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Welcome to SAM's Lambs -
A Single
Adult Ministry |
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Religion and Spirituality:
by Betty Van Volkenburg In 2002 I attended my first Solo Flight Labor Day weekend
conference and the theme ‘Soaring to Wider Perspectives’ was more than compatible with
I had often lamented the lack of singles-friendly activities and attitudes in churches I attended but I didn’t know quite what to do about it. Struggling against established traditions and behaviors is a daunting challenge that would discourage anyone from attempting it, - alone. I persisted in attending church and fellowship functions for my family’s sake, even though I did not always feel particularly welcome or included as a single parent. Besides our minister of my current church, my family and/or I have been invited by only 1 family, to do anything with another family. This kind of exclusion is part of what causes singles, the other 50% of the population, to be church drop-outs. It makes you wonder just what is ‘Christian fellowship’ anyway. Until I joined my current church - the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster NY, I received more Christian fellowship and love in the secular singles organizations I attended or founded than I ever received from the church I was attending. Changing the prevailing attitudes from singles-excluding to singles-including may be a challenging, slow process, but if a religion can move on to having not only women priests, but women bishops, as the Episcopal church has, then it can move on to an awareness of the exclusion of singles, and be able turn that situation around as well. With all Churches’ concern over declining attendance and declining budgets, that 50% of the population, with its disposable income, should not be something that the Church hierarchy would want to ignore. During my years of facilitating single support groups it was apparent that there were many singles who needed and wanted to be part of their church but had detached because they did not feel that they had value as a single person without a family, or they were not included because they were a divorced single whose intentions toward spouses was not trusted, or they were a single parent whose "supervisory" skills were in question just because they were divorced. Armed with information and support from the Solo Flight conference, I am working with my pastor, the Rev. Lance Robbins, at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster NY, to learn how to open our doors and arms to like minded singles who want to nurture their spirituality and participate wholly in church life, from worship, to education, to fellowship. We will also be working on making our church community aware of the excluding practices, unintentional and unknowingly may they be, so that we may change those behaviors to inclusive behavior. The ultimate goal would be to achieve results that would make a "Singles" Ministry unnecessary, because all individuals were allowed to develop their full potential in Christ’s love. God Bless and God Speed -
Betty Van Volkenburg Browse through some past articles from our magazine:
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