Sermon Tone Analysis

51% of adults in Canada are unmarried.

Of this number 39% are truly single, not living common law or in other relationships.

Since this is the case, we can expect that our churches also have a large percentage of singles.

This is certainly true of New Life Christian.

Let’s put some descriptors around the category of “single”:

Singles can range in age from their 20s to their 80s

Some have not married

Some have married and divorced

Some are single mothers and fathers, raising children on their own

Some have married and been widowed

So we have a large group of people in this “single” category, and they represent about ___% of our congregation.

Today I want to celebrate and honour our singles in the church.

Let’s take a few moments to understand their challenges, and learn how to support and love them better as valuable members of the body of Christ.

I want to preface what I am saying today that I had a lot of help putting together this message.

It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and I’ve not only done research but have taken the time to talk to some single friends.

Last summer I heard an interview of this single lady, Lisa Anderson, that was really insightful.

Lisa serves as the director of Focus on the Family’s ministry for single adults, which includes a website called Boundless.org

and a blog as well as a show called “The Boundless Show.”

A couple of weeks ago at the Break Forth conference in Edmonton, I had the opportunity to attend a session by Lisa called “Singles and the Church”.

I found it really helpful, and will be using some of her insights in this message today as well as material from a number of other sources.

As far as personal experience is concerned, I was single in the church for about 7 years if you start counting at age 18.

Craig and I got married when I was 25 and he was 29.

I was at college between 18 and 22 years of age, but that was a unique circumstance.

In fact, it was at Ambassador College that I met Craig and many other nice guys.

Craig in particular took to heart the college administration’s admonition to “date widely”.

One ingenious guy in my class decided to get a T-shirt made that said, “Hi.

I’m widely.”

In other words, date me~!

I graduated and moved to Vancouver at 22 and lived as a single here until 25.

Craig and I were both active participants in the singles group in our church for those years before we married.

Now Craig and I find ourselves in a different stage of life when our children are young singles.

Natasha, our oldest, will be 27 in April, and is single.

Being single in this decade is incredibly challenging, and we’ve been able to journey vicariously with our kids.

In the western world, marriage is often delayed.

Lisa observed 3 general reasons, although I’m sure there are more:

1. Fear

How many of our young people have grown up with divorced parents, being bounced from one home to another.

No wonder they are reluctant to commit.

They want to make sure their partner is perfect first.

Unfortunately perfection in human form only happened once, and Jesus is not available at the moment.

Fear and unrealistic expectations can delay marriage, even indefinitely.

2. Education & Career

Marriage is often delayed because of higher education and careers.

Never has a high school diploma meant so little when it comes to employment.

To get ahead our young people are not only pursuing their Bachelor of Arts degrees from university, employers are looking for Masters degrees and higher levels of expertise.

This not only requires years of study but tens of thousands of dollars, probably in student loans because this kind of education is so expensive.

A student loan of $50,000 or more is not uncommon for a graduate.

That’s a heavy burden to bring into a marriage.

When singles do land a good job, the expectations are often very high, perhaps including travel and often unpaid overtime hours to complete tasks.

3. Self Actualization

Never has there been so much emphasis on self actualization—the process of figuring out who you really are, where you’re going, and what you want to accomplish.

This might also be a reason that some delay marriage.

Before I go any further, I want to apologize to singles on behalf of the church.

We tend to be so family-centric.

I know my illustrations in sermons or comments during worship tend to revolve around my experiences in marriage or my children, and many times you probably feel left out.

You’ve probably had to do some mental gymnastics--”she’s not trying to make me feel left out or discouraged”--when 90% of my illustrations have to do with my marriage or some aspect of family life.

Even our intercessory prayers can neglect you singles.

I’m very sorry.

I don’t want these to make you feel isolated, discouraged, and challenged in your relationship with God.

Rather I want to encourage you and help you live joyfully in your singleness.

So please accept our apologies for my lack of sensitivity, for our lack of sensitivity.

With that said, let me overgeneralize.

It seems that, in general, singles are viewed by themselves as well as others as lacking something.

The longer the singleness remains, the more both singles and marrieds view the situation through the lenses of loss.

This is a common story I myself experienced in a very small way.

What happens is that in your younger single days your friends start to get married.

These married friends might try to hook you up with their other single friends in the hope that you would find your spouse.

Then as singleness persists, marrieds start to think something might be wrong with you, and singles begin to feel as though God has robbed them of something or forgotten them by not bestowing upon them this blessing of a life partner in the covenant of marriage for life.

What I want to emphasize here is that both the marrieds who would view singleness as an oddity and the single man or woman who would view God having forgotten them or robbed them of a joy by not giving them a spouse are out of line with how the Word of God talks about singleness and how Jesus himself and other biblical authors rejoiced in singleness.

In fact, singleness is called a gift.

More about this in a couple of minutes.

What are some of the advantages of being single?

According to Lisa Anderson here are a few:

Freedom with time and money

Being able to pour into friendships

Being able to go on mission trips and serve in the church

Being able to spend uninterrupted time with the Lord

Here are a few of the griefs of singleness:

Bearing life’s responsibilities alone: financial decisions, mortgage, home repairs, monthly bills.

No life partner with whom to dream about the future or shoulder the burdens of today

Annual cycle of holidays and seasons

This begins with Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrating family togetherness where if singles go to their parental home they might find themselves sleeping on an air mattress on the living room floor so siblings with spouses and children can have the guest rooms.

They might be relegated to the kids table because the adult table is too full.

Then there are the endless questions about their love lives, or lack thereof.

These same things can happen at Christmas after long weeks of marketing imagery picturing perfect families in matching pajamas gathered around a spectacularly decorated tree.

Most singles soldier through, then return home to pictures of their happily engaged friends on social media announcing their big news—or even worse, their friends’ kids getting engaged.

New Year’s brings couples-centric parties, midnight smooches and promises of new beginnings.

As Lisa says,

“For a single adult who’s staring down another year and fearing it will end like the last one, feeling festive or hopeful is hard.”

We don’t even need to talk about Valentine’s Day—you can imagine how that might feel.

Spring ushers in the wedding season with bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, weddings, gifts, receptions—every one a reminder that it isn’t your big day.

So I hope that this message will raise our awareness, and help us love one another as a community of faith, a complete family of faith.

What does the Bible say about singles?

It’s time for everyone’s favorite game show: What Does the Bible Say? I’m going to give you two verses from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, and you tell me which one was talking about marriage.

Ready?

1“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.”—1

Corinthians 7:8 2 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.

For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?

Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”—2

Corinthians 6:14