Stop the madness...

Captain Sensible writes: The times they are a-changing... but not soon enough for the single women who are still erroneously being advised to "wait on the Lord" for a husband!
Nooooo!!!
This is so wrong, and I pray that every woman who has been badly advised like this will find this blog and that God will feed the truth into their hungry mouths.
In a nutshell, there are not enough men in church circles for all the single women (and even the few that there are, are also being badly advised to "wait on the Lord" for a wife, so that they are dissuaded from being proactive. You really couldn't make it up).
Add to that the fact that the male/female ratio gets worse with age (eg. at the age of 40, there are 4 times as many women in the church as there are men) and you have the biological clock to add into the mix, it simply beggars belief that anyone would think advising a woman to "wait" was a good idea!
Ladies, get out into the world and marry a Godly man before it's too late for you to have a family of your own. You are not being sinful, as many in the church will tell you. Remember, the Bible says Christians should not be yoked with unbelievers. So be very careful about labelling a man as "not a Christian" and disregarding him as a potential husband, just because he may be put off by the idea of "church", associating it in his head with elderly ladies, homophobes and misogynists (or worse).
And please pass the word of this blog around to your single female friends too, and together let's stop the madness!

The Gift of Singleness is... Dead, Dead, DEAD!!!

Captain Sensible writes: The words "He has triumphed victoriously" are spinning around in my head. And it's true. We are privileged to be part of a triumphant victory! The gift of singleness is well and truly dead, folks.
So grab a shovel and let's all help bury it!
Here are two shovels I can suggest:
Shovel One: Buy Debbie Maken's book, "Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness". Read it, and encourage your friends to read it too. God's truths contained in it have the power to change your life, if you let it.
Shovel Two: Challenge your church leader about the lack of outreach to men. What's their excuse for only running ministries for women and children?
And of course as these two shovels dig away, single women will in the meantime be marrying the Godly, believing men that "the church" has chosen to ignore.
I am in a victorious mood tonight! Join with me and be glad, won't you?

THE GIFT OF SINGLENESS IS DEAD!!!

Captain Sensible writes: Well, actually, I'll leave it to Gortexgrrl, rather than "Captain Sensible", to write:

BREAKING NEWS -----

THE GIFT OF SINGLENESS IS DEAD!

After months of campaigning to have it removed from the remaining modern Bibles where it still occupies a place in 1 Cor 7:7, IT HAS FINALLY BEEN REMOVED FROM THE NEW LIVING TRANSLATION.

Check the online version for yourselves here.

Dr. Eugene Peterson at The Messsage has also agreed to do the same.

This is a tremendous victory, folks. Now the next task is to get the NLT to have the word "better" ("to remain as you are") changed to "good" in 1 Cor 7:8 (as it is written in most Bibles). Also, there are still some problems with The Message's version of Matthew 19:10-12. But for now, let's savour this moment and express thanks!

"I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea"

Debbie Maken: The tide is turning!

Captain Sensible writes: Since the publication of Debbie Maken's "Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the gift of singleness", the contemporary church's attitude towards singleness and marriage has indeed been rethought.
Errors that have quietly slipped in over the past 30 years have been revealed for what they are, and single men and women are rebelling against the false teaching about there being a "gift of singleness" and that singles should just "wait on the Lord" and are instead...getting serious about getting married.
Just two examples can be found here on Debbie's blog, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Darkness disappears as soon as light is shed on it, so I have faith that this false teaching will soon be eradicated completely.
Then single Christian men and women will be the joyful brides and bridegrooms that are synonymous with happiness, fruitfulness and blessing throughout the Bible.

