, 1 in 5 women aged 45-54 will have never married, and a massive 50% of men will be unmarried. 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, singleness was an unusual circumstance – most people got married. In today’s society, singleness has become normal and acceptable. Society’s concept of marriage has changed, and our social perspective on relationships has evolved. Singleness has become an acceptable norm.

How is this reflected in the church? The Church Times carried out some research recently which showed that 35% of Christian adults are single – 25% are women, 10% are men. They conducted research among a large group of single women, which revealed the following:

- 6 in 10 felt that other Christians viewed their singleness as inferior to marriage
- 8 in 10 wanted to marry, but feared it wouldn’t happen
- Large numbers admitted to struggling with loneliness and a lack of sexual intimacy
- Large numbers felt that other married Christians regarded them as immature, unfulfilled and incomplete

Given the statistics, it seems that there are a lot of single people in the church who are unhappy with their single status – particularly women. If we are to function appropriately as a church family, and 35% of the church are single, then the other 65% must take an interest in single issues.

I read an interesting quote from boundless.org:
“In the church, instead of acknowledging that singles are operating in the most dysfunctional mating scheme known to world history, we simply presume on the Lord and his sovereignty to override our collective recklessness. Instead of recognising that many single women are victims because of the deficits in the present construct, we dismiss their unwanted status as simply ‘God’s will’.”

There are some people who are single through choice. But it seems that for the majority of single people, it is unwanted. I genuinely don’t believe it is God-ordained that the church has so many single people – it is a result of changes in society, and cannot be excused as ‘God’s will’.

Tensions between married & single people

It’s easy to say that being single and being married are both equally valid states of being, and that we are all on the same footing, but it can be harder to see that worked out in relationships. My sister and I joke sometimes about ‘losing friends to marriage’ – you know that situation when a good friend gets married, and suddenly this magical gap appears between you, and they act like you can’t be close again until you get married, because you just don’t understand each other anymore?! I would imagine most single people have lost a few good friends to marriage! That’s not how it should be in God’s church.

I’m grateful that I haven’t been encountering these problems in Redeemer. I have good friends who are single, and good friends who are married, and I feel equally comfortable being open with both groups. I think it is possible for single people and married people to fully support each other. Nothing makes me cringe more than the idea of a ‘singles ministry’ – all that does is separate people, and reinforce the idea of singleness as a waiting area for marriage, which is the ultimate. I think it is unhelpful. My experience over the past year in Redeemer is that positive, honest and accountable friendships between single people and married people are not only possible, but they are helpful in terms of validating both singleness and marriage.

A response?

There is a challenge to Redeemer, and to all Christian communities, to acknowledge the realities of singleness, and its increasing normalcy within our society. I believe that society should be a reflection of the church, rather than the church reflecting society. We need to support and validate people who are struggling with singleness, and enable them to be fully incorporated into the life of church, equally valued alongside married people. I also feel that the church needs to address the issue of the growing number of single people in the church – I think this is something we have inherited from the society and the times we live it, and it should be challenged. I don’t know the answers to that – please comment, get involved in the discussion, and share your thoughts. Singleness has been a taboo subject in churches for a long time – let’s bring the discussion right out into the open.

Tags: Life, Made me think, Redeem:Women, Relationship