God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)
I have mixed feelings about posting a link to this (way below).
I know if you are literally alone – if you are a never married, divorced, or widowed adult, and you either don’t have children, or you are not on good terms with your biological family (or many of them are deceased or out of state), that it may be hard to feel positive about the message below.
I know it can be difficult to hear Christians writing “you’re not alone, God is with you” if you are, as I said, literally, physically alone in your apartment or home.
It would be nice to have an actual, breathing human sitting across from you, rather than have to rest in the idea that there’s this God in Heaven who cares about you, and have to take that on faith.
I do think Christians (churches especially) need to step up to the plate more and make more of an effort to include those adults who live alone, who aren’t married, who don’t have a nuclear family of their own…
Rather than doing things like over-focusing on nuclear families, and closing churches down on Christmas Day (yes, some churches have been known to (Link): withhold services on Christmas Day, because they assume every one is at home watching their biological child and spouse opening presents under the tree).
Never mind that some sites say that (Link): half or over half of the American population is now single – singles out-number married couples, and that stat won’t be changing any time soon, all the focus on Nuclear Families is excluding about half the American population.
So, what are you members of churches out there doing to reach out to the lonely and single in your areas?
Churches, you can stop it any time now with slobbering all over the married- with- children couples already. The “Nuclear Family” has received the “lion’s share” of affection and attention from churches and Christian culture for far too long now.
Time to start acknowledging the single and childless among you.
Churches have been losing in attendance in the last so many years – if they want to increase attendance, it might help if they start focusing on single adults.
(Link): God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field
Dec 25, 2021
Loneliness a terrible thing.
And as is often pointed out, at no time is loneliness more poignantly felt by scores of people than at Christmas.
If there’s an upside to the whole COVID fiasco, it’s that many of us had the opportunity last Christmas to experience a little bit of what that’s like. Millions of people had to stay separated from family — and we quickly realized that it’s not so great.
And it should have served as a wake-up call for those who call themselves followers of Jesus.
Though Christmas 2020 made the reality of loneliness stark for many of us, we all knew that folks in our lives were hurting and alone before the pandemic struck — we just didn’t want to talk about it.
Because putting yourself out there for others might mean you have to engage, invest. And that takes away from “me time.”
But the truth is, we each know sad, lonely, broken people in a dark world who need us to move up next to them and their screwups and hangups, put our arms around them, and hear us say, “I’m with you. Whatever you need, I’m here.”
And this is possible for us because 2,000 years ago, God saw a sad, lonely, broken people in a dark world who needed Him, so he moved up next to them and their screwups and hangups, put His arms around them, and told them, “I’m with you. Whatever you need, I’m here.”
What makes loneliness at Christmas so extra tragic is that it’s the opposite of the “Immanuel, God with us” message of Christmas.
Read the rest of that page (Link): here
Related Posts on this blog:
(Link): Merry Christmas to Single People
(Link): 21 Hilarious Solo Christmas Cards
(Link): Being Single During Christmas (by J. Acuff)
(Link): Fewer Americans Think Marriage is Needed To Create Strong Families, New Poll Suggest
(Link): Fewer Americans See Their Romantic Partners As a Source of Life’s Meaning
(Link): James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles
(Link): Statistics Show Single Adults Now Outnumber Married Adults in the United States (as of 2014)
(Link): The Neglected God Calls Us to Reach Out to the Neglected at Christmas: God with Us and Them—Immanuel (Re: People Who Are Alone At the Holidays)
(Link): This Christmas, I’m Defining Family by My Single Friends by L. Wilbert
(Link): Pew for One: How Is the Church Responding to Growing Number of Singles? by S. Hamaker
(Link): Christmas Morning House Fire Leaves Father and Two Children Dead, Wife and Oldest Child Injured
(Link): Mom Blows $10K on Veneers, Botox While Refusing Kids’ Christmas Gifts
(Link): Do You Feel Shame About Being Single? By John Amodeo, PhD
(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t
(Link): Creepy: ‘Barna: [Christian] Women Value Family Over Faith’
(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible
(Link): Jesus Christ Removed the Stigma, Shame From Being Single and Childless – by David Instone Brewer
(Link): Bethke: “Christians Do Not Need To Get Married To Live A Full And Flourishing Existence”
(Link): The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake – by David Brooks – and Related Links
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