But I guess it's the whole thing when it's made obvious that you don't hold the same value as the married people in your church. And I get it. Our pastors, most of the time are married also. Some of them have been married for so long that they have no idea what it's like to be single in this world. In fact, they don't even know what it was like to be single back in the 80s
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:09
It's so we can't be too hard on our pastors when it comes to this sort of thing, because they simply aren't in tune with what's going on, especially if their children are married. If their children are married, then they really don't have anyone in your generation that can relate to singleness. So you feel alone. You feel alone in that
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:49
So they're doing their thing. Then you have people who are single and over 35. It's crickets. It's crickets. Another thing, too. My pastors are actually younger than me. My pastor is 41. Him and his wife are the same age. So I'm 46, he's 41. However, they have been together, I think, married 1617 years
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:14
Let me get rid of him, because they know a lot of marriages are struggling and teetering, even his fourth season. And so I think that to build up marriage and keep it on its pedestal, the byproduct of that is that single parents are ignored. Because if you ever try to acknowledge or encourage them, you might have that one or two couples that are on the edge decide to call it quits and just co parent healthily
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:48
I'll be invited to me and my husband will be invited to be with other couples, and we'll have new friends now, and we won't be one of those lowly singles anymore. We won't be the ones that just look like, poor thing, they're just stuck here, and there's really nothing for them. So when I see some women get married, it's almost like a relief comes over them. Like who? Thank God I'm no longer one of them
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:52
And it could be true why a lot of churches don't provide single parents a lot of support. It's the same at my church, and my pastors are older. They're going to be 70 this year. So they've been married going on 50 years or so. My parents will be married 50 years next year. And I think they're right behind them in years of marriage. They've got kids who are married and their daughters married young
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 3:49
At this age, people just assume that you just want to be single, that you're not really trying to get married. And so we're not going to waste all of our nuggets of wisdom on you because you want to be where you are. It's like, no, I don't want to be here. I am here, but it's not because I want to be here. And then my small group leader, she doesn't desire to be married
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 3:58
My best friend since I was seven, she's one of those people who she's called the singleness. Like, there's nothing about her. And she's my best friend, but she ain't never babysit another one of my kids. Now she's the auntie that will buy the stroller, buy the nice pack and play. She will never babysit. It's just not in her. She doesn't have that nurturing bone in her. She doesn't even have that oh, dear future husband
Moe Johnson
@NeophyteSavant · 5:00
Hey, what's going on, Tonya? Okay, so I saw part one this morning and I responded to it. I don't know how I missed it when you first put it up, but I responded this morning and I only tagged Auntie Ange because that's the only one that responded. So if you get an opportunity, please go back and listen to that. To the part one of this here. The truth about singleness
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Shawna Kearsley
@OnAcornBay · 3:45
Well, the daycare piece of the church model, that's strictly a financial piece with the daycare center. Daycare is a national crisis right now, so churches are in a great area for that. So they focus on that. And of course, they focus on trying to get the mind of the child and all of that business. But, yeah, the daycare piece and the funding that the churches get for being a nonprofit organization is hugely dialed into every single decision that they make
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 2:54
Hey, Shawna, thank you so much for your response. You know, I didn't really give it much thought from that perspective, but as you were speaking, I can totally see where this is accurate because married couples generally, both are working. So that is a bigger tithe, a bigger donation to the church. Like you said, counseling, peace. You know, married couples, they need that spiritual counseling more so than a single person
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 1:39
And families generally means stability. People are not necessarily up and moving unless you're in a military area. But a single person could leave at any time. They could take that job across the country, they get married, and now go join their spouse in worship. You're not getting necessarily the return on the investment in a single person. Wow. I did not even think of that piece
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 2:20
They feel like families have more upside, I guess, than single people. They have more upside to them. And, yeah, along with the numbers growth and the financials, with two working parents, that's more tithes, that's more donations, all that stuff. And so, yeah, I totally get that. And I get that feeling, too. Even at my current church, sometimes I feel like they think I'm just going to up and leave at any moment
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 0:46
Oh, and one last thing. You made an excellent point about the families, and that's true. Even in my church, we have husbands and wives, but we also have their in laws, their siblings and their sibling spouses and children. And then we have, like cousins, aunts and uncles. We have all sorts of family trees in our church, you know. So, yes, usually when one part of the family starts attending, they bring more family members with them
Shawna Kearsley
@OnAcornBay · 4:53
Do we go to church for spirituality, though, or do we go there for social contact, power and that social connection? Yes, we're talking about God, but we can do that at the bar, too. So it's the whole social construct and how that whole system is constructed. And the kid piece is really great. I mean, right now, you girls have me thinking about what kind of consulting business I can attach to my churches here, because they do need additional help
Shawna Kearsley
@OnAcornBay · 3:03
Maybe it's not that kind of. Not. Maybe Tanya's church is not that kind of church. You think it's not that kind of church? Tanya, is your church that kind of church. Because in that case, you would welcome the single people and you would have a strategic plan to engage them in the church and to flip them to married. So I'm talking about speed dating at church, spiritual speed dating movements
