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Transcript
4 clock ticks
“It’s past time to broaden the narrative” (said by Sequana Murray)
Intro Music
Introduction: Hello and welcome to another episode of Broadening the Narrative. This is a podcast where I talk to some of my favorite people who have broadened the narrative for me. I'm your host, Nicki Pappas, and I'm so glad you're here.
Transition Music
First Segment
Nicki: On today's episode, I am joined by my dear friends Christine Allen, Danielle Bolin, Ruth Fujino, and Kari Helton. I will mostly be listening as they discuss singleness in the evangelical Christian Church. This is part 1 of our discussion, and part 2 will be available next week. In the beginning, I want to acknowledge that the women on this call cannot speak for all single people. All four women are cishet, 3 are white, and all have never been married. The experiences and perspectives of numerous single people in the church are missing from this exchange, including but not limited to Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander People of Color, single parents, those who are divorced, those who have lost a partner, and Christians who are LGBTQIA+, non-binary, and gender non-conforming. I also want to say that the women on this call are four of my favorite people because of the ways they have courageously led me into vulnerability as they have been vulnerable with me. The friendship of each of these women is such a gift, and I can’t wait for you to hear their conversation.
Light Transition Music
Nicki: So let’s jump in. Can you each introduce yourself and tell a little about yourself and your background?
Danielle: Hello. My name’s Danielle. I’m 31. In honor of who’s on this call, I’m going to tell my Enneagram number. I’m a 2 wing 1. I was born in South Carolina. I still live here. I went to college at Liberty University and majored in Religion. I thought I’d give you some context for some of the things I talk about. I’m currently working at a church. In fact, all of my professional experience has been in ministry. In my free time, I really just want to drink coffee, read, and/or watch Netflix. I’m currently journeying through deconstruction, hopefully will be in reconstruction soon, and as a white female, I want to acknowledge that I’m coming to this conversation with a bit of privilege in even how I relate to the topic of singleness. So that sums me up.
Kari: Hey guys. I’m Kari. I’m 32, and I am an Enneagram 6 wing 5, just, there you go. Yeah, I spent my life in Southern Baptist churches. My dad led worship for a decade, and my mom was women’s Bible study leader for basically that long, too. I did my undergrad at a conservative evangelical college. I began my graduate studies at an interdenominational Presbyterian seminary. And I have a master’s of divinity with biblical counseling from a Southern Baptist seminary, so that’s a bit about me. More of what I’ve done. I’ve previously been on staff at two churches, I’ve been a worship leader, I volunteered with college ministry, and I currently work at an evangelical missions organization. For fun, I like to cook, I read a little, and I like to obsessively research topics for fun. There you go.
Ruth: You said wing 5?
Kari: Yeah.
Ruth: Obsessively research. Got it.
Kari: There it is. Yeah.
(laughter)
Ruth: My name is Ruth. Since we’re doing the Enneagram thing, which I am here for, I’m a 4. I’m not sure what my wing is. I feel like at different times I see different ones, so maybe they’re balanced or maybe I don’t see myself correctly. I’m not sure. I grew up as an MK, so that stands for Missionary Kid, in Tokyo. My parents were with the International Mission Board, which is the Southern Baptist affiliated international missions agency. So the world I grew up in was very like Southern Baptist church culture in many ways but just abroad. I did grow up in kind of a unique bubble of international friends and teachers, that was my schooling, so it wasn’t the south, where I live now and have lived for the last 10 years in South Carolina and now Georgia, but I think a lot of the church experiences that I’ve had sort of fall in line with my friends that are also on this call. Just moved to Atlanta coming up on a year ago. It’s been the dream, so I’m sure that will come out some as we talk, but yeah.
Christine: Hey everyone. I am Christine Allen, and I am 30 years old. My Enneagram is 6. I don’t know about a wing. Maybe a 5 also. I grew up in South Carolina and grew up in the Southern Baptist Church world and then in college got introduced to reformed theology and was there for a while. Still not sure what I think right now. But I also moved to Atlanta a year ago. I am a teacher of little ones. I teach elementary school. And I was going to also kind of say this, that, I feel like Nicki does a good job of saying that you know I’m always kind of learning and growing, and I feel that, too, and so even that kind of comes through in my singleness, that I just feel like I’m on this journey so may not have all the answers right now or know how I feel about certain questions, and then my answers may change in like a year or so, so that’s kind of a little bit about me.
Nicki: Well, thank y’all for all sharing, and I figured we could start with the question that I emailed y’all that Kari and Danielle suggested. Can you list all the dumb things people have said to you about singleness?
