The author of Reaching Single Adults: An Essential Guide for Ministry is Dennis Franck, who is a long time Singles Pastor in the Assemblies of God denomination. He does manage to keep his denomination’s particularities out of view however. The book is aimed at helping Evangelical churches to retain their single adults and to reach out to unchurched singles. The need for this book stems from the fact that singles are less likely to attend church than married couples.
Franck does a good job in providing an overview of the diverse single adult demographic. He gives five categories (some of which can overlap):
1) Never-married
2) Divorced
3) Widowed
4) Single parent
5) Separated (they are living as a single even if they legally aren’t)
These groups can have widely different needs and outlooks, and thus the challenge facing singles leaders is immense. Older, windowed singles often don’t identify themselves by their singles status, and there’s quite a bit of difference between a divorced 45 year-old who has kids with a never married 25 year old who doesn’t have kids.
Another strong point of the book is Franck’s contention that singles need biblical teaching that addresses issues from the singles perspective. This often is not done during the Sunday morning sermon, and sometimes it’s not easy or perhaps even advisable to do so in that environment.
Criticism
Franck’s general philosophy appears to be “build it and they’ll come.” He notes that churches that have ministries for single adults have more single adults attending their church than churches that don’t have singles’ programs. It may be true that singles programs help attract singles to churches (an assumption Franck makes while offering little support for it), however it’s precisely churches that already have a significant number of singles that are likely to start singles programs. Churches with few singles are not very likely to see impressive growth in the group simply by starting a targeted ministry.
Furthermore, I’m a bit leery of this marketing type of approach of determining a sub-group and then launching programs for it. I do think some group meetings are good, but many churches need to do a better job of integrating singles in to the life of the church as a whole. Franck is not against singles participating in the whole life of the church of course, but it’s a very minor focus of the book.
The stat that 44% of American adults are single is proclaimed on the book’s back cover and is quoted throughout the book. This is quite a bit misleading however as it is arrived at by counting everyone over the age of 15 as an adult. The reason given for this definition is that some states allow marriage at 15.
Franck spends over half the book discussing various models of singles ministry and all the people and resources that are needed to run them. It becomes quite a bit repetitive at times, and the ideas are often not that useful for smaller churches. For instance, a church of 300 people is not likely to be able to support a Singles Pastor, nor be able to field a large team of volunteers to assist in such a ministry.
Final Opinion
How churches interact with singles (and the somewhat overlapping young adult group) is an issue that I’m interesting in. However, I didn’t find this book very useful or interesting, and would probably only recommend it to someone who was planning to start a singles ministry at their church and who had never lead anything before.
Can you give any example of what Franck talks about? Do singles need their own tailored Bible teaching? Does Franck talk about how to develop the spiritual lives of singles, or is he more focused on pragmatic things like how to organize and coordinate a singles group?
The label “single” when used in a Christian context often means “single, but I hope not forever.” I don’t want to portray church or Christian singles’ groups as meat markets, but finding a safe and healthy place to meet other singles who might be a potential mate is at least one significant reason these groups exist.
And that is why older singles don’t particularly join these groups or identify themselves as single–they don’t necessarily have any intention of marrying or marrying again before they die.
Churches have a variety of names for these groups–Singles, Career, College and Career, Single Again. Some people think it is stupid to categorize people this way, and maybe it is, but if you are looking for someone to marry, these labels might make sense.
I don’t blame churches for having singles groups, because, as the author noted, many young people quit coming the church once they leave their parents’ nest and don’t return until they have their own kids and wake up to the realization that their kids need some religious training.
“I do think some group meetings are good, but many churches need to do a better job of integrating singles in to the life of the church as a whole.”
Over a year ago our medium-sized church decided to do away with the affinity-based groupings during the Sunday School hour (based on age or place in life) and go instead to geographically-based intergenerational groups. After more than a year, I’d say it has been a mixed success. And it was the singles who complained about it the most. I think they missed having their own group for social reasons, if not for religious training reasons.
