This topic has come up SO MANY TIMES this year, that it's no longer funny.
Ian G, who is an excellent preacher from my church up north preached a pretty good sermon on singlehood. And it was particularly good to hear it from him, who remained single for a great part of his adult life before being married, so he knows what he's talking about.
I enjoyed his introduction very much:
Well, this morning’s sermon subject is: being single. And I want to say straight off that this is a sermon for the married - for two reasons. One is that, unless the Lord Jesus returns first, death will make 50% of us married single again. So it’s not a past issue for any of us. The other reason is that we who are married need to understand and support and honour the singles in our church family. I’ve heard many a sermon on supporting and honouring marriage; hardly any on supporting and honouring the single. And yet the Bible chapter we’ll look at this morning honours singleness in some ways above marriage.
In my current church, there are plenty of young, single, good and God-fearing men and women. And it really is a wonder that so many of us aren't attached. What I appreciate more than anything is that so many of them put the seeking of God's glory and kingdom above seeking for a partner.
But this means we all get a lot of flack from the older, married couples (who got hitched rather early in their lives).
And with May and Mark's wedding, it feels as if their prayers for more weddings has increased by a notch. Some of the comments I got during the wedding:
"If you look at it this way, everyone's happy to contribute to a wedding right now which reduces the cost of having one. But after a while, when more and more weddings start to happen, everyone's going to get tired out from helping. So you have the economic reasons of having one now." Paul M
"This is ridiculous, we have so many single people at church. You know what we need? We need the gift of match-making!" David B
"We just want you to be happy that's why we want you to be married..." David B
And in response to that statement, the golden statement of all...
"Actually, we just want you to go through some of the suffering we've gone through." Janet S