Churches often revolve around couples and families, but what message does that send to the growing number of single Christians? This episode unpacks the hidden assumptions behind “couples bias” and what it means to build churches where singles aren’t just welcomed, but necessary. We cover:
- Why the nuclear family isn’t the centre of church life
- How singleness points to eternity, just like marriage
- What pastors miss when they overlook single adults
- Easy fixes that do more harm than good
- How married people can be better friends to singles
- The challenge to name all the single people in your church
Rev. Dr Danielle (Dani) Treweek is a theological researcher, author, and speaker with a focus on singleness, sexuality, and worldview formation. She leads the Single Minded ministry and serves as Sydney Anglican Diocesan Research Officer. She writes for Christianity Today, ABC Religion & Ethics, and The Gospel Coalition Australia.
TOOL BOX:
The Meaning of Singleness by Danielle Treweek
Single Ever After by Danielle Treweek
Dani’s website with further resources
No Greater Love by Rebecca McLaughlin
CREDITS:
This episode was brought to you by Youthworks
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:08:10 – 00:00:23:19
Unknown
Could I use. And welcome to the one thing. It’s a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every week. The one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia, and we want to help you, check out our website. There are a lot of great resources out there. There’s also some great things.
00:00:23:19 – 00:00:41:08
Unknown
If you’re thinking about planning a church, we’d love to help you there, but we, we would love to see healthy churches. And today, I’ve got, you know, our studio, we’ve got Doctor Danny Troy week. If you’re a doctor, I am a doctor. That’s so cool. Yes. Bizarre. I mean, I don’t go around introducing myself as a doctor.
00:00:41:08 – 00:01:02:18
Unknown
Danny. Troy. If I wanted to be particularly formal, I would introduce myself as the reverend Doctor Danny Troy. Well, I’m sorry I missed the Reverend. Sorry about that. But Danny is perfectly fine. Yeah. Just explain. Danny is, she has her doctorate in, Well, what was the thesis? It was, singleness and singleness. It was a theology of singleness for the contemporary church.
00:01:02:18 – 00:01:20:18
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And you’ve got a book, The Meaning of Singleness, which is the the big kind of academic one, which is great. And I do recommend it for every pastor and gospel worker to read. But you’ve also got just come out a new one, single Ever After. Now, I want to ask the question before we get into things.
00:01:20:18 – 00:01:45:07
Unknown
Yeah. You get interviewed on podcasts and that sort of thing quite a bit. What are you listening to on podcasts right now? What’s your what’s your favorite podcast? I wish I had advance notice of this question so I can think of a better answer to give you than the one I currently have, because I listen to well, I don’t always listen to Christian podcast, so I do listen to some great Christian podcasts, like, sure, one of my favorites is confronting Christianity with Rebecca McLaughlin.
00:01:45:09 – 00:02:18:05
Unknown
I enjoy theology and the roll with Preston Sprinkle because he has such a variety of guests on, and it’s always interesting to engage with people from different perspectives. I have been enjoying listening to a couple of more sort of social cultural analysis podcasts recently as well from non-Christians because like part of my sort of, the way that I kind of approach, talking and thinking about theology is making sure I’ve kind of understood as much as I can, the cultural context in which, you know, we’re speaking into, so that I can understand what people are thinking.
00:02:18:05 – 00:02:39:02
Unknown
And I’ve been really enjoying the trigonometry podcast, which is a British podcast, by two comedians. I think they know that one’s excellent. Well, it’s quite a serious one. They have very serious guests on, in fact. Sorry. It’s got nothing to do with, you know, singleness and ministry. So this is. Yeah. I just got a notification this morning that I think they’ve actually got, Netanyahu on.
00:02:39:06 – 00:03:09:00
Unknown
Oh, this week. So they cover big issues. Okay. And the other similar one that I’ve been listening to from American is or honestly, by Barry Weiss, who set up a media organization called the Free Press. And, they’re just refreshing because I think they try to both of those commentators try to come to really contentious political issues and cultural issues of the moment by asking challenging questions and giving space for people to engage with different ideas.
00:03:09:00 – 00:03:31:23
Unknown
And so I have been enjoying sort of, diving into some of those recently, how you list the really heavy, the, the big ones. I do, I do I grew up with parents who constantly had talkback radio on at home, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, just turn it off. I’m now that person I if I’m up and moving around at home, I normally have some sort of podcast playing, even if it’s just in the background.