I didn’t do the tag correctly, I guess.
I fixed it for you.
Franck is mostly focused on the practical setting up and running of a singles ministry. He talks about things like: starting a ministry from scratch, the different types of singles ministries and different resources and leaders needed for them, growing a ministry, etc.
He does get into developing spiritual life a little. He goes over the “six dimensions of life” - spiritual, social, mental, physical, relational, and emotional - and how different types of singles ministries can help meet these needs.
Franck also has a list of things that people need other than the directly spiritual ones and points out which ones that some singles demographics need teaching on from their viewpoint. Things like: dating, accepting singleness, divorce recovery, loneliness, adjusting to widowhood, etc. He doesn’t actually teach on these in the book, he just points out that singles need instruction on these things.
Thainamu, Franck actually mentions the phrase “meat market.” He doesn’t think Singles Groups should be viewed that way.
But why do people leave after graduation and don’t come back until they’re married and have kids? Alot of it is probably cultural tradition, and maybe they just want a break from church, but we need to see if one reason is because churches sometimes don’t know quite what to do with them or somehow make singles feel like they don’t fit in.
“[churches] … somehow make singles feel like they don’t fit in.”
In my experience that’s pretty true. When I moved about a year ago I spent a few months looking for a new church. At one church I went to, I was the only person who showed up to the singles Sunday School class. It was just me and the two leaders, both of whom were older married men. I found that discomforting. It wasn’t just one time; I went to Sunday School more than once and it was always just me. (They assured me those Sundays were atypical. Their assurances didn’t help much.)
I liked a lot of other things about the church, particularly their zeal for missions. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were doing something wrong. Why couldn’t they get even one young single person to attend Sunday School regularly? And if they couldn’t get enough for a real Sunday School class, why didn’t they at least direct me to another class where I could meet some people in the church?
Turning the tables a bit, I’ve examined myself and realized that I didn’t know how to be involved in church as an adult. Nobody ever taught me, and I never realized I needed to be taught. I didn’t know that I lacked that knowledge. Once I made that breakthrough in understanding, I was able to do some studying and thinking, and I’m making progress. It isn’t just that the church doesn’t welcome singles, it’s partly because I didn’t know how to plug myself into the church. I blame my lack of knowledge mostly on my experience in boarding school in high school. All the dorm kids went to “Dorm Church” which was basically a Sunday morning sermon and nothing else. It wasn’t a real church.
“But why do people leave after graduation and don’t come back until they’re married and have kids?”
Not to be too simplistic here, but one reason is just sleeping patterns (or laziness). More specifically, they don’t like to get up early and go to church if they don’t “have” to. Then it gets to be a habit.
Some churches combat this tendency by having a Saturday night or Sunday night service that is more geared toward singles and less toward families. Families with kids like to stick to the traditional schedule of getting up when it is morning and going to bed when it is night.
As for singles being welcomed into church activities, Jew, I understand what you are saying and think it is great if you have personally found a way as a single to plug into your church. You are likely not the only one who has had trouble making the transition into the full life of the church as a single. I hope your effort and persistence pay off with a rewarding involvement.
At our particular church, I know the teenagers are encouraged to once a month work in the nursery or in children’s church, etc. which I think would make them aware of ways to get involved once they are adults.
Another example. Our church recently had a women’s retreat. I normally think of these events as for married women, but it wasn’t–it was for women of all ages, married or not. In fact, there were a number of mother-daughter pairs there.
In our church there is a fair amount of participation by the singles in the life of the church, although there really are no singles in positions of leadership. And I think I’ve noticed that the younger singles (like those just barely out of college) are the ones who are involved the least. I guess it does take a time of transition from being a child into being an adult, even at church.
Nice comments. I’m not placing the whole blame on churches. Nor am I placing the whole blame on the singles. Actually I’m not trying to blame anyone, but wondering what can be done about it.