There are now more single adults than married adults in the United States, yet churches continue to focus primarily on serving couples and families. This focus unintentionally marginalizes many adults who are single.
How can we become more intentional to make singles feel welcome in the church? Gina Dalfonzo offers advice on how the church can love and support the singles in our midst.
“A lot of times people at church do have a commendable desire to help the single people. They think they’re going to do it just by pairing everybody off, which is kind, but it’s not always the best way to do it.”
Gina wants to encourage us to change the way we think about singles in the church in order to serve them more effectively.
“See a single person, not as a project who needs to be fixed as soon as possible, but as just another person who goes to your church whom you could establish a relationship with, a friendship, and get to know them.”
“I’m not saying anything against helping the single people find a mate, because that’s a kind thing to do, but it should come out of a relationship. Anything we do for other people is more effective if it comes out of an established relationship, if you know the person cares about you.”
Instead of focusing on ‘fixing’ a single person by playing matchmaker, Gina encourages us to get to know that person and help them to feel welcome among fellow churchgoers.
Should churches drop singles groups altogether to provide more of an integrated group structure? Gina says there isn’t one answer that applies to every church across the board.
“I think that singles groups can be helpful in some ways if they’re carefully designed, thought through, and they have a clear purpose. But I don’t think you should have the kind of situation where the single people are sort of all sent off to the singles group and that’s where they exist, and everybody else in the church exists over here and never the two shall meet.”
She shares helpful advice on how we can find ways to integrate single people in the church, structurally and individually.
“Mixed small groups are a great idea where you have people of different marital statuses and different ages and so forth. Various ministries like the music ministry, the disciples ministry, or any other kind of ministry can find ways to incorporate both married people and single people.”
“Each church needs to talk to the single people who are there, look at the situation, and determine how they can best serve the single people, and what are ways to get them established in the church and forming relationships with other people.”
Gina Dalfonzo is the editor of BreakPoint.org, as well as an occasional writer for BreakPoint Radio. She is also editor of Dickensblog and a columnist at Christ & Pop Culture. She is author of the book
Serving singles in the church
