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What are the keys to starting and growing a ministry that reaches singles? A panel of singlesâ pastors agreed that every singlesâ ministryâsmall or largeâis based on 8 specific principles.
by Brian Mavis
from Outreach magazine, May/June 2004
I was happy. I was in charge of outreach and small group ministries at my church. I was helping reach the lost and discipling the found. It was all good. But then some single adults in the church tried to upset my world. Hereâs how it went down:
A couple of singles came to my office one afternoon with a deliberate request in mind: âBrian, we would like you to lead the singles ministry.â
I gave them my âI feel your painâ look and said, âI wish I couldâ (yes, a big fat lie), âbut Iâm too busy with all my other responsibilities.â
But they persisted. A few weeks later they asked again, and I made the mistake pastors never want to make. I agreed to provide âtemporaryâ help. The moment they happily skipped out of my office, my head hit the desk. What have I done? Theyâve sucked me into their dysfunctional world. Iâll never escape.
I never wanted to be a singles minister. I had even told God that, which if you donât know, usually destines you for a career in that very field. When I thought of singles ministry, the thoughts werenât happy ones.
Iâm guessing thatâs true for most of you, too. What comes to your mind when you hear âSingles Ministryâ? In a recent OUTREACH reader survey on the state of singles ministry in todayâs churches, only 12 responses out of 700 could be classified as âpositive.â The others echoed comments like:
âUgh.â
âHeartbreaking!â
âItâs the most challenging group to reach.â
âThey [singles] are treated as misfits who need a little therapy to get over their âsingleness.â â
And for you âFamily Feudâ fans, the most frequent answer given? âHelp!â (with varying numbers of exclamation marks).
I went into singles ministry with these same thoughts. But a couple of weeks into it, my attitude really began to change. The transformation grew out of a dream: I was looking over a huge wheat field. A bunch of people were harvesting only half of it, and leaving the other half of the field untouched.
God immediately showed me what it meant. The harvesters were church leaders reaping traditional families. The untouched half of the field represented single adults. The single adult ministry is a huge and responsive mission field.
Within a couple of months, the singles ministry became my favorite one, and in less than a year it grew from 12 singles to more than 200 actively involved each week. But more importantly, we saw many lives changed, healed and saved.
Clearly, the single adult ministry in our churches needs attention. Out of 700 reader survey respondents, 72.2% said that their singles ministry was either non-existent or so small as to be ineffective in outreach. When you consider that 48% of female adults and 42% of male adults in the U.S. are single, you can see that weâre missing an entire segment of the population.
Outreach asked a panel of four current singles pastors to identify key principles for starting and growing an outwardly focused singles ministry. Keeping only the responses that all four pastors identified, I compiled a list of the eight most important elements of a dynamic singles ministry. I consider the first three to beessential and the next five to be strategic.
1. CREATE A CHURCH CULTURE THAT VALUES SINGLES
Most of the pastors we interviewed ranked this concept as the No. 1 element. âI think there is a prevalent preconceived notion that if a person hasnât been married by the time theyâre middle-aged, itâs because theyâre socially awkward,â says Jonathan Damiani, executive director for Crossfire. âSure there are socially awkward singles, but there are plenty of socially awkward married people too.â
Other pastors identified three specific action points for developing a singles-friendly environment church-wide:
- Preach positively about singleness. â[Senior or teaching] pastors really need to consider how they can affirm single adults,â says Susie White, singles pastor at Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas. âWhen was the last time you heard a sermon on the high calling of being single?â
- Donât segregate singles. âOur church doesnât want the singles program to become its own subculture,â says Ramon Presson, single adult and college minister at Brentwood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn. âIt wants them to be a part of the church, just like married adults are a part of the church. The operative word is adult not single.â
- Put singles in positions of responsibility. One of the ways Pressonâs church affirms the value of single adults is by putting them in positions of significant responsibility in the church. âWeâve got more single adults serving outside our singles ministry than in it,â Presson says. The church asks singles to serve on its personnel committee, the deacon board, etc.
