How the Purity Message of my Youth Was Incomplete

"God created sex for marriage."
"Don't have sex before you're married."
"Lust and pornography are sin."
"You have to decide beforehand that you'll stay away from sin in this area of your life, because you need to know where you stand in this before you're tempted."

I'll be honest, this is never a topic I intended to write about. But, as I've wrestled with the topic of singleness and the church, I've realized this is a part of the discussion I cannot just avoid.

I grew up in the church in the era of the "True Love Waits" movement, complete with signing purity pledges and wearing purity rings. Much of the message of this movement was good and in line with what Scripture says.

I truly believe church and youth leaders got on board with it with the best of intentions. They wanted to encourage us to and help us to live a pure life, that we in line with Scripture.

But, the message was incomplete and there was an implication to the message that went largely unspoken.

The message was incomplete because it didn't address what it looks like to handle our sexuality from a biblical perspective. The message was almost exclusively about what not to do in this area - about the sin we needed to avoid. Looking back on this, I also understand why. This is a challenging topic to address in that setting. They were walking on a line of what parents would see as appropriate. So, while the message was incomplete, I don't fault my youth leaders for that.

I think it's the unspoken implication that was more damaging anyways. It's the one I've had just enough conversations with those who also grew up in this to see the pain it caused many of us, whether we're single or married today.

The implication of all of this was, if you didn't have sex before marriage then you would have great sex once you got married. While this was rarely spoken out loud this directly, it was implied in what was taught.

As a single person, the long-term result of believing this is spending many years feeling like I was missing out on something I deserved for signing the "true love waits" pledge card in high school and not having sex. If the reward for those things was supposed to be great sex in marriage, then I was definitely missing out as a single person.

As you can imagine, this had a negative affect on my relationship with God. It wasn't until I realized that this wasn't true and was not what Scripture said, that I was able to move beyond this. I had to come to a deeper and more complete understanding of what Scripture said about this.

This is again a confirmation of why we need to be studying the topic of singleness more closely in the church. We need to correct our misconceptions and misunderstandings of all of this.

Doing Life Together Even When the Way it Looks is Different

Freindship.

It's something we all need.

But, I think out culture's current view of friendship has had a damaging impact on the church. Friendship has become a matter of convenience and if something happens we don't like, we just drop the person and move on.

As Joy Beth Smith put it in her book, "Party of One":

"Singleness and intimacy are not at odds despite the messaging we've received." (pg. 57)

We see singleness and intimacy as being at odds because we're limiting intimacy to being almost exclusively sexual. But, in doing so, we've missed out on what I believe God intends it to be.

Whether we're single or married, we need people who really know us and who we really know. And it needs to be people from all walks of life. I don;t just need other single Christians in my life. I need other Christians - married, single, old, young. This is how we're supposed to live.

Joy Beth Smith has a helpful description of this in her book:

"Community is only as rich and deep as it is diverse. When we limit ourselves to a whole bunch of people who are exactly like us, we're limiting the refining power of community not only to meet needs but to sanctify." ("Party of One", pg. 53)

We not only need friendship and intimacy, we need it with people who are different from us.

And while:

". . . the church needs to see itself as an institution that values and honors friendship as much as it does marriage." (Christina S. Hitchcock, "The Significance of Singleness", pg. 137),

I'm not so sure we actually do that well. We tend to go to church and stay with the people just like us who know us and then go home to hide again. What we should be is a diverse community that values and promotes friendships that cross the lines we usually draw.

Up to this point, you could make the argument that this doesn't really apply specifically to singles in the church, but rather that it applies to the church as a whole. And you would be correct in that. So, here is where it gets specific about how it applies to singles in the church.

In many adult Christian circles, there seems to be an aversion to allowing a single adult to join the group if everyone else is married. For whatever reason, people seem to be hesitant or even outright opposed to it. This often leaves single Christian adults struggling to find community and friendship, and it leaves us vulnerable to attacks from our enemy.

The truth is, as adults who are trying to live as Christians, we have a lot in common, even if some are married and some are not. We're all trying to honour God in how we approach our work and our money; we all struggle to balance work and life; we all have good times and hard times. Yes, there's one obvious difference in our lives, but there usually is in most friendships.

We all need people we can do life with. People who come alongside us in good times and in bad times. It's how we were made to live. We all need people to pray for us and encourage us, to challenge us and to call us on stuff. None of these things are dependent on whether our marital status is the same or not.

So, lets stop using marital status to define who are friends are -what our community looks like. Lets welcome people who might be different than us to do life with us.

Things We Need to Stop Saying to Single People

"Maybe you just need to put yourself out there more."
"God will bring the right person when you stop looking for someone."
"Why aren't you married yet?"
"You're too [insert what ever descriptive word you want here] to still be single."
"When are you gong to get married?"
"Why are you still single?"
"Don't you want to get married?"
"You need to be careful you don't get too [successful/educated/settled] or you'll never get married."

That's just a short list of the things I've heard when people find out I'm single - or still single, as the case may be. I could keep going with the list, but I think you get the idea. I'm sure those of you reading this who are single could add your own to the list as well.

Things like what I've put on the list above are things we need to stop saying to people.

We just need to stop!

Why?

Because they imply something is wrong with the person you're saying them to.
Because they imply that the person is doing something wrong.
Because they say you know God's plan for them better than God does or they do.
Because they say that you have it all figured out and you think they don't.
Because they make someone feel small or looked down on or pitied.
Because they hurt.

I hope you're still with for the rest of this.

I honestly believe most people say these things with the best of intentions. They're not thinking about anything on the list I gave of why we need to stop saying them. I believe that the majority of the time when people say these things, their desire is to encourage the person and show them love. But, the reality is they don't encourage the person.

So what should we do or say instead?

Instead of focusing on whether someone is married or not, talk about family - whatever that looks like for each person. Most singles I know still have family that's important to them, whether it's biological or friends who have become family.

Instead of feeling sorry for or pitying someone who is single, take time to understand what life looks like for them.

Engage in real conversation with them.

The thing about what we need to stop saying is that they're all sound bytes that don't require investment on our part. We can say them and move on, feeling good about ourselves and not knowing how the other person took those words.

We also like to offer the pat answers because we're uncomfortable with other people's pain. If we invest the time, we may have to engage with their pain. As Joy Beth Smith says in her book "Party of One":

"The problem comes when the church is removed from the pain of singleness. When the leaders don't get it. Instead of sitting in it with us, they offer trite phrases that only serve to aggravate the inflammation. They might use these pat answers so they don't have to really analyze and look at pain, but there has to be a better way to meet the needs of single people." (pg. 76)

Any suggestions I have for how we can changes what we say involves time and energy - we have to invest. But, that's what we should be doing anyways.

What about you? Do you have any ideas of what we can say instead of these things we need to stop saying?