00:03:32:01 – 00:03:49:12
Unknown
So yeah, yeah. But I’m glad you didn’t ask me that question because I would just look completely shallow and foolish. But, we’re not here to talk about other podcast. Okay? These podcasts and you have now press play on another episode of the one thing we’re talking about ditching the couple bias in church.
00:03:51:10 – 00:04:12:12
00:04:15:15 – 00:04:42:09
Unknown
All right, Danny, you’ve obviously done some work on this. Is there a couple bias in church and why do you think that is? And is that a problem? It’s interesting. Christ. Couple bias. I think there is in the sense of what that refers to. So I don’t think so much of it in terms of a couple bias as a kind of perspective, that marriage is the normative Christian life.
00:04:42:10 – 00:05:10:17
Unknown
You know, you grow up into adulthood as a Christian and you get married. And so there’s this expectation that this is what life is going to look like for almost all Christians, which inherently leads itself towards, you know, we might use a language of bias or expectation, that often, I think just goes on acknowledged in and interrogated and, and and often assumed, and so interestingly, I think the bias if we’re going to I’ll just stick with that language.
00:05:10:17 – 00:05:39:00
Unknown
The bias tends to be not so much couples and not so much even marriage, but kind of the nuclear family unit as the this is the central unit of church life. And so it’s not just singles, I think, who fall outside that but it’s, well, it’s people and by singles, I mean not just people like me who never been married, but divorcees and widows and widowers as well.
00:05:39:02 – 00:06:02:11
Unknown
Empty nesters, kind of fall outside that once you’ve kind of your kids are no longer even growing up. And in young adulthood, you know, where church is kind of gathered around the nuclear family and the young families. I think empty nesters can kind of feel a bit like, hang on, what’s my place here now? I used to be very much at the heart of this community, and now I kind of am not quite sure where I fit.
00:06:02:13 – 00:06:30:02
Unknown
But, you know, to give you an example, I’ll have to mask things a little bit because I don’t want people to be going and investigating and trying to work out details of who and what I’m talking about here. But, when I was, I moved a couple of years ago and I was looking, to change to a more local church, and I was looking at a bunch of churches in the area, and, you know, one of the wonderful things about being in Sydney’s, there’s a bunch of churches in any area, which is a great Bible teaching churches.
00:06:30:04 – 00:06:51:21
Unknown
And one of them, I was wanting to go to the morning service because I particularly wanted to be able to invite my niece and nephew to come to church with me. I needed there to be a kids program, so I was looking at morning services and one particular church had something to the effect of, you know, children and families are at the heart of this congregation, but everyone’s welcome.
00:06:51:23 – 00:07:11:02
Unknown
And I had a conversation with the pastor, the rector there. He’s a wonderful man. And I knew exactly what they were trying to communicate. They were trying to say to the community around them who are not Christians, bring your kids. We love families. Come along. We’ve got stuff set up for you at this time. This is the place to come.
00:07:11:03 – 00:07:27:20
Unknown
But as someone who is not married and does not have children reading that, I thought, okay, well, if I, if I went to this church, what I’m hearing is that I will never be able to be at the heart of this community. And I know that’s not what was intended, but that’s what that’s what’s been communicated.
00:07:27:20 – 00:07:54:15
Unknown
That’s right. Yeah. And so often I think it’s it is just a case of, we’re trying to communicate something important, but there’s a whole bunch of assumptions that are underlying that we haven’t actually allowed ourselves to be challenged by, about the diversity of the body of Christ, and how church functions as one big family rather than an association of lots of individual families.
00:07:54:17 – 00:08:12:15
Unknown
One thing I really loved about your writing, in both books, really is the way that you’ve actually thought about this theologically, because I think, a lot of us have just jumped to Genesis two, man, it’s not good for man to be alone. So therefore he should have a wife and I should have kids, and you’ve got the nuclear family.
00:08:12:15 – 00:08:33:13
Unknown
And so there’s something sort of there that that’s been upheld. But you’ve actually driven the theology of that, like theology into, particularly into the idea of, the new creation and how that should be expressed today. So tell us a bit more about what’s the theological kind of foundation that you’re coming from when it comes to thinking about singleness?