Families are "the cells which make up the body of society", according to senior UK judge

Captain Sensible writes: The front page of today's Daily Mail reports that Sir Paul Coleridge, the judge in charge of family courts across south-west England, will give a speech to family lawyers, describing family breakdown as a "cancer" behind almost every evil affecting the country. He warns that the collapse of the family unit is a threat to the nation that is as bad as "terrorism, street crime or drugs".
The 58-year-old judge, who has himself been married for 35 years and has two sons and a daughter, will say that: "Families are the cells which make up the body of society. If the cells are unhealthy or undernourished, or at worse cancerous and growing haphazard and out of control, in the end the body succumbs."
God's plan for humanity (otherwise known as the Creation Mandate: to marry, to have children, to work) seems to be increasingly acknowledged as the best way for society to function by various prominent figures and media commentators outside of the church.
But I wonder how the Body of Christ can be healthy and nourished if we ourselves continue to ignore God's commands, and instead extol the virtues of singleness and childlessness as a valid alternative lifestyle choice for men? (I say men, because this is almost never a choice made by women.)
Perhaps one example of the "haphazard" side effects of this cancer in the world, are the steps women are now being forced to take, if they do not wish to remain childless throughout life.
According to an article in the April issue of Red magazine ("Do dads have a sell-by date?"), the number of single women having IVF treatment has increased 2.5 times between the years 2000 and 2005. (Source: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) And these figures do not include the women who have the less costly, and less invasive IUI treatment.
The article goes on to state that at the Donor Conception Network (DCN), which supports the parents of donor-conceived children, a quarter of their 1,100 members are single women.
Olivia Montuschi of the DCN is quoted as saying: "I would say that 99.9% of so-called single mothers by choice, would have preferred to have the child in a relationship, but that is not how life has worked out for them. A number have been with long-term partners who wouldn't commit to having a child, so they've gone ahead on their own."
This post is not about the ethics of such treatment. Nor is it about the tragedy of so many children growing up without fathers - even when the conception is arrived at naturally - due to relationship breakdown, married or otherwise.
Rather it is about the dire effects of ignoring the marriage part of the creation mandate, whilst at the same time enabling men to have premarital sex (or if they are church-goers, probably primarily pornography), with no encouragement to find and commit to one woman and raise their own family.
We cannot impose our beliefs on society, but we can, and must, be salt and light.
As such, we need to stop kidding ourselves that single Christian men in their 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond are "gifted with the self control to remain celibate and that's wonderful, even though your lifestyle is actually no different to men that are able to accommodate a wife and family, in fact probably it is a lot worse".
But rather face the awkward fact that they are more likely gifted with an internet connection, which makes them to varying degrees addicted to pornography, warping their God-given sex drive, and so disincentivising them to find a wife, in a not dissimilar fashion to men in the world that are having regular sex.
If our church leaders can tear themselves away from overseeing a busy schedule of women's and children's ministries, they really should be focusing on the evils of pornography addiction for single men, before such a time that a stronghold sets in.
And again, I have to encourage single Christian women to look outside of church circles for a believing man to marry and have children with, before they get to the stage where a) they are in a desperate hurry due to God's design of the biological clock, and b) all the best of the men in the world are already snapped-up by women that were not badly advised to "wait" and "wait", for something that God has already told us to get on and do.

Marriage rates lowest since records began nearly 150 years ago

Captain Sensible writes: Amazing, isn't it? There has been blanket coverage in the UK about this, but to quote from just one (see link below): "The proportion of men and women getting married is below any level found since figures were first kept nearly 150 years ago. And the number of weddings held in 2006 was the smallest since 1895, when the population was little more than half its present level."
The article goes on to say that: "The evidence that marriage is withering away at an increasing pace was met with a furious response", with one researcher describing it as a "disaster" for society.
Even during the world wars, marriage rates were higher than they are now.
So we would assume that the church would be the leading light in defending marriage, right? Especially because even out of the few marriages that are occurring, two-thirds them are civil ceremonies!
Apparently not. Instead, the latest crackpot theory is that singleness is a gift because it causes suffering (God's gifts cause suffering now, in case you didn't know!), and that disciplines us, and so brings God glory.
You really couldn't make it up.
Thank God that there are people outside of the church that are willing to defend marriage.

Daily Mail article.

Recipe for success in business: Get married!

Captain Sensible writes: The owner of ghd ("good hair day") hair products, Martin Penny -- whose company last year clocked up £120 million in sales and made a £26 million profit -- met his wife on a tennis court, was engaged three weeks later, and has now been married for nearly 29 years.
It is this "stability" that Penny thinks has been "vital" in his success as a businessman, according to an article in the Saturday Times magazine last week.

Saturday Times article (The relevant passage is seven paras down.)