Singleness and Godliness

One of the best things this year was a one-off Friday night thing last week called "Singleness and Godliness". It was well attended across our three congregations and had a great vibe on the night. So far, feedback has been positive.

It went well because we had a great speaker. Jenny Salt did an excellently perceptive and winsome job of raising the issues. As a single woman she said stuff that, for example, would be much harder to hear, if I said them. The key to what Jenny did was that she addressed the issue theologically rather than give out some practical tips for attempting to make the hard bits of being single go away.

There were lots of good things about the night. The presence of older widowed people keen to get help for themselves in thinking about the topic reminded me that singleness is not just an issue for the Bridgett Jones demographic, but comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.

But the thing I was really stoked about - the vibe in the room before the talk even started was all about how people (married and single) appreciated that this was an important issue to seek God's mind on. It seemed like a big battle had been won before I even introduced Jenny.

We had described the event, not as an event for singles to attend but for all our church family. We'd said things in the lead up to the night about that. And also pushed the idea that perhaps many married people in our congregation who think they know how to encourage their single brothers and sisters, actually don't! And that those who think they have good theology on the issue may be exactly those who need to think it through a whole lot more. This offended a few people, but got the attention of a whole lot of others who probably otherwise would have just seen it as something for singles. In the end about half those present were not single.

The push to make it an issue "we all need to think through" wasn't about marketing the event to maximise attendance, but wanting to uncompartmentalise pastoral issues, so we do genuinely think not about "my demographics" issues but see the need to think about others, to care across those social barriers and be united in our love for each other. It was a great step forward and important to think about where we go from here.