Driscoll: Your Church’s Future May Be Perilous If You Don’t Start Ministering to S
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Thu, February 01, 2007
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- (9) comments so far
“Just six years ago, married couples made up 52 percent of American households. Today, that number has dipped to 49.8 percent of the 105.5 million American households. Meanwhile, the percentage of other households has climbed to 50.2 percent. Those households include 36.7 million households where heterosexual or gay couples cohabitate together out of wedlock, 14 million households headed by single women, and 5 million households headed by single men. There are also 30 million households with unmarried men and women living alone; they are not categorized as families at all…
Mars Hill Church has become a multi-site church and has seen the shift firsthand. Our urban campus has a ratio of 20 adults for every one child. This is largely because more than half of that campus is unmarried, although we do have as many as a few hundred weddings a year there. Conversely, at our two campuses just outside the city where there are more married couples, the ratio is six adults for every one child. We are finding that there are numerous practical implications for churches as the single trend continues.
1. Many churches will need to have much more than simply a singles’ ministry if more than half of their church is single. In fact, ministries for singles may outnumber ministries for families. This will mean such things as offering church events later at night as well as some programming without childcare. For example, among the biggest of our seven current Sunday church services is the 7 p.m., which offers no childcare.
2. Churches will need to examine if they have appropriate ways to empower godly singles to be leaders of the church, not just the singles’ department.
3. There needs to be a growing application of what it means to be godly and single by pointing to people who were single, such as Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul, as well as to people who lived godly lives until they were married, such as Ruth and Boaz.
4. There needs to be clear, ongoing teaching about acceptable Christian dating and / or courtship in the church. Without this, singles will have many conflicts about what constitutes an acceptable Christian romantic relationship, including sexual boundaries.
Read the entire article here at The Church Report...
FOR DISCUSSION: Do you think this trend of ‘singleness’ is going to impact the church as Driscoll says it will? If so, how is your church preparing and ministering to this growing segment of our culture?
Here's an interesting article by Mark Driscoll over at The Church Report. Mark talks about the growing trend in our culture of 'singleness'. He writes: "Is your church family-friendly? Does your church provide family programming? Does your church defend family values? If so, you may be guaranteeing yourself a perilous future. According to recently released 2005 Census Bureau data, for the first time ever the traditional marriage is no longer the preferred living arrangement in the majority of U.S. households."
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Peter Hamm on Thu, February 01, 2007
Yes, we need to respond to this trend. however… “4. There needs to be clear, ongoing teaching about acceptable Christian dating and / or courtship in the church.” just opens a HUGE can of worms on so many levels. I think it’s important, I just don’t know how many people know how to do it.
JarsofMe on Thu, February 01, 2007
I think, however, that there does need to be some clarification about which crowd of “Singles” you are ministering to. I live in a more rural environment (don’t think “Green Acres”, just suburbia). We have many singles to minister to, but they are not the coffee-house hopping, NY times reading, american idol watching crowd. They are more of the “my husband just left me with 3 kids and no money” or “my wife just ran-oft with my best friend” crowd.
Being culturally relevant to this crew probably looks somewhat different than ministering to singles (primarily younger singles) in a more urban environment.
Josh R on Thu, February 01, 2007
I agree that this is vitally important. People are often not making families until they are into their mid-30’s these days, and by that time they are often pretty set in their ways. If your church is only reaching out to families, then the majority that is most likely most at risk is going to be unreached.
I think the can of worms really has to be opened. Driscoll does a pretty good job at teaching singles about dating and courtship, although his style might not be something a lot of preachers would be comfortable emulating.. Voddie Baucham did a very good series back in July at Northpoint Church (Andy Stanley’s) last year about marriage family and dating. He is more of a Ravi Zacharias style preacher.
Brent on Thu, February 01, 2007
While I think reaching out to singles and broken families is important, be careful how you stretch the statistics. As you can read here…
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/01/18/journalistic_malpractice_in_marriage_is_dead_report ...the number of non-married “households” in the US is just above 50%, but the number of people living in married households is still the majority in America. If you go to the second page it addresses this issues. The article also points out in the beginning that the recent phenomenon that being a married woman means you are in the minority is also a twisting of the numbers. As far as the real numbers go, married households are still the “preferred” living arrangement in America, but it seems we’ve already seen this week that everything Driscoll says has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Again, agree with Driscoll’s point (I think it was his point) about not being one-dimensional, just want to make sure we’re not stating statistics that don’t tell the whole story.
Peter Hamm on Thu, February 01, 2007
Josh R,
Here, too. Also… our young people are having families young, unlike all you big city fellers… And occasionally they’re actually having kids in wedlock… What a concept!
Leonard on Thu, February 01, 2007
First of all, my churches future depends much more on God than who I minister too. That said I think that Driscoll’s point of being really aware of who our church reaches and who we seek to care for is well taken. A church our size 2-3 hundred and our age, less than 2 years old cannot afford (financially or strategically) to target outside of a niche. We must become strong before we expand. Paul went to the Jews first in every city, this was his own passion but also a strategy. Establish a beachhead before launching an offensive. Smaller churches may need to develop a niche, grow strong, and build upon that foundation while keeping in mind how to expand ministry to others.
nora on Thu, February 01, 2007
I think Driscoll has a point with number 2, no matter how you look at the statistics, and no matter what your “target market” looks like. Singles are a huge untapped source of leadership and service for the church, but sometimes the attitude seems to be that singles cannot be used, or are “lesser than” as leaders until they are married.
drbob on Thu, February 01, 2007
Here’s an interesting angle on “singles”. I wonder if the stats for singles also refer to those Senior Adult singles who are living longer, retire early, have lost spouses, or divorced. The largest generation in the United States is approaching retirement - talk about the future of singles ministry?
brent on Thu, February 01, 2007
drbob,
If you check out the link I posted above, that stat actually does include those people http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/smile.gif.
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