Kari: Did you come up with lists?
Ruth: Ok, admittedly I did not write it down, but I don’t need it. I live it. So someone go ahead.
Christine: Why are you still single?
(laughter)
Danielle: Yeah, that comes up a lot for me, too.
Kari: So I’ll just throw out that Danielle and I came up with 13 apiece, so lucky number 13. We do have them written down.
Christine: I’ve been through every life stage, so I can relate to everyone in the room, and this person was married at like 20 something. Why are you still single? There’s so much freedom. You must be too picky. You have so much time. People assume I’m really young, because, I mean there’s other reasons, but I think because I’m single. They say, “When I was single,” and they tell me their whole story, and they were literally single at 20 and in college. I think people assume I am like content in my singleness and so they just like think that I don’t have a desire to be married because I’m not actively dating. I’ve been called Mrs. Allen so many times. I am also a teacher, so I get that, too, but there are also students that know better and have called me that. A student said to me about another teacher, “How are you going to let her (the other teacher) beat you? She’s younger than you, and she’s having a baby.” I always get asked if I’m dating someone or have someone in my life, always trying to get set up with someone. When are you going to get married? Happy Mother’s Day. If I sit by a male friend in church, someone will ask, “Are you two an item?” So, that’s my list.
Kari: It’s good. Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of overlap here. Should I? Ok. If you want to be a single woman in ministry, you’ll have to do overseas missions. If you stop wanting it, God will provide a husband. God is faithful because He provides you a spouse. If you’re still single that’s because God doesn’t think you’re ready for marriage yet, or in other words, you’re defective. Just wait, you’ll be married someday. Classic. Long-term singleness means you’re selfish. Long-term singleness inevitably leads to sexual sin. As a compliment, people like to say, “How are you not married yet?”
Ruth: Yeah.
Kari: When people say they wish they could be where you are again. I think that’s like you were saying, Christine. It’s like, you were in college when you were single, so, ok. When married people say, “I wish I had your problems.” Not cool. You’re [not] married because you won’t online date and take more risks, but also, you need to wait on God’s timing instead of pursuing online dating. And lucky number 13. When you’re married and/or you have kids, you’ll realize xyz.
Danielle: Some form of, “Marriage is how God sanctifies us, the best way, the chief way.” Something I’ve been told, “You could be married if you cared more about how you looked when you went out.” Yeah, I get asked a lot, “What fun things did you do over the weekend?” I’m like, “I took the trash out. I mopped the floor.” (laughter) I did sleep in, and that’s a gift, but otherwise. If you want for what you don’t have, you’re not content with what God gave you. Singleness exists because we live in a fallen world, and everyone will be married to Christ, but it’s sad when we have to wait on that. Speaking about someone else but said to me, “Well, she never got married so she never had anyone to take her rough edges off.” When you ask a married friend about a book or something on Netflix and they say, “I have kids. I don’t watch or read stuff.” When you talk about struggles as a single woman in the church, and, ok, this one happened to someone else I know, but you’re trying to be honest and someone younger than you who’s married says, “Well, I’ll adopt you.” I was told (laughter)
Christine: Oh my gosh.
Ruth: Cute.
Danielle: I was told once that if you get married, you should be willing to have children. I was told after a conversation on the creation mandate that I wasn’t being disobedient to it because I would get married if I could. And speaking about Jesus and Paul being single, I was told, “But are you really comparing yourself to them?” When shopping for a large meal for 18 people, someone said, “Hey, you married lady, go with her because she’s never cooked for a family.” And the last one. You don’t know real love until you’ve had a kid.
Kari: Ouch.
Ruth: I mean, my list, I mean I could have said everything that was already said, and admittedly, I just wrote these down because I didn’t come in with a list, but, so, the, “Why are you still single?” That is meant as a compliment and is often followed with, “But you’re so pretty” or “But you’re so smart. I don’t get it.” Some day when you least expect it something’s going to happen for you. Christine said this, but “I remember what it was like to be single,” like they’re remembering back to when they were like 17 before they had a boyfriend. I’ve heard, “If you really wanted to, you could get married,” like as if there’s something I’m not doing that I could be doing to make that happen. I get, “It must be nice to have so much free time or for your decisions to be all your own or to have this autonomy, spend your money how you want” that sort of thing. Then, just about how sanctifying marriage is, which I don’t disagree with, but it’s said in a way that you’re not really sanctified until you get married. You just don’t know. And then hearing, “I know there’s someone out there for you, I just know God has someone for you.” Or you just need to trust God with all of this, with singleness or with meeting someone. And then one that really bothers me is when people say, like if I’m honest about struggling with singleness, if I am at the moment and wanting to be married, to have a married person say, “Yeah, but marriage is hard, too.” There’s this insinuation that I have this romantic, perfect image of what marriage is going to be and that they need to like reality check me, and I don’t think I am. Maybe I was 10 years ago, but I don’t think I think marriage is going to be easy or perfect, but still just hearing, like trying to downplay what it is as if that makes it less desirable for me or less hard.
