The following year, someone opened a soft serve ice cream place across the street from the diner. The ice cream place also served burgers and similar items. The food was fine and so were the prices. That sealed the fate of the teeny tiny chicken diner.

There is absolutely no need to “tear down” the church. I hear Someone is building a new place across the street. People can choose. Perhaps both will survive, but teeny tiny chicken diners with dry old chicken and snooty snotty churches with dry old religion could be in trouble. We don’t need to tear them down. They just dry up and blow away.

For John: No, I have never “seen genuine community grow out of a program imposed for that purpose by the church leadership, with lots of stringent requirements for the underling leaders, etc.” The group may need a little help, but genuine community does not develop out of a program. On the other hand, the church leadership can certainly stand in the way of genuine community developing.

I can’t speak for women, but for many young single men, the life they lead doesn’t have much in common with married couples, especially couples with kids. Reaching out works too a point. But the ones who decide Friday night to drive 5 hours Saturday morning to some event and get home Saturday night / Sunday AM at say 2 AM, usually don’t have 2 pre-schoolers in the house.

Yes it CAN work. But like a lot of what else is discussed here the key word is work. I.E. time invested. By both sides.

A singles / college ministry pastor recently said one of his issues was the number of young MEN sitting around in their underwear all day playing video games on weekends. Marriage and kids gets you out of that routine very quickly.

I agree that singles and married folks do have very different interests, but so many single groups seem designed to make married folks out of singles. Some of them have revolving doors, especially for men, who come in, take a look at the women and then leave. (Sorry if I sound cynical, but I’ve seen that way too much.)

Another challenge is that many Christians, even those that I would consider mature, do not recognize that some of us are called to be single our whole life. (and that realization was a knock-down drag out fight that God and I had. )

I don’t expect to fit in perfectly, but some reaching out would be nice. (and unfortunately this seems to be an area where Catholics need to learn from the Evangelicals).

A question for any takers: Have you ever seen genuine community grow out of a program imposed for that purpose by the church leadership, with lots of stringent requirements for the underling leaders, etc? I’ll spare you the details of my particular experience, but I am curious.

Unrelated to the above question, one of the most insidious and pervasive trends I have seen are the misguided attempts to manufacture or maintain a sense of “community” through various manifestations of “spiritual” elitism, selectivity, clubishnes, or whatever you call it. Manifestations range from shunning the poor and the different, including making derogatory comments about their physical appearance or ailments, to being appalled that a mainline denomination is even investigating the possiblity of sexual abuse at its boarding schools for missionary kids, as if such a thing could never happen and to investigate it is not just absurd, but somehow sacreligious. It takes many, many other forms as well, none of them spiritual or communal in the Christian sense.

Many things about current evangelicalism make me sad, but this misguided and unwarranted sense of social/relational exclusivity and pride is the only one that brings me close to despair.

You make some valid points. Married couples with children are, generally, busy people– in some ways, by definition, in other ways, by choice and scheduling of activities. It definitely takes *intentionality* for married couples with children to include single people in their lives. However, it can be done. I have seen it done, and done intentionally, lovingly, within in a church body. For married people with children to have single friends requires a view of the local church that is careful, thoughtful, intentional, and inter-generational. Perhaps, most importantly, such a view prizes love for the brethren above the over-scheduling that crowds us out of each other’s lives.

In many ways you just can’t unless the church is large enough to have a singles group.

I got married at 33. Until then I was with the “outcasts” and couldn’t figure out why. After getting married and having kids I figured it out.

First your time is not your own. Being married means you can’t just walk out the door when someone calls and says “hey come over and watch the game”. You have to coordinate at a minimum and many times deal with commitments made to the spouse. And with kids it’s much more complicated. Which is why many of us have friends who also have kids in the same activities and schools we do. Because we around each other so much and our schedules are many times identical, why not find a friend in this group?

Second, you have a large number of concerns that many singles don’t. Pediatricians. Schools. Homework. After school activities. Swim team. Car pools. Singles are rarely a part of any of this and if they are tend to be viewed suspiciously. (It only takes one molester to ruin it for 99,999 who are not.)

And a take off on the second one, most singles don’t own their own house, condo, whatever, or at least not in numbers that rival couples. Which brings up an entire other set of interests that couples have than many singles don’t.

Nothing against singles but you live in a very different universe than married couples. Especially married couples with kids.

Now to counter what I’ve said, we’ve had at least one singles person in our small group most of the first 6 or so years of it’s 8 years of existence. But lately none. Which I think is an indication of the strength of the singles ministry. But then again, most singles we had were over 30 which might be an indication of something. Not sure what though.

I think that’s certainly become the case with Evangelical culture – the illusion of perfect families, the illusion of a certain ecstatic state being achieved ever Sunday in worship, the illusion of a universally-devoted Bible-reading faithful, the illusion of a group of people who don’t troll for porn on the internet, yell at their husbands and wives or live in houses they are embarrassed of, etc., etc., etc.

And I had a real, “So it’s not just me” moment when I read …

How many people have left the church when they discovered that once the hurtful and painful experience was known, they were blamed and the church exonerated the guilty or ignored the need for change?

If I only had a nickel for every time ….