Tag Archives: Singleness

•

From "Out of Ur"

This is a blog by a single pastor...looking for a position.

I am single.  I don't want to be a single pastor.  I don't want to stay single.

I DO want to see churches embrace single people with the same dignity and importance as the do married people.

Three important paragraphs

These churches explicitly were not looking to hire someone single--like Jesus or Paul. I then was surprised to discover that even though the majority of adult Americans are single (52 percent), that only 2 percent of senior pastors in my denomination are single! Something was clearly amiss.

We need to move from a church culture that says “Many of my best friends are single” to one that can say “Many of our best pastors are single.” I don’t want to lose heart; I want to believe that it’s possible for 650 million Evangelicals to finally embrace the equal dignity the Scriptures bestow upon both singleness and marriage.

The bottom line is that it is not about being single or married. It’s about being called and gifted by the Spirit to minister to people both like and unlike us (race, gender, marital status, etc). I plead with search committees everywhere to reflect on the implications of 1 Corinthians 7 before overlooking your next single pastoral candidate. They deserve to be evaluated on their excellence, not their marital status.

•

A woman of my age, a single mom...it is usually assumed that I'm divorced.

Why do I simply say "single"?  The answer is complicated, and yet simple.

Since being single, I have discovered being one of the "second class citizens" of the church.  And even among that class, there are some that are lower than others.

I choose to let others assume a "divorce" because in doing that I have gained such humility and understanding for those who are not accepted because of their divorce.

I am not a member of the "I've lived a better life than you" club, nor am I assumed to be.

I am reminded every time somebody "assumes" before they act that I also should not assume before I act.  Many times I fail.

I wrote about a couple of my experiences (one woman scolded me for not sending my kids to see their dad..."their dad is in heaven with Jesus...I would do hard time for sending them there...")

I have been ignored by a particular woman at work who thought I was divorced...until somebody told her otherwise.

Being divorced is not a sin.  Sometimes the reason for the divorce is, but that is not to be assumed.  Grace asks us to assume otherwise.   My silence of the issue of my own singleness reminded me of that grace.

(comments are moderated: you can comment, it just needs to be approved_