My best friend here in Dallas got dressed up and went to a church dinner this weekend in someone’s home. He paid $300 for his seat at the 10-course meal as part of a church fundraiser.
You need to know he’s a widower of nearly three years, who has struggled mightily to adapt to life without his spouse of 32 years. Going to church alone has been both a refuge and a challenge. He remains deeply involved in his congregation and attends faithfully. He’s training to be a lay Communion celebrant for the homebound.
Yet when he showed up for the fancy dinner, he discovered an odd arrangement. There were five couples and three single adults. The five couples were seated together at the main dining room table, and the three single adults were seated together at what amounted to a kids’ table elsewhere.
Mark Wingfield
In retrospect, he says, he should have left right then. But he determined to stick it out and be nice, even though he was not being treated nicely by his fellow church members. By the time he got home, he was miserable, and he called to tell me his story. I was stunned. I was shocked. I could not imagine such insensitivity.
“They have set me back three years,” he lamented. “I don’t trust myself to go to any other church events now.”
What’s equally sad is that none of the 10 people seated around the main table had the wherewithal to realize how segregated the three single adults were. No one offered to leave the “adult” table and go sit with the “kids” at the smaller table. No one was moved by the injustice.
“None of the 10 people seated around the main table had the wherewithal to realize how segregated the three single adults were.”
I told this story to my adult Sunday school class today — a class that is about 75% widows, widowers and others who are single either by choice or fate — and no one was shocked. They all understood exactly what my friend had experienced. They live with the same challenges in a world that prioritizes couples over singles.
I was reminded about the experience of a former member of my class, now deceased, who faced a similar dilemma after his wife died. While she was living, they were socially active and frequently enjoyed dinner with church friends and others. But after his wife died, the invitations stopped.
He no longer was half a couple. He was a single. And the couples who had been their friends for decades shut him out. He no longer fit.
So this man, who was a good cook, decided he would make a difference. He planned his own dinner party and invited all the other widows and widowers and singles in his peer group to his house for dinner. They all were thrilled by the invitation and all came for dinner and had a great time.
I hope you are shocked by both these stories. If you are not shocked, then it’s likely you are so accustomed to being part of a couple that you can’t see beyond yourself.
The church — of all places — is a world built around couples that too often merely tolerates singles. Without thinking.
“The church is a world built around couples that too often merely tolerates singles.”
Yet nearly half the population of American adults (42% to 44%) is single.
“Singles ministry” was booming in churches in the 1970s and 1980s. Many churchgoers have fond memories of being in singles’ groups and perhaps even meeting spouses there. In case you haven’t noticed, those days are gone. “Singles ministry” is dead in the vast majority of churches, except for megachurches.
Thank God those days are gone because singles’ ministries almost always sacralize and idolize marriage as the ultimate and best expression of being a good Christian. This is unbiblical and harmful. Being single should not be the primary identifying characteristic of anyone at church.
What would you have done if you were one of the 10 people seated at the main table at the dinner party my friend suffered through? Would you have seen the problem? Would you have shown hospitality?
Now take that same idea and apply it to your church. If you’re part of a couple, have you ever given a single thought to what others experience in your fellowship? You should because statistically, at least half of those who are couples today will become singles at some point in the future.
How will you set the table?
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of five books, including Honestly: Telling the Truth about the Bible and Ourselves.
Related articles:
Life lessons from being a single person at church | Opinion by Eli Withers
Being single isn’t a sin | Opinion by Maddie Rarick
Has growth of unpartnered adults in US hit a wall?