00:08:33:15 – 00:09:03:00
Unknown
I think that’s been one of the, blessings of having sort of growing up, here in Australia and particularly Sydney, I was always taught biblical theology to read the scripture within the context of the whole storyline of Scripture. And so often our conversations in church and our teaching in church and the books we’re reading on, on these topics tend to kind of go to Genesis, which is important to establish the significance and the purpose and the intent of marriage.
00:09:03:02 – 00:09:19:23
Unknown
But they then don’t tend to go beyond Genesis. We kind of end up just sitting in Genesis, which is basically kind of putting our all of our theological eggs in the creation basket at that point in time, isn’t it? That’s right. And it’s important for us to do that because Jesus does that when he’s talking about marriage, when Paul is talking about marriage, both of them go back to Genesis.
00:09:19:23 – 00:09:50:20
Unknown
But that’s not all they do. They actually, you know, point towards marriage having, a created purpose back at the time of creation that extends into eternity. And so, you know, out this is something that most of us are familiar with. If we’ve been taught well on marriage that, part of in fact, I would argue the ultimate purpose of marriage in this creation is to point towards the ultimate, eternal marriage between Christ and the church, which is God’s people collectively in the new creation.
00:09:50:20 – 00:10:08:10
Unknown
That’s the mystery, that marriage, that God ultimately destined marriage for, as well as a bunch of goods in this creation. And you actually ask that, like I remember reading the, the more recent book that’s coming out and you sort of say, so, married people, how are you actually doing that? That’s right. And I have to admit, I went, oh, that kind of hurt a little bit.
00:10:08:10 – 00:10:43:18
Unknown
Like, I don’t know that I’m doing that particularly well. So. Well, that’s right. Because if, if marriage is meant to be, a signpost giving us a kind of helping us fix our eyes on this, this amazing thing that we’re hoping for in eternity, then marriage is a really, really important to all of us. Sure. Not just for the husbands and wives who are in each of those marriages, but I in the main single Ever After, I talk about the importance of married Christians living out their marriage in community so that as I look at your marriage with Audrey, I should be able to go, oh, there’s a little glimpse for me of kind of
00:10:43:18 – 00:11:08:18
Unknown
what I’m waiting for as part of the Bride of Christ in eternity. I think we really have to push back against this idea that, you know, marriages, insular looking relationships. The church actually needs marriages to be lived out publicly. But, we would also my argument is that actually we see that, from Scripture, singleness has an eternal significance as well.
00:11:08:18 – 00:11:40:10
Unknown
So, you know, Jesus, when he’s talking to the Sadducees, in Matthew chapter 22, says that in the new creation or in the resurrection age, they will not they neither marry nor are given in marriage. They’ll be like the angels now in the meaning of Singleness, my first book, I sort of go into a lot of detail about what that means and how it’s been understood, but basically unanimously, across time, people have understood that Jesus is saying, that marriage between men and women, is for this creation only.
00:11:40:12 – 00:12:11:15
Unknown
It doesn’t extend into the new creation. Death is the end of marriage. Which is why widows and widows are free to remarry should they wish to. So if none of us are going to be married to each other, you know, as members of the of the bride of Christ, if our relationships with each other and not ever going to be characterized by marriage in that new creation, then and this is where the title of the new book sort of comes from, we’re all going to be quite unquote single ever after.
00:12:11:15 – 00:12:45:15
Unknown
Yeah. And, you know, there’s an intentional play on words there of the happily ever after. The idea of being single ever after is actually meant to be something inspirational in that context. And so singleness, I argue in the meaning of singleness end in single ever after has and an inherent dignity because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it actually helps us to see that not only is singleness kind of okay, now, as we live in the overlap of the ages waiting for Jesus to return, but it’s actually dignified.
00:12:45:15 – 00:13:12:16
Unknown
It’s got meaning, it’s got significance for God’s people. And the church needs single people to be signposts towards what our relationships with each other are going to be like in eternity as well. And so in Single Ever After, the first chapter argues that married and single Christians are co specialists in eternity. We’ve just got different specialties, but we’re focusing on the same end, which is eternal life, in the new creation.
00:13:12:18 – 00:13:38:00
Unknown
And we need each other. We’re not married and single lives are not competitors to each other. And by speaking highly of one, we’re not diminishing the other. We actually should be holding both out as good and important and significant for God’s purposes in this creation. I love that part. I love that chapter, actually, that just that idea of, both married and single Christians, both pointing to the new creation in different ways.
