Being single around Valentines Day can be difficult or lonely. But singleness isn’t just a struggle that comes around every February 14th. Singles Minister, Ashley Chesnut, explains in this video how local churches should minister to the singles in their church and also what things singles do not want to hear.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
If I’m thinking about how the Church can best minister to singles I think the first thing is just not to silo singles away. And you might have a singles ministry – my church does – and that’s great. But churches need to have the singles as part of the body. Not segregated from the body.
So they need to be in relationships with people in the church of all generations. They need to be investing in younger generations. And a lot of them don’t have families that they’re close to or that live close by. So being able to be involved in the lives of families and families that have kids, families that are empty-nesters, a place to go for the holidays. They need those relationships. And they need to see a model of what healthy marriages look like, what healthy parenting looks like, godly parenting. So those are all things that would be helpful for singles to have in the local church.
If you’re going to think about what not to say to a single person, one thing that shouldn’t say is, “Why are you still single?” Because it’s up to the Lord whether you’re married or you’re single and when His timing and when He’s going to bring somebody along. So it’s not something that I necessarily have control over. And I think I’m a great person too or that person might be wonderful, but God’s the one that makes that decision over when He brings a spouse into a person’s life.
You should also not say to a single that, “God will bring someone when you are content in your singleness.” Because I know a lot of discontented people that are married and they were not content before the Lord brought them a spouse.
Those are just a few things that would be helpful not to say to your single friends.
