Why Singles Belong in Church Leadership
(Link): Why Singles Belong in Church Leadership
Excerpts
- Unmarried ministers offer a unique understanding of devotion to Christ alone.
by Lore Ferguson, guest writer
Each time I read a well-intentioned article on how to make the most of your single years, I scan down to the author’s bio and often discover that, sure enough, he’s married to his college sweetheart, pulling advice from a brief period of singleness years ago.
Even at 33, I’m a spring chicken to some of the seasoned single men and women before me.
These Christians have spent their lives burning with passion, unmet desires, or unrequited love, or have committed to a life of celibacy.
These are the clouds of witnesses I look to for wisdom in issues of singleness—not the well-meaning, but hollow three-points and a poem professor with his winsome wife and four little ones. What do I know of his life?
The hardships of parenting, husbanding, pastoring, teaching, ministering? But what does he know of mine?
If the life of a single Christian, as Paul admonished, is to be undistracted by the world, concerned with the things of the Lord, then unmarried ministers have a unique calling indeed. And it is one the church ought not ignore — or usurp.
Where I live, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, young marriages are common. Younger than the national average at least. Yet few single men and women are involved in ministry.
My pastor leads a large church-planting network, and I asked him recently, “How many single guys are planting in the network?” He named a mere few. The dearth of undistracted men and women in ministry is sad, but more so, it is alarming.
I am in no way discouraging marriage (I want to be married, after all), but I believe the church can do better in this area. If the trend of delayed marriage continues, we must have men and women who have walked the narrow path of godly singleness teaching those who come after them. The church’s tendency to primarily hire married men and women, for whatever justification— stability, plantedness, longevity— should be reconsidered for multiple reasons.
[snip steps 1 and 2 – use the link I provided above to visit the site and read steps 1 and 2]
[step] 3. If Christ asks for holiness, purity, and chastity from the unmarried, then we need models of those who are living out those virtues in prolonged seasons.
Those who have wrestled deep with their prolonged chastity have experienced something of earth’s groans in wait for her Creator. A friend recently confessed struggles of waiting sexually for her upcoming wedding day.
I was able to tell her the hunger pangs of longing she feels for her fiancé are akin to the hunger pangs we feel when we’re fasting.
Those pangs teach us we’re waiting for a better feast. For the one fasting, the feast isn’t the break-fast, and for the virgin, the feast isn’t the wedding night.
The feast is the marriage supper of the Lamb and an eternity spent with him. But those pangs are still real and felt, to pretend they’re not is ignorant.
Being content in Christ while single is not as simple as three points and a poem. Sometimes it is a very real war against flesh.
The church desperately needs single pastors and ministers who understand that prolonged warring. They understand the agony of having not yet arrived to eternity’s shores in a deep and daily way.
Church, fill your staff with single men and women. Pursue them for ministry places. Do not always make the comfortable choice of a potential staffer who has 2.5 kids and a house in the suburbs.
As culture continues to trend toward prolonging marriages longer and longer, and especially as same-sex attraction issues rise, we need men and women who have firmly planted their feet on the rock of purity and undistracted devotion to the Lord.
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Related posts this blog:
(Link): Single Adults – Why They Stay and Why They Stray From Church – Book Excerpts
(Link): The Nauseating Push by Evangelicals for Early Marriage
(Link): Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo
(Link): Singles Shaming at The Vintage church in Raleigh – Singlehood Shaming / Celibate Shaming
(Link): More Anti Singleness Bias From Al Mohler – Despite the Bible Says It Is Better Not To Marry
(Link): Is Singleness A Sin? by Camerin Courtney
(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin)
(Link): Single woman frustrated in a religious community (letter to advice columnist)
(Link): The Rise of the Single Mother and of Women Out-Earning Men
(Link): The Deification of Family and Marriage (re: Kyle Idleman book)
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