00:13:38:00 – 00:13:57:04
Unknown
And being able to see that in each other. I thought, yeah, that was that was terrific. I want to get into some more practical things like, and what are the practical, ways that you think senior leaders, I ministers, miss opportunities with single people. Well, I think, you know, again, let me say I’m speaking in generalizations here.
00:13:57:05 – 00:14:16:11
Unknown
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We’re not naming names, but all of those caveats are in place. And I you know, I think certainly as I talk with friends in Christians in other parts of the world, I suspect that we’re doing a bit better than other parts of the world here. Really. I’m not saying we’re doing books quite convicting, going, oh man, we are doing such a terrible job.
00:14:16:11 – 00:14:35:08
Unknown
Well, I think it just shows you how terrible it really can be in other parts of the world. But yeah, I think things are kind of improving, let me say. But there’s a lot of room still to move on this case. I, I think one of the chief problems, I suspect, is that often we just don’t see the singles in our churches.
00:14:35:08 – 00:14:55:08
Unknown
So if I, you know, I’ll challenge any ministers, church ministers listening. Now, Paul, let’s take out a piece of paper, pause and write down the names of as many unmarried people in your church congregation as you can think of. Give yourself five minutes to do that, and keep in mind what you’ve just said. Single can mean a whole range of different things.
00:14:55:08 – 00:15:11:16
Unknown
So you know, we are talking about people who’ve never been married. People are going through, marriage breakups, empty nesters. There’s a whole. Yeah. And I’ve got all those in my small group at the moment, so. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. But I think if you hadn’t said that, most people would automatically have gone away. I’m going to think about my young adults congregation.
00:15:11:16 – 00:15:30:05
Unknown
That’s right. Yeah. Write down the single adults and it may not have occurred to them. Well, hang on, what about the divorcees? What about the widows? And the widow is what about, you know, the 55 year old women in the modern congregation who have never been married? And I just, I suspect and also have a think about the single parents in your congregation.
00:15:30:07 – 00:15:56:09
Unknown
I just suspect that we just don’t realize, actually, how many there are, within our church family. And so just identifying those people, looking around on a Sunday and just laying eyes on them, don’t sit there and, you know, stare at them and put them out because that’s like, creepy. It’s gotta be creepy. But but just just looking around, looking, where are they sitting?
00:15:56:11 – 00:16:17:05
Unknown
Who are they sitting with? You know, I say this often. One of the things that I find hardest, as you know, I am a single woman of a certain age who has been at church my whole life. As someone who has never been married, I find it pretty exhausting to walk into church every week by myself, work out where I’m going to see are people going to come and sit with me?
00:16:17:05 – 00:16:40:15
Unknown
Who am I going to talk to after like it? Just look around and kind of observe how single Christians are interacting, because I just think most a lot of single Christians just go unseen. And the ncl’s data, which, you know, frankly, is a bit old now. I’m kind of still waiting for updated, but from I think it was 2016 at that time, church congregations across Australia.
00:16:40:15 – 00:17:11:13
Unknown
And this was really, pretty average across different denominations and different geographic locations. 33% of what they classified as adult attendees in churches were not married. 3,333%. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And that’s approaching the question from a discipleship angle. Approach it from a mission logical angle. You know, an evangelism angle. Do you know how many people in the suburb that your church is based in are unmarried?
00:17:11:14 – 00:17:32:09
Unknown
Have you looked at the census data? Did you know that on average, more than 1 in 4 houses in Australia is solo occupied? Now? That’s obviously going to look different in different geographical locations. But actually there was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald just this morning that was talking about the fact, can’t remember the numbers off the top of my head.
00:17:32:09 – 00:17:53:18
Unknown
But one of the big problems is that housing in Sydney is almost I think it’s like 60% or something is three bedrooms or more housing and the number of people who are looking for solo occupants or even just a couple, two people who just need one bedroom and maybe a study, it’s actually creating housing issues and, you know, the housing crisis and things like that.
00:17:53:18 – 00:18:26:08
Unknown
So, do you know who the people are in your community that you’re wanting to reach out to? How many singles are there, of all stripes and situations? What does it look like to actually connect those people with your church, ultimately to be able to connect them to Jesus? There’s, you know, there’s something, strategic and efficient about, aiming for families because you tend to get, you know, 3 or 4 at the price of one when it comes to evangelism.