Kari: So good, Ruth.
Christine: Yeah.
Nicki: Thank y’all for sharing those, and I’m sorry. Like, I know I’ve said those things, some of those things, and have been part of the problem and part of causing y’all pain, and I’m really sorry for that. And I just, I really appreciate y’all being honest and helping me know how to love y’all better. Yeah, and I love y’all so much.
Multiple voices: We love you, too.
Kari: You’ve been such a safe space over the last couple of years, so thanks for saying that. One of the like consistent jokes I’ve heard since childhood has been like quoting Paul calling it the gift of singleness and just like laughing about it. I think that really shows kind of what I grew up in and what I was taught. Just like, it’s totally undesirable to be single, especially past a certain age. Do everything you can to avoid it because it’s kind of dangerous even so everyone has to be single for a little while, you know, as you cross that threshold into adulthood, but no one wants to actually be that and you shouldn’t be that for very long, so I feel like what I got was single women who aren’t married by a certain age, just go ahead and pity them, like they are the ones to be pitied.
Ruth: Yeah, I think, and I would completely agree with what Kari just said. Similarly, the first thing that came to my mind is that to be single is to be waiting to not be single. It’s like kind of the point of being single is you have to go through it on your way to being married and never really hearing about singleness as also truly being like a worthy life. And I also, as I was thinking about this question, I also just kind of wanted to point out that we’re like, I wanted to acknowledge that in society the waters we’re swimming in like hypersexualizes women and like sees us as, you know, sees us as bodies first, I think. I mean, you guys, I don’t know if you feel that way, but it breeds this kind of what Kari just said about pitying. There’s definitely like a physical aspect to that, like, “Oh you must not have caught anyone’s eye,” or “Aw, you’re so sweet, but I guess no one wanted you.” There’s this sense of that. I think when, at least implicitly, that’s the messaging that I get, is like if someone is single and older, that there’s like an inherent rejection in that.
Danielle: Yeah. I could cry hearing you talk about that, Ruth, because I think that’s definitely true for me, too. And I would say explicitly, I mean I’ve been told a good many times that singleness is not “a real problem,” but then treated as if something was wrong or defective in me, and on the same hand, not allowed to grieve or feel sad about the fact that I’m single because it’s not a real problem. And I’d add to that the idea of the sexual prosperity gospel. I don’t know where that phrase originated, but I heard it on the Where Do We Go From Here podcast, which is really good, but just the idea that if you abstain from sex before marriage, if you don’t date around, if you strive for purity in all these ways, like God will reward that with a spouse. That was explicit and implicit.
Ruth: So good. That’s so true.
Christine: I don’t think I have anything else because my big one was what Ruth kind of hit on about just this idea of it’s a waiting period, singleness is a waiting period, so like while you’re waiting you get everything you can out of marriage sermons and you do life with married people so you can learn what it’s like to be a good wife, mother, and so that you can one day do it well or whatever, you know. So I took that to heart. Like I enjoyed them, I wanted to write down everything, I wanted to learn what this was like, and I think it was kind of damaging in the long run for sure. So that’s the big thing that comes to mind is that waiting period.
Kari: Did anybody else do the ladies in waiting book?
Ruth: No.
Kari: Do you know what I’m talking about? Oh my goodness.
Christine: I’ve heard of it.
Kari: Ok. It’s a book. You don’t need to read it, it’s fine.
(laughter)
Kari: I was just graduated from college when I helped lead a high school girls’ Bible study based on it. Ok, that’s all we have to say about it. But it’s that same idea, you’re just waiting to get married.
Nicki: Yeah, do y’all think that, what did you think about how Godde viewed you as a single woman?
Danielle: I thought God was withholding something from me.
Kari: Definitely. I would say something really similar. Just, you know, as much as we’ve already talked about it, there’s this sense of rejection that we feel with singleness, or that we were taught to feel with it. I think that was what I was also taught to feel from God, you know. If God is moving through marriage and kids, if that’s how He blesses people, and I’m not a part of that, you know, you can draw your own conclusions.
