During my visit to a church in Osaka last December, the pastor announced near the end of the Sunday service that they would hold a “family devotional” as part of the Advent program. Unfamiliar with this church and traveling on my own, I was about to leave, thinking I’d get out of the way of an activity for the families of that church.
But he meant a devotional for the church family–everybody in the church. We read assigned Bible passages in smaller groups that we formed with those sitting near us. I read with a Japanese married couple and a Japanese woman. In the row in front of me, a girl and her mom read with a few others.
The church family–God’s family–includes all of God’s people: those not married and those who are, those with kids and those without.
Our Heavenly Father created us for community
Yet Christian singles can often feel sidelined even as singleness is increasingly common in churches worldwide. Anna Broadway, an unmarried American Christian woman in her 40’s, interviewed hundreds of Christian singles across dozens of countries for her book Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling. Christians who feel isolated in their singleness can know they’re not alone as they read from the experiences of Broadway’s sources, including people who have never married, others who are widowed or divorced, and those who have same-sex attraction choosing to remain celibate.
Here at our church, I spoke with some about singleness. Despite a desire to be married, certain single friends are content. They realize being single is better than being in a bad marriage.
Others point out some of the challenges for singles and married people with kids to intermingle. Singles usually wait for their married friends with kids to invite them to hang out as singles don’t want to invite themselves and intrude into their families, one unmarried woman said. She’s also aware that families with kids are busy with various demands so they’d have less capacity to include their single friends. Meanwhile, one mom doesn’t want to impose her toddler on single friends who may not be comfortable around children. A few others alluded to families tending to be too nuclear to the detriment of the families and singles: We all benefit from wider community and loving more widely. Recognizing the importance of community, one man said he and his wife welcome singles into their family with kids as they want their family to be a blessing to others.
Our Heavenly Father created us for community. He also created us for Himself. In light of that, Augustine, the fourth-century bishop of Hippo, wrote, “Our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” In our search for love, may our loving God help us “together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” (Eph 3:18).
