Joe Carter on "How the Shortage of Young Men in Churches Affects Marriage"

I sense there might be a calling to start a new area/inter-church ministry in this article for someone in our church. You can read some highlights below. For the entire article go here.

“American churches don’t just have a deficit of men—they have a shortage of unmarried young men. This trend makes it harder for young women to find mates who are spiritually compatible.”

Some congregations, Stone notes, are constrained by sex ratios while most are simply constrained by economies of scale. Churches, especially smaller churches, could work together to find creative ways for young people to find like-minded partners. One way would be to host special joint singles events with other gospel-centered local churches.”

“We must also find ways to ensure that young men are brought into the church and discipled in such a way that they have a biblical view of sexual ethics.”

“Over the past decade, churches in America have begun to better recognize and appreciate that many Christians are called to singleness. But we must not overlook that marriage remains the cultural norm (by age 45, 81 percent of men and 86 percent of women have married at least once). If we want spiritually healthy Christian families in our churches, we should do more to help create the pool of marriageable disciples that make such families possible.”

Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash