Comments on: Challenges of singles ministries

By: Joel Carpenter

Joel Carpenter — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:58:29 +0000

many people enter in to a group for a specific “need” that one group might be offering, but in the long run the needs of the individual run deeper than what is first percieved. From my experience many people will become discouraged by this fact and leave the group when those needs don’t seem to be fulfilled. Needs based ministries are a great way to bring people into the community in a real and specific way, as long as you realize that almost all needs based ministries are transitional groups, and that the real emphasis should be on directing the individual to the larger community. One way this is done is by interaction between groups of different needs, allowing the individual to find other groups where he or she feels a connection as well. Just as 20-30 somethings will eventually become 40 somethings, all needs based groups will grow in their understanding of themselves, while certain needs become ministered to we will find those deeper levels of need that we have ignored or been unaware of; if we have already developed a larger network of community with other groups in the church we are less likely to feel so outcast when we realize how many other areas in our lives need ministered to. Chutney your Baptist was right you may not get to complete any projects working in the ministry, but that’s not the goal. The purpose is not to build a birdhouse, so to speak, but to sand and cut and prepare the wood to be made into an ornate clock by someone else’s hand (or many hands as the case may be).

By: kim

kim — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 02:41:51 +0000

Ruth said, "We could ALL use more/better support and love, and we could use it because weâ€re human, not because weâ€re single, partnered, parenting, musical, a freak, a student, unemployed, overworked, 20-something, 30-something, retired, an animal lover, etc." My observation is that we Americans are so unaccustomed to community, that, though we desperately need and desire it, we also resist it. We have tried to do various things at our church, and after a while, no one shows up. They don't really give it enough time to develop community. What are we doing wrong?

By: chutney

chutney — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:54:12 +0000

I should have started by saying I like your ideas. And I think starting in cov groups is a great place to start the conversation. I’ll email you about specifics.

By: Kevin M

Kevin M — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:01:08 +0000

Sorry, dude. All I get from your story is the moral that church programs shouldn’t move forward unless there are gifts, strengths, assets and vision behind them. I agree completely, and I don’t see what that has to do with whether or not a given program meets a given need.

Let me say this: I was impressed by what Mike Durall had to say about religious education classes when he came to our church last year. He suggested that we put programs together that are focused on concrete ways to help people live their lives. In other words, fewer classes on global warming or the gnostic gospels and more classes on topics like caring for your elderly parents. This makes a lot of sense to me, and it’s where I’m coming from when I say we should focus on “needs.”

I know that there are people in the group who are dating and having a rough time of it and could use some support. You did a great job in your post of explaining why creating a “singles group” and encouraging folks at church to date one another is a bad idea. That’s why I’m suggesting that our covenant groups should address the topic, and that there might be interest in a “dating support and encouragement club” of some sort.

I’m being tenacious with these posts because what I really want isn’t an argument about semantics but your reaction to these particular ideas. Do you think they might be good ways to minister to single people, and more importantly do you think they’ll work for our group at church? You just said you like them apart from their “emphasis and direction,” but I still don’t understand your reservations. What’s wrong with them? How could they be improved?

By: chutney

chutney — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:05:25 +0000

Kevin, maybe this will clear it up. In high school, I worked in a bookstore with a washed up Baptist preacher. When he found out I was thinking about going into the ministry, he gave me some advice. He told me to get a wood shop, or something like it, where I could work on projects and finish them. This was because, he said, I would never get to finish anything if I worked for a church.

At another level, needs-based ministry can become death by a thousand cuts. It can lead to the feeling that programs can never do enough, and therefore that they aren’t doing enough. The approach is a recipe for burnout.

The alternative approach is to base programming on gifts and strengths and assets and vision. And then to move forward based on what it takes to put them into action.

I like all your ideas. It’s just a matter of emphasis and direction.

By: Jess

Jess — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:29:28 +0000

Ruth — I hear you, and have had much the same experiences. Like my participation in my church has to be centered around my kids, and not about what I need.

