I had a slightly surreal experience a few weeks ago. I was contacted by Songs of Praise. They were in the process of putting together a programme on singleness and, having googled “Christians and singleness”, came across an article that I wrote on the subject for Grace magazine ten years ago. I was interviewed over the phone to see whether my contribution would be useful for the broadcast. Sadly- or quite probably mercifully- they decided that I wasn’t what they were looking for. They went for Ann Widdecombe instead. Fair enough.

To be honest I had forgotten about the Grace article. I put some thoughts together on singleness more recently (and I hope more coherently) for a talk at Myton Church. Having just engaged with the question of marriage as a church I thought this was an appropriate time to write up the notes from my singleness talk. I had three points and I’ll post each point separately over the next few days followed by a review of a book on singleness that I am hoping to read this week.

The point I want to make initially though is that this is an issue that impacts us all in different ways. My Songs of Praise interview brought this home to me. “How did you become single?” I was asked. “Erm…I was born,” I replied. (You can see why they went for Ann…) However, the point the interviewer was making was that many people are single because of divorce or death. Each circumstance will bring its own challenges.

But this isn’t an issue simply for those who are single. The sad reality of death in a fallen world means that half of those who are married will face singleness again. However, it is more than that. Leaving aside my talk, I found the service at Myton to be very helpful and well put together. There was an interview with a couple of single people who shared how the church had helped them as single people and had hindered them (attempts at matchmaking being a particular irritant!) We sat around tables for the service with the instruction being given there should be a married couple and a single person at each table. We discussed the question- “How can we help each other in our different situations?” It was a fine example of what church family should look like. As we will see in the coming days singleness and marriage both provide challenges and it is right for us to support each other in that. My hope is that these posts will help us in that.

So feel free to check out the blog in the next few days- and see what the nation missed out on…