A Call to Action
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...
~Henry V, 3.1.1
Our friends and sisters and brothers on the Gift of Singleness blog, linked on the sidebar (http://thegiftofsingleness.blogspot.com), have put in a Call to Prayer beginning tomorrow, Sunday, May 20, concerning the singleness crisis sweeping the Western church.
Check out the posts for suggestions on prayer focus. They're asking for everyone to put in one solid hour tomorrow, and for Christians all over the world to begin stepping up 24 hours of prayer, 7 days a week.
We know that a lot of times singleness isn't fun, or has a lot of crazy and often hilarious dating stories associated with it; but there are a lot of serious issues connected with it too, which we've all talked about before, and which affect more than just us as individuals. Whether we're in relationships or not, married or not, there are a lot of people in the church getting older and not getting married, and this poses some grave concerns for the church as a whole. The Gift of Singleness blog (lovely British tongue-in-cheek title) addresses the issues very well, basing a lot of their posts on Debbie Maken's Getting Serious about Getting Married, an excellent book which Marianne has reviewed on FabFemales before.
This is a perfect opportunity for us to gather together across time zones and space and join as believers in prayer to our sovereign Father -- to intervene for us, the suffering singles; to bring more men back into the church; to ease the hurt of the young and not-so-young women who, as a result of being told that singleness is God's will for them, when their deepest desire is for family, are angry with God; to reunify the body of Christ; to work on the church to return to a biblical understanding of the necessity of marriage and family, and stop preaching the "gift of singleness" to a hungry, lonely, and largely complacent generation; and to show us how to direct our action to affect change.
And hey, even if you think all of this is melodramatic, or wrong, an hour of prayer is still a rockin' good idea.
Check out the blog.
~Henry V, 3.1.1
Our friends and sisters and brothers on the Gift of Singleness blog, linked on the sidebar (http://thegiftofsingleness.blogspot.com), have put in a Call to Prayer beginning tomorrow, Sunday, May 20, concerning the singleness crisis sweeping the Western church.
Check out the posts for suggestions on prayer focus. They're asking for everyone to put in one solid hour tomorrow, and for Christians all over the world to begin stepping up 24 hours of prayer, 7 days a week.
We know that a lot of times singleness isn't fun, or has a lot of crazy and often hilarious dating stories associated with it; but there are a lot of serious issues connected with it too, which we've all talked about before, and which affect more than just us as individuals. Whether we're in relationships or not, married or not, there are a lot of people in the church getting older and not getting married, and this poses some grave concerns for the church as a whole. The Gift of Singleness blog (lovely British tongue-in-cheek title) addresses the issues very well, basing a lot of their posts on Debbie Maken's Getting Serious about Getting Married, an excellent book which Marianne has reviewed on FabFemales before.
This is a perfect opportunity for us to gather together across time zones and space and join as believers in prayer to our sovereign Father -- to intervene for us, the suffering singles; to bring more men back into the church; to ease the hurt of the young and not-so-young women who, as a result of being told that singleness is God's will for them, when their deepest desire is for family, are angry with God; to reunify the body of Christ; to work on the church to return to a biblical understanding of the necessity of marriage and family, and stop preaching the "gift of singleness" to a hungry, lonely, and largely complacent generation; and to show us how to direct our action to affect change.
And hey, even if you think all of this is melodramatic, or wrong, an hour of prayer is still a rockin' good idea.
Check out the blog.
posted by The Prufroquette @ 9:57 AM
4 Comments:
At 4:03 PM, May 19, 2007,
David said…
So, uh...which is it then?
A gift or a crisis?
Man am I tired of being treated like I'm diseased because God hasn't chosen to bless me with what He has chosen to bless others with.
I'm no saint, but I'm beginning to identify with Job.
At 4:11 PM, May 19, 2007,
David said…
I read the post a little too quick, hence my first question...now I get it.
I guess we can all blame Josh Harris for this.
But I still stand by what I said above.
And I'm generally of the opinion that the church has no one to blame for this so-called "crisis" but itself. First we demonize dating and relegate the topic of sex to all but unmentionable, then we start freaking out when people don't actually get around to seeking out relationship with the opposite sex until they're far removed from the household.
Its not the single people that need to change so much as the rest of the church at large.
At 7:08 PM, May 19, 2007,
The Prufroquette said…
Well, exactly...but they're not going to unless the single people cry out with one voice.
Because the frustrating, infuriating and frightening thing is, the church largely doesn't seem to recognize the singleness crisis as a crisis. Just some sort of puzzling phase.
Change has to happen. And it has to start with prayer.
So this isn't a prayer so much for us the singles to change, but much more for God to change the church, and to show us how to help make it happen.
At 7:12 PM, May 19, 2007,
The Prufroquette said…
Oh yeah, and this whole singleness crisis is absolutely a monster of the church's own creation. Hence their blindness, and hence the need for some kind of action. And it's looking like the single folks have to start it.
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