Reflection on Belonging Conference by Liz our Church Engagement Officer
We’ve come a long way from our early beginnings as a small initiative in 2014 through to launching ourselves as a charity in 2023. So having our first conference this week, on Saturday 26th September in London, as part of our first ever Single Friendly Church Week, was such a blessing and something to give thanks to God for.
Across these 12 years we’ve met so many single Christians and church leaders, who have been overwhelmingly positive about our campaign and the importance of equipping churches to welcome, include and value single people. What we hadn't done was organise our own conference and what an absolute privilege it was.
What was special about Belonging Conference?
As I was praying before the conference, I was reminded of the fact that all of the people we've spoken to over the years have had very different starting points with how they feel or have felt about singleness, just like how all the different churches we have worked with have had very different starting points in their single friendliness.
What was special about the Belonging was that we had people of all different ages and stages of singleness who were from churches from all the stages on the journey of being truly single friendly.
Across the years the charity has met thousands of Christians and worked with hundreds of churches about helping them make small changes. We have been creating specialised and seasonal resources, written blogs, been to many events, hosted lots of training sessions, and created a 5 Step process for churches to engage with. These have all been fantastic and still as useful as always, but for 2026 it felt so right to be able to engage with so many people from across the spectrum of churches in one day, in person, at an event just about singleness - a real milestone moment!
How did the day unfold?
We tried to role model putting on a single friendly event by making sure that anyone could attend the conference on their own and still feel welcome. We also purposely planned the day that would suit people's different needs, giving people choice about whether they wanted to listen, talk or reflect at different points across the day. All of the talks, panels and workshops went as planned but what was extra special were the conversations between the events where people could meet new people, digest their thoughts and engage in dialogue you just do not get online and over email.
““Thank you for a great day! Everything went really well, was well organised, and there was great exploration of the themes. Thank you again for inviting me to speak.” ”
What did we learn?
We had three speeches – the first from our Director, Sorcha Connell called Jesus Was Single reflecting on the need for Single Friendly Church Network and the theology of singleness.
Our Founder, Jackie Elton shared about the history of the charity so that those who attended and were new to our charity can understand how this God inspired movement started and how it has evolved. Do listen to her podcast on this too!
One of our Trustees, Kate Wharton, author of 'Single Minded: Being single and whole and living life to the full", spoke about the importance of single friendliness and mission.
There were two panels during the day – one hearing about different single people’s experiences of church and one hearing from people from churches who have used our resources and how this has positively impacted their welcome and sense of community.
We also chatted to so many different people and were encouraged to see everyone talking to each other and sharing stories of their experiences in our workshops and during the breaks.
“The whole day was so thoughtfully put together and sparked some great conversations as well as giving real food for thought. Also thought the opportunity to chat with people across different denominations was invaluable and my friend and I came away feeling really inspired and encouraged - along with some great ideas around what other churches are doing.”
What did I learn from a church engagement point of view?
From this conference and our creation of a temporary community, just for a day, I was reminded how deeply our work resonates with people and how much churches have in common despite being different sizes and denominations.
We’ve been so excited to introduce our supporters to a fresh take on our work through Single Friendly Church Week, a chance to celebrate single friendliness across the UK, a reason to take a small step to a warmer welcome or a focused time to reflect on how families come in all shapes and sizes, it was just wonderful to learn how that could play out in microcosm at the conference.
The thing I came away with was how much people seemed to value being in one space and how much solidarity was in the room. The power of this was palpable.
As a team, we would like to once again thank everyone for coming and engaging so well with the day. You made this happen. We are so grateful.
