Hospitality to single people/parents

If you feel like your church doesn't reach out to single parents well enough, then do something about it. I'm sure the leadership at your church would have no problem with you starting a single parents ministry. Why is it that people complain about things that don't exist, yet aren't willing to do anything about it?

 

Well, if you are offering to start a ministry to a neglected people group within your church and the leadership won't let you do so, I'd find out the reasons why. Depending on what they say, it might be time to locate a new church.

 

That man is an idiot.

 

Everything Salty said so well!

And then this to consider: why is it the married couple's responsibility to do the inviting? Or is it that singles don't want to cook?? LOL!

Seriously, before dh retired we moved a lot due to his job. And sometimes his job kept him gone for weeks at a time....making me a sort of almost single parent.

I soon learned that if I wanted to get to know someone, I could always ask them over to OUR place for dinner rather than wait for an invite.

Some will come, some won't, but no need to hang back and wait.

As to church's using the term "a family church", I never understood that as a church FOR families, but rather as a church that IS family.

It would seem to me that concept would draw singles who are lonely, not repel them.

 

Ron and I worked with singles for about 10 years. It was a ton of fun and I made lifelong friends in that group - even as the only married woman. I am thinking though that I have lots of single friends mixed in with all the married ones. I do think the thing is to be friendly to the people that God places in your path. Friendships may well grow. For many years we invited numerous people over for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but these were not usually the first time we had them over - they'd been in our house before. (Martin wouldn't have to worry about being set up IOW. )

 

Because of prejudice against singles, it is often assumed that we cannot be trusted simply because they have seen, heard of, or experienced a single man who was inappropriate in his behavior.

However, what about the married men and women who are inappropriate in their behavior?

(1) There was the man who approached me one time (I didn't know him) lamenting on his failed attempts at getting a woman (any woman) to spend the night with him. Let's just suffice it to say he was at a place where he shouldn't have been without his wife, and she didn't know he was there.

(2) There was the man in my church in Michigan who spent several years in prison for molesting his own little boy.

(3) There was the man who molested his daughter and neighbor girls--including mine. The last I knew he was in prison where he belongs. However, prison doesn't usually cure these perverts. They just do it again when they get out.

(4) There was my sister's husband who "had my wife" to put it as politely as I can. Of course, it wasn't entirely his fault. He told me once that he couldn't turn down any woman, and she gave hseself to any man who would have her.

The list goes on of the married men and women who cheated on their husbands and/ or molested children, and yet it's the singles who are prejudiced against and not trusted--especially the men. People are more apt to feel sorry for a woman but seldom for a man.

 

Or don't know how. People are always surprised to find that I am a better-than-average cook and baker--something I learned from my mother. I was a LOT closer to her than my dad.

I have invited people many times to my home for dinner, and they have always had one excuse or another--so I took the hint and quit inviting. If I had a wife or even a girlfriend (neither of which I want), I have no doubt I could get all kinds of people to come. I can't even get single men to come; they probably think I'm interested in them. :laugh:

Unfortunately, people will too often judge and condemn an entire nationality, all singles, or whatever because of ONE bad experience. A woman has a bad experience with a man--so ALL men are no good. A man has a bad experience with a woman--so ALL women are not good, or they're only good for one thing. Someone gets cheated by someone--so EVERYONE of that nationality is no good.

Humans tend to generalize and put everyone into one catagory--like the catagory that says that NO single man can be trusted--simply because he's single. If he's no good as a single, how does getting married change that?

 

I don't understand why that should hurt. I'm guessing the other people were married couples? Isn't only right and proper that the married couples, sit with their spouses? You, being the single person, are the logical person to sit in the aisle seat.

 

Don't get it...I've been married and single (obviously) and I would have taken no offense at being asked to sit in the aisle seat if I was the only single person there.

Do you expect to sit between husbands and wives in the movie theater as well?

 

from reading this thread, I can see in some churches there is a real problem, and in some cases theres nothing real to it, it's only perceived, looking for offense because of being single, seems a lot of singles are wanting to make a big case of it even when it doesn't exist. I mean husbands and wives sitting together as a family is a problem only to singles it appears, why? I'm not sitting apart from my husband just to satisfy someone else. Some people just need to get over it. Look at saggywoman, she's fine with being single, no excuses blaming it on someone else.