The population of singles keeps rising across our country, yet many churches still focus on ministering to families. What is the place for single women in the church? Writer – and single adult – Gina Dalfonzo, addresses the question and offers practical advice for single women finding their way in the evangelical church. It’s a conversation about faith and fellowship on this edition of Connecting Faith.
Gina is editor of BreakPoint.org. Her work has appeared in Guideposts, National Review, the Weekly Standard, Christianity Today, and newspapers around the country. In her occasional spare moment, Gina reads voraciously, plays the piano, gardens, dances, and makes jewelry.
People in our churches are used to thinking about our faith community in terms of relationships containing families and marriages. Thinking about the singles in our sanctuary doesn’t necessarily come naturally.
Many churches attempt to bridge the gap with a ministry focused on singles. Gina says they can be very good efforts, though she herself never felt like she belonged there. The tendency can be to treat singles’ outreaches like a sort of quarantine – separating these folks from the whole body of the church.
There are different stages of life and different experiences for each of us. Not everyone will fit into the same mold. So how can we craft our church life to embrace this reality?
We talk about the impact that feminism is having on single women of faith. Gina believes the contemporary feminist movement is trying to hold onto sexual freedom, and also prove women’s strength. Yet, it’s not playing out that way. So how can Christians articulate a vision for women that is compelling and true to faith? Part of the equation is to pull back from the focus just on the sexual aspect of womanhood. Women are far more than sex, and their worth is so much greater than their looks.