2. PUT A SINGLES LEADER ON STAFF
The panel of pastors we assembled overwhelmingly agreed that if churches are serious about growing their singles ministry, a staff position specifically designed to reach this target group is essential.
Jarett Stephens, a young adults pastor at Prestonwood Baptist, notes that because singles ministry is so transitional, consistency in the leadership is critical. Single adult ministry, observes Christ Churchâs White, is often at the bottom of a churchâs priorities. âA churchâs unwillingness to pay a staff person to focus on singles supports that argument.â
In Plano, Texas, where she serves, single adults comprise more than 30% of the cityâs population.
âAs a group needing the ministry of the Church and the message of Christ, singles should be at the top of every pastorâs list,â she says. âSingles struggle with a sense that the culture around them is waiting for them to get married and become âlegitimate.â The way in which churches allocate their funds reinforces that message.â
White stresses that a singles leader needs strong communication skills and an ability to articulate the ministryâs purpose: âWith moral issues being what they are today, I believe it is imperative for a leader to be clear about the ministryâs focus on Christ and on biblical values as a basis for living.â
3. DEVELOP A LAY LEADERSHIP TEAM
Our panelâs responses indicated that a lay leadership teamâeven if itâs just two peopleâis critical to starting and growing a singles ministry. The overarching principle here, explains Stephens, is âgiving away as much of the ministry as possible.â The more ownership someone experiences, he says, the more ministry he or she will do. Stephens, who identifies his greatest emphasis as developing his leadership team, makes the people on his team a priority. He takes one day a week to call each person and check in with him or her.
Pressonâs experience has shown him that a singles leadership team should be comprised of the actual people the ministry serves. âI have a thing about single adult ministry being single adult-owned and operated,â he says. âI do have some married teachers, but sometimes they tend to do the ministry âtoâ or âforâ single adults rather than âwithâ them.â The exception to this rule, he says, would be a previously divorced couple working with mostly divorced singles.
How do you start a leadership team? White launched with a lunch. âI found it extremely helpful to hold leadership luncheons right away,â White says. âA free lunch will always attract a few people, and out of that initial group you can find some leaders who are interested in helping you launch the program.â
Brentwood Baptistâs Presson adds, âStart by identifying lay leadership who would be interested. Start with the people who are coming to you to say we should be doing this.â
4. START SMALL
Instead of throwing open the floodgates in hopes of thundering crowds, our pastor group advises churches to âthink smallâ when beginning a singles ministry. Even if unchurched singles are your target, an outreach-oriented singles group has to start with a core group committed to the ministry and to each other.
âMy advice would be to take it slow and realize youâre trying to hit a moving target,â says Prestonwoodâs Stephens. âAnd thatâs okay. Pour your life into the singles that are coming and always have something for them to do. Any singles ministryâregardless of sizeâmust be an active ministry.â
White found it easier to start from scratch with small groups and build on that philosophy. Presson agrees, stressing the importance of keeping a new and small singles ministry close and focused.
âIdentify a few things the singles ministry wants to concentrate on and do well,â he says. âI once supervised a menâs ministry in another church that tried to do too many unrelated things right out of the chute. They floundered. The subsequent team majored on doing two things well, and the ministry grew.â
The emphasis for small groups should be cultivating a place where people feel like they belong, Presson says. âWhen you think about it, singles ministry is the only area where someone walks in completely alone. Teens are likely to see someone they know from school. Married people have each other.â
5. DIVIDE BY AGE
Not all singles are created equal. They are in different stages of life. Some are young, some are hitting middle age and some are approaching senior years. Some are never married, some are divorced and some are widowedâall reasons for dividing by age, our group said.
âWe believe that mixing the older with the younger singles can be detrimental to growth, particularly in the younger demographic,â Christ Churchâs White explains.