00:18:26:09 – 00:18:48:02
Unknown
Yep. And so that can be very attractive for church growth. But don’t please do that at the expense of the person who’s sitting at home by themselves, who, is not going to come along to a family’s Christmas Carol, for example, have a think about the people who are in your, community. So sorry I’m long answer to your question.
00:18:48:05 – 00:19:03:15
Unknown
No, no, it’s it’s really I mean, I had an interesting experience, a little while ago, I, happened to sit next to a woman who’d been divorced. I’d like to say I actually sat there. I looked for the single person and sat next to them. But actually, I just managed to get to church. That was my big tick.
00:19:03:17 – 00:19:22:00
Unknown
Yeah. I got in there. She later on said, thank you. I don’t usually get men coming to sit with me because I’m a divorcee, and I. I think I have in the back of my head that they were worried that I’m gonna hit on them or something like that. I’m going really like I, you know, and, and it really opened my eyes to seeing church through her eyes.
00:19:22:00 – 00:19:43:09
Unknown
And I went, wow, that’s that’s. Yeah, that’s a pretty, I it was so brave of her. That’s that’s pretty common, particularly for either never married or divorced or even widowed women. There is a sense in which, we have internalized the very real perception from many that we are seen to be an emotional threat to the marriages in the church.
00:19:43:09 – 00:19:59:11
Unknown
And so in single ever after, I tell the story of a friend of mine named Kelly. And at church one day the leader said, alright, we’re going to turn to the people around us and pray. She said there was a married couple who sat on the right hand side. They turned and prayed together. The married couple in front of her turned and prayed together.
00:19:59:11 – 00:20:19:09
Unknown
She was left there twice during the service, with no one to pray for. And then, to make matters worse, she was talking to a friend of hers a couple of days afterwards who was a, a female friend, a Christian who had gotten married fairly recently, I think in her late 30s or something like that. And Kelly was sort of saying this was so hard.
00:20:19:09 – 00:20:45:13
Unknown
She was crying in church. And these recently married friend said to her, well, to be honest, Kelly, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable with my husband inviting you to pray with us either. And I just thought, what? What is going on there? What do you think is going to happen by inviting that single woman to join you in prayer to your heavenly father in the gathering of God’s people?
00:20:45:15 – 00:21:04:09
Unknown
How is she a threat to your marriage at that point? You know, it’s it’s baffling to me, but it’s real. It is. I mean, and it’s like, well, hang on, you’re in church, like with a bunch of people. You’re in the presence of God, if any. This is not the the place where there’s going to be some sort of intimacy or adultery taking place.
00:21:04:09 – 00:21:24:14
Unknown
Right? Yeah. It’s it’s. Yeah. I actually, just a sidebar, I found, Rebecca McLaughlin’s book on friendship was super helpful at this point of time, just talking about working out friendships with people of the opposite sex. So going, where’s your boundary? Where’s your boundary for them kind of thing? And then going, well for your brother or sister in Christ.
00:21:24:14 – 00:21:49:02
Unknown
Yes. That’s that’s the way it’s supposed to work. I’m looking at Paul’s relationships with his, with the women in his life. Yeah. That book is called, no great love. Great love is looking for it. And that’s that’ll be in the toolbox. So make sure you have a look at that. Let’s talk about also from the front are the application issues or Bible teaching in general that preachers should be thinking about when they like having single people in mind as they come to the pulpit.
00:21:49:04 – 00:22:17:04
Unknown
Well, I think that’s the first port of call. Have the diversity of the body in mind as you give your sermon illustrations and as you give your sermon applications. It’s no problem talking about your family and your marriage. You know, on occasion, just if every illustration, if every kind of point of personal engagement with the congregation in a sermon is about marriage and family life, that will leave many people, in the church just kind of feeling consistently like, oh, he’s not really talking to me.
00:22:17:04 – 00:22:53:05
Unknown
He’s not sort of meeting me where I am at that point. And so, I think being aware of that is helpful. Application wise, I think, yes. But part of the the answer to this, I think, is coming to know and understand the lives of the single people in your church. And that’s, you know, that’s tricky because just with married people, as you’re getting married, application or application to married life, they are going to be all sorts of different contexts and situations and circumstances going on in the marriages of the people that you’re preaching to.