Ruth: Yeah, I definitely, I’ve heard it framed as there’s some lesson that I need to learn before I’m ready that He’s trying to teach me or some discipline or something, so it goes hand in hand with that idea of waiting or God withholding, and it goes hand in hand with some of the things people have said to us that were said earlier where like, “When you least expect it” or “It’s so sanctifying, so when you’re ready, God’s going to bring someone into your life, and it’ll be so sanctifying.”
Nicki: Well, so, for each of you, what prompted you to begin broadening that narrative around being a single woman?
Ruth: I talked about this question earlier with Christine because it’s like getting older and, which I didn’t, everyone said their ages earlier, I am the youngest on this call. I’m 28. But still there’s such, especially in the south, I fully assumed, fully assumed, that I would be married by 25, tops, you know, and most of my friends were. And even not being from the south, digging further back, my parents never talked as if I wouldn’t be married one day or if that was a possibility, and I don’t think that’s malicious, but the assumption was that, “Someday you’ll be a mom. You’ll be a wife one day.” And so I fully assumed, so I think even turning, and guys 28 is not that old.
Kari: No.
Ruth: For real, it’s fine. In the society that we’re in, with that full-on expectation (indiscernible audio) I think that has been what’s made me broaden the narrative.
Danielle: 100%, Ruth. It’s just like you pass a point, and to maintain your own sanity, you’re like, “Wait. What just happened the past 25 years.” And I’d also say it took me just noticing after years and after hitting that age point just how singleness is talked about, specifically from the pulpit, that singleness is selfish and you’re choosing not to marry because you want to remain in an adolescent state. I looked at my life and the lives of all of my friends who were single and said that that’s not us,” and so where does that leave us. And you have to look outside of what you’ve been taught to kind of make peace with that, and so that was a part of it for me.
Christine: Yeah, I put having honest conversations with these women here, including Nicki because like mentioned earlier, you were one of the early married women that I felt like I could be honest with, but then finding other single women, like moving in with Ruth and then getting to know Kari and Danielle, I just realized that I’m getting older, my life is not where I thought it would be, and I really just felt like the church doesn’t know what to do with us. But like, my singleness is God’s plan, and these other women plans for their lives, so just like He’s sovereign in that, so there must be purpose in these circumstances that I’m in, and so I just really realized that I longed for other single women who have gone before me, like older women, and it’s hard to find around, so I just like, this can’t be it, just waiting for marriage. There’s got to be more to it.
Kari: I relate with that so much. I relate with what all of you have said so far, and I just keep thinking about, Christine, something you said earlier. I don’t know. I, from a young age, was in it. I don’t know if that’s my personality or what. Hook, line, and sinker, I’m going after it, and I’m going after Jesus, and I just didn’t question very much. But I was pursuing ministry opportunities at the same time, and I feel like it might be getting kind of rolled out in stages. Like after I was 25, I started going, “Oh wait, something’s not adding up,” and if I could even share just a few circumstances along the way that I really point to as milestones on the journey towards being more aware. Before I went to seminary, I was asked to lead a small group with college women, and I was told to lead it on Proverbs 31, so that was my first awkward, at the time I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that that passage, you know, it has so many connotations about what a woman should be in evangelical culture, but I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was just trying to help those women to start applying scripture to their lives right then and not wait until they were married, so that was kind of like a first wake up, something here is not quite right. During seminary: ok, so, I know I’m talking too long. In college, I loved Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life, like found it super inspirational and super encouraging, and again, I was like hook, line, and sinker and trying to get after it. So, I was really disappointed because when I was in seminary is when I saw his ministry’s online article about how they said women shouldn’t pursue this whole litany of careers if it had anything to do with giving men directives. So I just realized that some of the theology that I was upholding about God’s ideas about families and gender roles was being used to keep women, and me as a single woman, from exercising all of our God-given gifts and desires. We’re being explicitly told that our value is as wives and mothers. And one more thing that really set me on my journey. So that was during seminary. After seminary, I just had a couple of really painful church experiences that I felt devalued my singleness and some of that was me sharing singleness with people, just my own everything, you know all the vulnerable stuff and some of it was this really particularly painful sermon series about how God used women to further His kingdom, basically exclusively through the children that they bore. Just in the aftermath of that and trying to talk to people that I trusted and being surprised at how I was needing to explain. I didn’t think I would have to explain how those ideas were harmful for the church as a whole and for single women, how they excluded single women. I just thought it would be obvious to everyone. It was a big wake up call. That’s my saga.
