Singles struggle to fit in at church

Tina Barta and many of her evangelical peers do not like the terms “single” or “singleness.”

In church and in society, single implies a person who is not whole, not complete, they say.

“That’s such an awful way to look at it,” says Barta, 27, who believes fulfilling her spiritual destiny is not dependent on meeting a man.

“I am in a relationship with Christ,” she says. “Yes, I’m single, but I’m pursuing Christ, and he’s pursuing me.”

Barta and her friends at the “Sevenoseven” young adult ministry at Cuyahoga Valley Community Church in suburban Cleveland are not alone.

They are part of a demographic – men and women of childbearing age without children – that nearly doubled in 24 years, from 10 percent of the population in 1976 to 19 percent in 2000.

This generation has not abandoned organized religion, according to a new national study of 8,450 young adults by Michelle Fugate, then a sociologist at Loyola University in Chicago.

In Catholic churches, childless young adults attend Mass at nearly identical levels as young parents. Within Protestant churches, parents on average report attending services more than twice a month; childless young adults attend just less than twice a month.

What childless young adults struggle to find, however, are spiritual homes where they feel accepted and included. They don’t want to be harassed about their status in houses of worship that often emphasize families with children as the norm.

“Fitting in” is important to childless young adults, Fugate found. They don’t want a childless ministry, she said. They want to serve in different roles in the church, and they want congregants to understand each individual has a vocation.

What drove some people away from churches, Fugate said, was the way women in particular were grilled about their childless status.

One childless woman told Fugate that a pastor actually asked her, “What’s wrong with you?”

In a conversation before a recent Sevenoseven service, six young women said the study’s results reflected many of their experiences.

Barta, whose father is a pastor, grew up in a smaller church where she “did feel a definite pressure” to marry and begin a family at an early age.

But since graduating from college and becoming involved with the Sevenoseven ministry, Barta says she has felt freer “to pursue my relationship with Christ and not my relationship with a guy.”

Jessica Harnegie, 27, said many singles in family-oriented churches find themselves wondering, “Where do I fit in? I have nowhere to go.”

She said churches should recognize the growing generation of people in their 20s and 30s who are childless, and welcome these people into ministries from readers to Sunday school teachers to leaders of Bible study groups and mission projects.

Being single “doesn’t mean we’re lepers,” she said. “Single women still need that affirmation.”

Many singles and childless couples gravitate toward larger churches, which offer a range of adult ministries and a less homogenous population where young adults without children feel more comfortable.

Ministries such as Sevenoseven, which offers contemporary services and small groups for young adults, also are attractive. Here, young adults are the norm.

“God wants us to be relational, not just with men but with everything,” said Melissa Smith, 24. “Female relationships build character and purpose.”

The women said they would like to find the right husband and have a family, but they also recognize “just being what God created you to be is all you need to be,” Smith said.

Sister Margaret Mach, the director of evangelization for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, said reaching out to young adults, especially those without families, is a major concern.

She said church leaders must invite young people to participate in all types of parish ministry, including such visible roles as lectors and Eucharistic ministers.

Young adults – with and without children – have the same spiritual needs, says Sister Denise Marie Vina, who ministers with young adults at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Parma, Ohio.

“One of the things we must have as a parish is that we are welcoming to all ages and vocations, whether married or single,” she says. “What are the gifts that they bring – and what can we do nurture to those gifts?”

In other words, churches should think in terms of integration, not segregation, Barta says.

“It’s not a singles ministry and a couples ministry,” she says. “It’s the body of Christ. We are one.”