00:22:53:07 – 00:23:41:02
Unknown
Well, the same is true of the singleness that the people that you’re preaching to ages and stages make, you know, very significant difference here. And so, you know, actually spending time understanding the lives, the the joys, the challenges, the griefs, the struggles, the anxieties, the concerns, the longings of single people in your church. And, you know, you obviously can’t do that with every single, single person, but getting a good kind of diverse grasp of that will help inform you on how particular applications may not necessarily be different for the divorced Christian than it is for the married Christian, but may land in particular ways in their head and heart.
00:23:41:04 – 00:24:04:12
Unknown
That need to be kind of ushered along, and, and and challenged and, you know, so we, we doing a series on Romans in church. We’re doing Romans all the way through, which I love. We’re up to Romans 11 this week. But last week, you know, one of the verses is talking about how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
00:24:04:14 – 00:24:33:07
Unknown
And this is not me saying that our pastor didn’t do this, by the way. So I just I want to be a church or anything like that. Yeah. I’m just using this as an example, you know, on that, as we’re sort of talking about being sent to preach the gospel, what does that look like for a married couple with young children versus a widow, in her 60s versus the 23 year old, you know, single woman at university and the 45 year old divorced father of one.
00:24:33:09 – 00:24:56:15
Unknown
Like, what does being sent look like in that context? Who are they being sent to at that stage of life? And I think just kind of recognizing the breadth of opportunity there and being able to name it, that’s the kind of thing, that often goes missed, I suspect. So, yeah, that’s just, you know, one example.
00:24:56:17 – 00:25:13:15
Unknown
Sorry. It’s it’s interesting because I remember I got he was an older man. He was a widower. He was drawing to the, to the end of his life and wasn’t able to get out much more, but he took that very seriously. That lesson at the feet of those who bring good news. And so whenever there was a new person who moved into a street, he handwrote them.
00:25:13:15 – 00:25:26:13
Unknown
This lovely letter said, I’m from de la La. And he said, and by the way, I go to this church, and if you’d ever like to come to this church, let me know. I’d love to go with you. And so I think and in fact, I met a couple and I said, what brought you to this church?
00:25:26:13 – 00:25:49:13
Unknown
And said, well, some guy we’ve never met wrote a handwritten letter. And we turned down, I never saw, never met the guy. But we’re here because he said it was a good church. And so yeah. Oh, it it’s amazing what God uses. And so he took that very, very seriously. Wonderful. Yeah. What about your advice, particularly for married people in terms of, how do they care better for single people?
00:25:49:15 – 00:26:07:02
Unknown
This came up because I actually had, like I said, listeners, if you’ve been listening for a while now, I’ve got a fairly large small group that I’m doing an experiment with. And we have a number. Oh, that sounds dangerous. I, I do experiment with, like. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s really, really an experiment. I mean, upon I suspect.
00:26:07:02 – 00:26:28:18
Unknown
But yeah. Yeah. You know potato potato about Yeah. I’m not telling you about the experiments I’m doing on them, but, that we have. Yeah. A couple of, of women who are in various, like, they single for a whole bunch of different reasons. Yeah. It’s beautiful watching them actually look after each other. But I ask each one of them, I said after reading one of your books, I mean, how can we do a better job?
00:26:28:18 – 00:26:52:03
Unknown
And it was a whole range of different responses, but one of them was saying, look, I just don’t get invited. Yes to things. Yeah. And I went, oh, okay, well that’s handy. So now I’ll keep that in mind. But other, other things that married people particularly can be doing in terms of just seeing that, that relationship between married and single people and, and the that, that beautiful picture that you painted earlier on in the Poconos.
00:26:52:05 – 00:27:11:10
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And I, I do try very hard in single ever after to, to talk about those kind of things. So just for listeners aged there’s a, there’s seven different chapters and eight chapters got a part one which is kind of the theology, biblical kind of exploration. And then the next part is called Living It Out. And it’s like, all right, how do we do this?
00:27:11:10 – 00:27:28:12
Unknown
And often in most of them, there’s a section directed toward singles, and there’s a section directed towards marriage. And I’m really wanted to kind of go, all right, how do we both think about this together? I think your the example you just gave is exactly the first thing to do, which is to talk to them and say, how can I love you?
00:27:28:13 – 00:27:53:03
Unknown
You know, don’t make assumptions about what actually practical love may be unless you already know that, because you know them so well. But actually talk to them and kind of go, what will it look like for me to really foster this brother or sister in Christ relationship with you? What are the what are the spiritual things going on for you that I can encourage and build you up in?