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Second Segment
Nicki: Could y’all kind of talk about what this journey has been like for you in broadening that narrative around singleness?
Ruth: I mean, I’ll echo something Christine said in the very, very beginning. I feel like I’m in the thick of it, so yeah, definitely still in it. Having this squad right here, these women on this call, has been huge, and it, two words that I wrote down were empowering and frustrating. Definitely been empowering, definitely felt very free and valued as I look at scripture, and I do see purpose, like fullness of life apart from marriage. There is fullness of life. That’s so empowering. And then being around these strong ladies that get me, and we can talk through these things, but also a lot of it I’m still figuring it out, so very much in the thick of it.
Kari: Wow, Ruth, it’s like we talked before, before we had this call. Yeah, my one word was contradictions, and really similar to what you said, just like I do feel the freedom and peace and just like understanding more of how God loves me where I’m at and how He’s designed me to be a part of the story that He’s writing right now, not at some point in the future or an alternate reality, I don’t know. But it’s also been disheartening. So I definitely feel what y’all have been saying about it is a journey, and I don’t think I’m at the end of it yet. It’s been really hard, admittedly, not to judge the local churches around me. I’ll just be upfront about that. I don’t know. But in my research over the last year, because I research things you guys, I’ve realized there just seems to be an infinitesimally small number of churches that aren’t mired in a culture of idolizing marriage and family, yeah, marriage and kids. It just feels kind of inescapable, and in that way it’s disheartening. Not that there haven’t been good moments. I feel like anybody who really takes the time to talk to me, anybody who takes me seriously, I walk away encouraged. I don’t mean to say it’s all bad, but yeah, it’s a bit of both.
Christine: I just said that my journey has been life-giving because I had to start like really basic just by identifying that singleness can actually have benefits and positive things about it and that it can be a good thing, it can be a gift because it has just always been this part of me that I was embarrassed about, disappointed in. It was a source of a lot of insecurities for me, still can be at times, so I’m still working on the balance of like having this desire to be married but also recognizing that where I am now is beautiful, it’s fulfilling, and it is really sweet to be a part of it, and it’s something that I can be proud of. And so I think I really find a lot of encouragement by seeing older singles, just like doing things. Like I was listing them off to my roommate I think today, where I was just like saying they’re out there, there are people out there, and I just get so encouraged, like Ruth was saying, people that I know who are awesome, single women and men, doing things for the Lord. But yeah, so it’s definitely something that I have to consciously remind myself that there are still days that I grieve and I have sorrow over the hard parts of it, but I can also be thankful for the gift of it and the good parts of it.
Danielle: I really relate with that, Christine. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster for me, too, of just, you know, I think all of us heard such damaging ideas around long-term singleness, especially if it’s something that we didn’t want for ourselves, and so trying to journey in tearing those lies down and rebuilding with what’s true. And yeah, I echo just the sentiment of such a strong sense of solidarity with you guys and also with people like Lore Wilbert, Alicia Akins, Joy Beth Smith, Holly Stallcup, plenty of other single women. You know, you start to look outside mainstream things that are taught, and you just find this huge swathe of people doing amazing work around singleness and all kinds of other things because we can’t just talk about that, right. And also, my personal understanding has been broadened in listening to, one of you guys told me to listen to Truth’s Table, the episode with Ekemini Uwan, Lisa Fields, and Latasha Morrison as they shared the challenges they specifically face as Black women, and so learning how women of color experience singleness differently than I do and trying to pay attention to more narratives than just my own.
Nicki: Is there anything you would add about what your experience in the church has been like as single women that you haven’t already covered? I don’t know if anyone’s written anything additional down. I wanted - oh yes, I’m seeing heads nod. Ok, I want to make sure to give space for that, anything additional there.
