Single Voices in Church - Your Experiences
Since we became a charity in 2023, Single Friendly Church has met hundreds of Christians from a breadth of denominations, who share their experiences of being single in their community, the positives and challenges, and how churches are already doing some fantastic work and where they could improve. Start with our short reel interviews below on YouTube.
“Being Gen Z, the most single generation at the minute, singleness is an all-time high, relationship is an all-time low. This is for a plethora of reasons, but there's an expectation in the church, it can seem like a judgement on your morality or on how you are as a person. There’s a lot of pressure where a lot of people can get married and settle down very young and have families, and that's the norm that's what you're meant to do…. [but being someone who's not just going to settle down for anybody, I'd like to think I have more standards for who I would like to find in a partner.
it can be very stressful. I'm very lucky that I have a really good house group and really good community, and that even though a few members have got married recently and sort of moved on, we have really strong friendships and the community keeps going and we still keep being in contact. There’s not a lot of pressure in my in my individual circles where I am, so I think I’m very lucky.
I think alleviating pressure can be really helpful - if younger people aren't maybe wanting to get into relationships or do those sorts of things, not just going ‘oh well you'll want to eventually’ or you'll find it eventually’ or ‘there's somebody out there for you’ - just accepting that singleness can be OK, and that people can be whole in themselves and not have to have a relationship”.