00:27:53:05 – 00:28:13:07
Unknown
You know, what are the practical things in your life that actually every now and then you are able to call on me for hand? What are the emotional things that you’re you’re wrestling with? So I was talking to a friend the other day who’s just made a significant, career shift. And, she’s single in her late 30s.
00:28:13:09 – 00:28:33:17
Unknown
And she said the one of the things I find hardest about being single is, is the decision making, you know. Yes, I have friends, and they help me think through things, but I don’t have someone who’s in it with me and who’s kind of going to have to deal with the implications and consequences of my decision in the same way that a husband or wife would.
00:28:33:19 – 00:28:58:00
Unknown
And it can just be quite isolating, kind of making decisions all the time as a single person. So what would it mean for you as a married person, to kind of be able to love your single friend when they’re wrestling with those, those kind of things? I think we, we tend to, quite readily go to okay, for the way for married people to love single people is to invite them into their home and family.
00:28:58:00 – 00:29:29:03
Unknown
And that’s a that’s a really good thing to do, to please don’t hear me dissuading people from doing that. But sometimes I think that that can be the and that’s a solution. Let’s just do that. We’ve done that. We take that box, check that box for good. Yep. And for as long as we do that once a term or something, you know, I it’s a wonderful thing to do that, but please try to avoid making your single friends feel like they’re your project.
00:29:29:04 – 00:29:53:06
Unknown
You know, how why are we why are single people inviting married people into their homes? You know, more of, like, why is it always kind of the married household is the default that other people are invited into? Rather than we actually recognize the, the beauty of all sorts of different households and kind of open those up and share those around.
00:29:53:08 – 00:30:18:18
Unknown
So, yeah, I don’t want to be too legalistic about it, but I think sometimes we can just kind of go for the what seems to be the obvious and easy fix, but may not kind of dive under the surface to the more consistent ways that we can love each other. In practice and in word and also spiritually, as we’re called to do, as brothers and sisters in Christ.
00:30:18:20 – 00:30:57:02
Unknown
Right. Danny, this is the one thing. What’s the one thing you want church leaders particularly to know about the single people in their churches? That they, they have a place of belonging in the household of God that is just as important and valuable and necessary as yours, as a pastor. As each of the married people in your church, as each of the young children in your church, that actually, it’s not just that churches need to be a place where single people can feel more welcome.
00:30:57:04 – 00:31:22:10
Unknown
It’s that churches need to be communities where single people know they’re necessary for the life of the church, just as they married friends are in the same way that we ought to be able to say the same of the young in the old, you know, the sick and the healthy. Single Christians, a vital members of the church community, because they’ve been adopted into the same household through the same blood of Jesus Christ.
00:31:22:10 – 00:31:51:18
Unknown
They call on the same Heavenly Father. And they’re relationships now, which is only brother and sister in that community are signposts of what we’re going to be sharing with each other for all eternity. And so the church needs single Christians as much as it needs anybody else. Yeah. Danny, thank you so much for joining us today. We, in the toolbox, we have a whole bunch of things, including, Danny’s book single Ever After.
00:31:51:19 – 00:32:11:11
Unknown
It is just out. So make sure you you get a copy of that. Also, the meaning of singleness, which is the more academic, book. We, I do again, I want to recommend that for passes as a great, great case study in, applying Christian ethics. Even if you’re just reading it for that, it’s really, really right.
00:32:11:13 – 00:32:31:19
Unknown
Danny’s websites there. And of course, we, Danny on both mentioned, no greater Love by Rebecca McLaughlin. Great, great book on friendship. So, make sure you read that and especially that chapter on friendship with people of the opposite gender. I think it was a really, really helpful one for me. But I want to encourage you to, if you’re a pastor, make a list of the single people in your church right now.
00:32:31:21 – 00:32:46:10
Unknown
Just see how many of those that you can list off. I think that’ll be a great right one to do. And, this may be an episode you want to talk to. If you’ve got a staff team, talk about this one with your staff team. And, indeed, if you thought this is a helpful episode, why not pass it around?
00:32:46:11 – 00:32:56:09
Unknown
And if you got any questions or any other thoughts, make sure you email us resources at Rich Australia Accommodation. Once again, Danny, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on Peter’s chat soon.