Adventist Single Dating Site
Brentwood Baptist divides its Sunday morning ministry into three departments: Single Focus 20s; Single Purpose 30-40; Single Direction 50-60. Prestonwood Baptist also separates its singles into three age groups: 18-29; 30-37; and over 37.
6. OFFER SEMINARS AND SMALL GROUPS
Though most of our groupâs singles ministries divide by ages, they agreed that churches must also provide special ministries, such as special small groups or seminars, for singles in different stages of life.
A few months ago, Christ Church Episcopalâs singles ministry launched a weekly seminar series featuring a guest speaker (either live or on video) each time. In February, the seminar topic was âLove, Sex, Marriage and Romance,â a study of Song of Solomon taught on video by Tommy Nelson. More than 40% of the people attending the seminar had never attended any of the organized single adult events in the past.
âWe are hopeful that the seminar concept will have long-term viability,â White says, âand will serve as a more specific tool for reaching unchurched single adults in our community.â
When deciding what to offer, consider two primary groups: single parents and recently divorced singles. In Boulder County where I led the singles ministry, public records registered 500 divorces a month. Knowing that, I placed invitations to our divorce recovery program in the courthouse and mailed invitations to the divorcees.
For any single parenting class or group, make childcare your No. 1 logistical priority. Without it, many ministries that might otherwise succeed, fail. If childcare is a problem, then youâll need to rethink your meeting time for the regular Sunday morning service when child care is built in.
7. OFFER SOCIAL EVENTS
Statistics show that for people to keep coming to church, they must have at least five good friends there. In other words, people are looking for community. In addition to small groups, social events are key to developing community in single adult ministry.
âWe live in such an anonymous world today. I think itâs critical for single adults to feel known in their church family,â White says. âI know that helping people to find friends will help them stay in the church,â she says, âand will give us the opportunity to help them mature as Christians. Thatâs one of the main reasons why we continue to experiment with different types of social events.â
Crossfireâs Damiani identifies diversity as the key to social activities and programs in singles ministry.
âYouâve got to meet each single adult where they are and understand that a 29-year-old businessperson is not the same as a 60-year-old farmerâ he says. âThatâs why we do so many different things.â
Prestonwoodâs Stephens reinforces the community requirement. âPersonal relationships are key. It doesnât matter how big or small your church is; itâs about relationships.â
However, Brentwood Baptistâs Presson warns against using a large, flashy social event to launch a singles ministry. âYouâre going to keep having to do whatever it was that initially attracted people to the ministry to get them to come back,â he explains.
Our panelists suggested various types of social events for reaching diverse groups: holiday gatherings (especially New Yearâs Eve and Easter); sports nights (basketball, volleyball, baseball, bowling); a Christian comedy event; parties (Super Bowl, costume, etc.); progressive dinners; professional sporting events; dinner and a movie; game night (board games); and picnics. For White, the highest attended social activities, at first, were restaurant gatherings and movie nights.
8. PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE TOGETHER
Singles ministry shouldnât just be ministry to singles, but ministry by singles.
Adventist Singles Dating Site
âSingle adults are available for mission projects,â Presson observes. âThere are things that young single adults will get up and do together on a Saturday morning that families who are rushing around to soccer practice just canât.
âWe have single adults involved in childrenâs ministry, inner-city ministry and overseas missions, etc. Serving the community together builds community with each other. Thereâs something about working for one common goal.â
Prestonwoodâs Stephens notes that service projects have been catalysts to seeing single adults at the church become more evangelistic. âPeople seem to want to be more inclusive when they get outside the church and into the world at large. Weâve seen more of our core group reaching out to unchurched singles to bring them into the ministry.â
This content originally appeared in the May/June 2004 issue of Outreach magazine, the gathering place for ideas, insights and stories of todayâs outreach-oriented church leaders. For more ideas and information, visit www.outreachmagazine.com.
Copyright Š 2004 Outreach