Last week, I participated in a remarkable time of prayer and teachings hosted by Jamal & Natasha Miller, the founders of Married & Young. Jamal is the Amazon best-selling author of 25 Ways to Prepare for Marriage Without Dating. They are committed to helping reduce the divorce rate in America and developed an amazing program to bring this about. They have been featured in Forbes, CBN, BET, Jet magazine, and the Huffington Post. Check out their newly updated website here: Married & Young
The Millers sponsored their second annual Pray for Your Future Spouse 5-Day Challenge starting last Monday. Insight and breakthroughs were bursting forth in every direction! We had powerful devotionals and prayers every morning and timely teachings every night, all live, on the topics that take down our identity and future marriages. I was so in agreement with all that was shared. My spirit was soaring. It was a strong reminder and encouragement for me to keep praying for my future spouse!
The Millers also created The One University, aka TOU, where Christian singles can tackle these tough issues in a supportive community of thousands of people who have also enrolled in TOU. They have seven tracks of classes, local meetings for live fellowship, live trainings, books, and more. I’ve never seen anything like it.
For more information, testimonials on participants getting married, and to enroll (I think they only open it twice a year), check TOU out here: The One University. This time around, enrollment closes tonight (Tuesday, August 28) at 11:59P PST. (That means 12:59A MT, 1:59A CST, and 2:59A EST. This is a correction from when this was first posted at 6:00A today.) Don’t get busy today and forget!
Thankfully, I got this type of foundational teaching as a young Christian. I was taught to the importance of things like marriage and other major life choices, spiritual disciplines, character development, cultural influences, spiritual warfare, and different levels of relationships. And, through my previous church, where I was a lay counselor, I was trained to recognize and deal with the issues presented by TOU instructors and students-turned-prayer-warriors during the 5-Day Challenge.
I am grateful that my purpose has kept me out of all sorts of potential wrong marriages. I know the Lord blesses marriage, so it would have been “okay”—acceptable—if I had married any of those godly men. However, something essential would have been missing. I don’t want a marriage sucked dry of purpose and spiritual vitality because I married outside of my purpose! And if I never marry, it will be okay because the Lord is with me always.
It got me thinking, how is it that we have an entire generation of adults—and not just young adults, but “old adults”—who never got this type of foundational teaching? I can’t imagine going through life having no purpose, not understanding how to apply Biblical knowledge to my life, not knowing who I was or what marriage means, and wandering from relationship to relationship or jumping from bed to bed.
I started pondering and praying, thinking back over the prayers and teachings we received last week. And I have a few ideas.
1. Unbalanced theology: Ever thought about the fact that most of the preaching from the pulpit is geared toward married couples? The Bible does not teach that being either married or single is a superior status. Click To Tweet
Here’s my Dirty Dozen reasons why Christian singles aren’t being properly prepared for marriage (not in order of importance):
1. Unbalanced theology. Ever thought about the fact that most of the preaching from the pulpit is geared toward married couples? The Bible does not teach that being either married or single is a superior status. Yet I still meet singles who are gifted and talented, but whose sorry, infantile churches don’t think they are good for anything except child care during married couples’ date nights or conferences. Add to that, we singles keep getting mixed messages.
We’re told, in so many words, “Don’t focus on finding a mate! Don’t come to church to look for a spouse!” Then we see a church “full of” families, and couples who already got theirs, and we notice that most church ministries are set up for couples and families. Then they want us to deny our hearts when we, too, were made for marriage?
It’s no mystery to me that, though half the population is single, only 23% of people attending church are single; see Barna Research–The Single Minded Church. We need a better-balanced theology and attitude from the pulpit as well as in our congregations for the 50% of the population who is now single in the US. If you want the remaining 77% of half the population saved and learning God’s Word, you have to come get us!
2. Poor modeling: Without an intervention from the Holy Spirit, we will live out whatever was modeled to us. We must seek out godly models and reset our own lives to God’s defaults. Click To Tweet 2. Poor modeling. Most of us did not grow up in a perfect home. Okay, none of us did, but a few grew up in better families. The rest of us, including myself, did not have a positive and thriving marriage lived out in front of us. Our families cannot transfer to us what they never learned. Without an intervention from the Holy Spirit, we will live out whatever was modeled to us. We must seek out godly models and reset our own lives to God’s defaults.
3. No church singles groups. This goes with the bad theology! It’s a shame that most churches, even large ones, don’t have singles groups for people over the age of 30. What better place to meet someone than in church? Click To Tweet 3. No church singles groups. This goes with the bad theology! It’s a shame that most churches, even large ones, don’t have singles groups for people over the age of 30. What better place to meet someone than in church? Church singles groups are a great place to meet other singles, fellowship within safe parameters, and learn about life and love in the context of Biblical singleness.
4. Magical thinking: We need to be having lots of conversations with godly, happily married couples who will honestly tell you how difficult marriage can be, but who will also tell you it’s worth it. Click To Tweet 4. Magical thinking. This includes unrealistic standards, undiscussed expectations in a relationship, and the resulting conflicts. It doesn’t help that society is infected with various versions of “happily ever after:” fairy tales turned Disney, Hollywood, thinking that “love is enough to get us through,” and ignorance of how difficult even the best marriages can be. We need to be having lots of conversations with godly, happily married couples who will honestly tell you how difficult marriage can be, but who will also tell you it’s worth it.
This week I was able to cover only the first four culprits in the dirty dozen reasons why Christian singles aren’t being properly prepared for marriage. Have a great Labor Day weekend! Next Tuesday, I’ll cover the last seven.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Join me on FB starting this coming Saturday, September 1, as I pray over Christian singles every morning at 6:05A EST. I’m posting written prayers relevant to us singles with instructions and scriptures every day in the month of September! Check out my page here: https://www.facebook.com/4singlechristians and look for the Events page.