But, PeaceBang, I hear you, too, that you meant to raise awareness of how a single person perceives the treatment of couples and families in the church, and how that perspective is very often not addressed. Just goes to show that none of this is simple, and that perhaps we _all_ need to learn to listen to one another better.

By: Kevin M

Kevin M — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:49:40 +0000

Iâ€m hesitant about programming around needs in general because needs are never truly filled, and people are always running across new ones. I don't understand this comment, Chutney, for two reasons. First, how are single people different from married people except that they need different things? Every church program is designed to meet one sort of need or another. Broadly speaking, the reason we have a 20s/30s group is that folks our age need to socialize with one another. So, if programs at church aren't based on needs, what are they based on? Second, why is it a problem that needs are never truly filled? Isn't that the human condition in a nutshell? Surely that's why church is an ongoing proposition: ministry is a practice of attending to human problems that continue to arise, generation after generation. (Otherwise we could just fix the world once and for all this coming Sunday and be done with it, right?) To go back to my example, it seems that the need that 20s/30s have to socialize with one another is a great example of a need that will never truly be filled. I know you pretty well and I'm sure you'd agree that our group is a worthwhile endeavor and a gift to the congregation. So, um... what do you mean by your comment?

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:57:41 +0000

PeaceBang, I must have been even less clear than I normally am, because I didn’t mean what I wrote to come across in that way at all. I apologize, and I hope you’ll let me try to clarify.

I didn’t at all mean that you were insensitive, just that you projected an idea of what it’s like for parents in the church that doesn’t match with my *particular* experience of being a parent in the church. Just now in your comment, you mention ministers and church folk constantly taking parents’ needs into account, and I’m sure that happens some places, but I don’t actually feel that way. (To be fair, I was also a person struggling with infertility in the church for some time, and I didn’t feel put-upon by children, so perhaps it’s just that my congregation really doesn’t push the couples- and children-first agenda as much as some must.) My husband and I have also looked desperately for some way to participate in our congregation together, and we can’t do it. We were told we shouldn’t join a small group together because we were partnered, we were told we didn’t fit in the “young adults” group because we had a kid, we can’t go to service together because I teach RE, and there are no adult RE classes that meet before bedtime for our children, so we can’t even take advantage of the offered childcare. In our congregation, we end up having to act like independent single parents. That just happens to be my reality.

In any case, my larger point was not at all that you were “off” because you didn’t include me — you weren’t writing about me! Why should you include me? My larger point was that we all need love and support, and we might assume that other people are feeling supported, but we might not be right. I don’t at all mean that what you wrote about singles isn’t right. I trust you that it is. I just feel very left out sometimes, because my church seems to assume that as long as I can teach RE, my needs are being met.

Please, again, know that I didn’t mean that you should have included me in your narrative. This is why I didn’t comment on your post — I knew it wasn’t about me, and I just read it and tried to chew on it.

By: PeaceBang

PeaceBang — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:34:43 +0000

Ruth, I want nto respond to what you said about my not understanding your perspective as a parent. The point is, I didn’t say ANYTHING about your perspective as a parent. As a parent, you are accustomed to ministers and church folk constantly taking your needs into account, which I did not do. For that, you accuse me of being insensitive. Isn’t that interesting? I’m not being defensive, just pointing out the inevitable hand-slapping that singles get when they dare speak out of their experience and don’t try to include parents or partnered people in their narrative. This happens every time I write about singles issues: someone invariably insists that sense I didn’t include them in my perspective, I’m somehow “off.” This is part of why singles avoid churches. You’re never allowed to say, “This is my experience” without someone chiming in, “It’s MINE, too!” So many of us shut up and leave.

By: chutney

chutney — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:49:52 +0000

I’m hesitant about programming around needs in general because needs are never truly filled, and people are always running across new ones. After a while, every new program starts to feel like catch-up work instead of a new gift a team of folks are giving the congregation.