Some people discourage dating in church because they feel it shifts the focus of people in church away from God and onto more earthly pursuits. There can be some truth to this idea, but dating within your congregation can also be a great way to meet someone who shares your values and beliefs. The key to avoiding distractions while maximizing your romantic prospects is to make sure that you keep your spiritual activities and your love life from intermingling too much. Here is how to go about finding the one in church without forgetting God.
Make Dates Separate
If you want to keep church from accidentally becoming all about your love life, keep your love life out of church. That means, when you are in church, consider standing or sitting away from the person you are interested in. This will keep you from spending the entire time whispering to each other. Do things that focus on your faith for faith-based reasons. Do not make Bible study a date. Instead, make Bible study about Bible study. Then, go on your date to a movie or dinner after Bible study is over. Resist the urge to use church events and activities as dates. This ties your love life directly to the time and activities that should be used for Christian fellowship. Instead, make sure when you go on dates, you are all about your date. Then, when you are at church, be all about God.
Join Things For God
You will meet the person of your dreams when you are meant to meet them and not a single second earlier. It does not matter how many social events you go to or how many online profiles you create. You cannot force God to act faster than He wills. As such, join things at your church for faith and fellowship reasons, not because they give you an opportunity to potentially meet the one. Take part in a small group because you want to do more in depth study of Scripture or do more faith sharing with people of similar age. Do not join because a small group offers you a way to get to know a few more people intimately.
If you are feeling starved socially, join social committees at church. Rather than looking for the one at Bible study or music ministry, join the event planning committee. You will still need to be focused on doing your job, but when you are working on events that are explicitly for social purposes, you will not be hurting your faith by looking for the one.
Take Advantage of Strictly Social Activities
Most churches have activities and events that are meant to be purely social. These activities are often things like picnics, potlucks and pancake dinners that were created purely to help different members of the church congregation get to know each other. There is little to no faith component beyond the fact that such gatherings are often held at the church. If you want to meet the one at church, these are great ways to go searching. The lack of a serious faith component means that you do not have to feel like you are dividing your focus between God and more earthly interests. Instead, you are using the social activity in exactly the way it was meant to be used. You are getting to know other members of the church. True, you might be weighing the romantic potential of everyone you meet, but in order to do that you have to spend some time talking with your potential queen or Prince Charming. So, attend a wide variety of the social activities and get to know members of your congregation. From there, you can start sorting out who are potential friends and who are candidates to be the one.
Trust God’s Timing
You may be absolutely desperate to find the one for you, but if God has decided you need to wait, you are going to be waiting. If you think you have several years before you cross paths with the one but God decides you are going to meet them tomorrow, you are going to run into them tomorrow. There is nothing anyone can do to change God’s timing. On that front, it will be what it will be. Your best bet is simply to put yourself in as many situations as possible so that there are many different avenues God could use to lead you to the one. If it does not happen immediately, however, do not be frustrated or disappointed. God has a plan for you, and it might not be time for you to meet the one quite yet. If that is the case, you are going to simply have to grin and bear it until it is time. Continue to follow God’s call, even if it takes you away from where you think you will meet the one. For all you know, God might call you to become a missionary, and it is on a mission trip that you will meet the one. God’s timing and methods are mysterious, but you need to trust Him to work in your love life just as you do with every other aspect of your life.
Church should be first and foremost about God. That is His house. He is why you are there. That said, there is nothing wrong with attempting to find your future spouse among the members of your congregation. You simply have to make sure that you keep your romantic interests separate from your spiritual interests. Go on dates outside of church and be sure to keep your mind focused on God when you are doing things that are meant to be about faith. Then, embrace the social times with a joyful heart and pray that God decides it is time for you to meet the one.
