This subject matter deserves all kinds of reflection and discussion (which is why it’s taken me a week to even make a draft of this post…), but in the interest of trying to say something rather than nothing, here’s a little recap of our conversation at Trinity last week, some passages we considered, and a video to stir into the mix as well.
Thinking about singleness and marriage brought up discussion about divorce, loneliness, cultural perceptions and expectations about marriage, singleness, and divorce, and concerns about intimate relationships in the church community.
Our conversation about loneliness considered technology’s impact on our culture, especially our close, or intimate, relationships; this video supplements the discussion we had very well.
With respect to marriage and divorce, we talked about the sacramental commitment made during a wedding service, and how little this covenant is discussed and emphasized in our culture–perhaps taking marriage less seriously than we ought is part of the reason for our divorce rate (though, we noted quickly, the covenant takes two people, and sometimes one is much more commitment to the sacrament than the other, and also that because we are imperfect humans, we can and do hurt each other beyond the point of relational repair sometimes, which causes divorce too). (a sermon from last year on the subject)
Finally, and perhaps most fruitfully, we talked about how counter-cultural the church is and ought to be with respect to community. Our blood relations aren’t our be-all, end-all “tribe” if we are Christians; our brothers and sisters in baptism are our family. They are just as important as any person who happens to share our genes–it’s a truth that tended to mean a lot to those of us at the event who either didn’t have much family left, or didn’t have family nearby.
In sum…
We wondered:
How does being a Christian affect your life as a single person or as a married person?
How is the church counter-cultural when it comes to community?
What are we made for, as humans?
We looked at:
(what do YOU think?)
hope of things not seen 