“I Am Ashamed About Where Kristie and I Met”

Yes, l know : in the church — how dorky of you! [Never disclose this shamefully pathetic detail to anyone: they might think you're like a geek or somethin'... -- and we wouldn't want them to think that, now, would we? ]

My wife and I met at church, but neither one of us had come looking for someone. In fact we had gone to the same church for many years without really knowing eachother. It was within the context of a special class that some of us had set up that we came to know eachother better. We were good friends for a long time before I realised that I was in love with her. I had basically given up actively looking, and she had no intention of getting married again (she was widowed). Our marriage has been good, not problem-free.

If you go into things thinking “I want to find someone here” it sets up a sort of mindset that sometimes results in making bad decisions. For one thing, you aren’t focusing on the purpose of the “thing”. I would advise anyone who is single and lonely to “give up” looking. Pray to God to help you find someone and make wise decisions. Turn it over to him and then get on with having the best fullest life you can. If you are meant to marry, then the “right” person *will* come along. Fill your life with doing good things, like volunteer work. Only within the context of doing what you are and are meant to be, are you likely to find someone who is good for you.

One more thing: don’t rush into anything. That exciting feeling of being in love is probably the worst state to make wise decisions in. Get to know someone over a longish period of time, some time for the ardour to cool a bit so you can be a bit more objective. In my opinion, not less than a year.

I met my wife at college. I was a foul mouthed , average looking, nice guy. I took her to worldly events , she took me to church!

Two years later , I’m saved, I’m married, Our relationship hasn’t always been loving and easy….but it has been lasting( 30 years) and meaningful. Our relationship in the Lord has cemented us and he has blessed us tremendously.

I don’t think it was all pre-planned by God, I believe our purpose here on earth remains intact whomever I should marry. That is not to say that I don’t thank him for her each day but rather that she was fulfiling our purpose of showing God’s love and our sinful nature and the way of salvation.

I was at a large church for a number of years that started a singles’ ministry. The pastor explained that some people had expressed concern that the ministry would become a meatmarket and he joked, “You should hope it’s a meat market if you’re ever going to get married.” His kick-off for the ministry was a lengthy discourse on the evils of modern dating and the viability of courtship and an explanation that he and his wife did nothing of the sort when they met and became involved (use that phrase in the broadest inadvisable sense). He conceded he was a hypocrite for espousing a system of ethics he not only never lived out himself but did the opposite of.

The ministry eventually foundered, the pastor unceremoniously backpedaled on the efficacy of courtship by saying that dating might actually not be so bad, and a person who observed the ministry from its inception once shared with me that he observed that the problem the ministry had was that it was about checklists and hoops to jump through to get married. There was actually nothing about seeking Christ regardless of getting married or not and it stands, in my estimation, as one of the greatest failures in the ministry of that pastor.

I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to have singles’ ministries but it does often come across as though the ministries can exist so that people can tell singles they’re being selfish for being single as though selfishness somehow goes away in marriage.

CMP
You’re forgetting the big I as a mechanism to find other singles.. and with that I mean the internet.

It’s a huge “virtual bar” basically and the same caution is definitely advised.

And yes, I have trouble admitting it, but it’s how my wife and I met and it wasn’t pretty and there’s been consequences and we’re having our 11th anniversary this coming weekend Just like if we would have met in any meat market of any other sort

Mick

I’ve always been totally opposed to “singles ministry”. It seems to attract a certain personality type. The “singles ministry” where I go to church attracts social misfits and closet homosexuals. Any normal
human being wouldn’t be caught dead at a “singles ministry event”.
Live your life and let it happen normally. You need to find your own path to matrimony and not through a “Christianized” form of it.
Michael you are much better off having found your spouse through
a normal event and a normal place.

Just be normal and attend normal events and it will freaking happen!!!

Church should totally cancel any and all singles ministries. Singles ministries are unhealthy!!!
End of discussion!

“Hey, before I get drunk, I want to tell you that I love you.”
Awesome.

I met Debbie playing pool at at Georgia Tech in 1974. I wasn’t a Christian, but she was – in fact, she was with Campus Crusade at the time. Thank God she was having fun at such a “secular” activity …. and was even willing to go out with an unbeliever. She led me to the Lord within two months and we married 10 months later.

And we’ve been married 35 wonderful years.

But I’m looking for a Presbyterian girl, not a Baptist, so the bar’s a good place to look!

Kathy and I met at a sports bar as well. We’re not ashamed… we actually laugh about it because it’s nothing like who we are now (and we’ve been married 25 years). It was all part of our spiritual growth. Back then it was a social norm. Now, our social norm is changing lives for the Lord.