Kari: It’s such a big question. I definitely have talked about writing a book about just this question before, but yeah, I do appreciate the opportunity. I guess I wanted to share one really positive experience I’ve had with the church because I found it really grounding to think about in the last couple of years that I’ve been kind of tumultuous with deconstruction and reconstruction, yeah, all the things. So, the one church where I was the worship leader was like a shining beacon for me. It’s the only shining beacon in some ways in my experiences as a single woman, and that church only lasted for a couple years before it broke up, so it’s really also sad. But why was it so positive? There was a real focus there that every single person had a spiritual gift, if not more than one, and that it was the leadership’s job to help you realize your gift, to draw it out of you, equip you in it, and then help you find ways to serve. Additionally, a lot of the big decisions were made intentionally in a group that included single women, single people, you know, as well as other minority groups in the church. They made some big changes because they saw some issues, and they decided singles could lead small groups. There’s a sense that childcare was really a shared endeavor that was expected whether you were married or single or male or female. There was the idea that bringing food for small group meals, which was a regular thing, was expected of both men and women, and also just the fact that I was brought on to lead the worship team with zero hesitation about me being a woman. I didn’t even think about it at the time, but I share that to say all of that contrasts with my other church experiences. All the other ones where women can only lead when in spaces exclusively inhabited by women, and mainly those who lead in those areas are married women. It contrasts with the idea that women, and single women specifically, are most of the time expected to carry more of the weight around things like bringing food and childcare and preparing events. I don’t think any of those things are bad things. I think we can all say that, like I really enjoy some of those things. I already said I like to cook, but they are bad, they’re damaging when they’re emphasized to limit women and single women from using all their gifts and talents for the whole body.
Ruth: Yeah, I had a similar thing, Kari, which thank you for sharing your specific experiences, and a positive experience. That’s so good.
Kari: Watch out.
(laughter)
Ruth: I had thought of similar things just in terms of like the expectation and the confinement of your capacity to serve. So like, if you are a woman, you can serve in these ways, and it being very limiting. I think the main thing that I felt as a single woman, though, specifically, was just kind of invisible. Everything -
Christine: Yeah, that’s what I wrote.
(laughter)
Ruth: Yeah, just from sermon application points or like quick little illustrations that seem so in passing, “For example, think about it this way.” It seemed like those types of things were catered to marriage or, Kari said this before, or your college roommate. It’s like you can be married or you can be a kid, but there is no in between. Or hearing people say things because we were in a church that was so full of families, young families, everywhere. I love it. I love the families. I love the babies, ok. But people would say things like, you know, crack a joke like, “We all have kids here. We all know what it’s like.” When that’s the repeated, constant, always narrative of we all, we all. Well, no, no, cannot relate, but when that’s constant, it’s like, “Do you realize I’m here? Do you know me?” It’s one thing for it to be like one time it comes out, but when that’s always the way people talk, it’s like I don’t think that you see that I’m here by myself with no spouse or children.
Kari: Yeah, and I don’t want to talk too much again, but just building on what you said, and like, even I felt, I definitely felt that, Ruth, and I always felt like, well, if I just did more, if I just inserted myself into more conversations, if I just made more relationships, if I just got a little more power or leadership, maybe I’ll be included. But, ok, all of us on this call right now, we have been so invested. It’d be crazy to count up how many shared hours of volunteer time, and things that weren’t specifically volunteer, that the group of us here have put into the church. Sorry.
Christine: Yeah, I don’t know. To kind of piggyback off of that, I have an example of an experience that I just remember in our old church. There was a second service, and most of the second service was typically singles or married but didn’t have kids because we all served first service, and that was not an uncommon thing, like I feel like that was pretty well known, and application was given, and I just sat, while it’s being preached from the pulpit, I’m just looking around like, “Do you see us?” Like I’m literally counting all the people like they’re single, they’re single, they’re single, you know, and I’m just like, “Are you looking at us right now, like do you know who you’re preaching to?” But then I guess if you’re like having the mentality that we’re all waiting, and that we all still need to learn from these things, then I guess you’re not gonna, I don’t know, but I also just had some personal, I don’t know this could just be me, but I had some hard times just with older married women but also married men, so I kind of went into those kind of specifics of just really looking up to older women, I say older, like 5 or 10 years older than me, and like wishing I had more relationship with them and then seeing these younger women who were going through the motions, they were getting married and they were having babies and these older women just embracing them and like all of a sudden being interested in them, and I’m just over here like just in the room, but if I’m not talking about them and their husbands or their kids then I’m not going to be in that conversation or they’ll just ask me about your job, and I’m like I don’t want to talk about my job. I’m more of a person than that. So just feeling invisible to older women who I didn’t really, older married women who I didn’t really know that well in the church or seemed too busy to really get to know me or invisible, and very, very invisible to the men in the church, who are supposed to be my brothers. I feel like here in Atlanta, I’m starting to get more of that where like, oh yeah, it’s not weird for these men to come talk to me because they’re my brothers, but just having that experience of like unless I knew the man before he was married, and I was his friend, then I did not talk to him unless I was friends with his wife, but I’m not going to be going up to a married man and talking to him. He would not talk to me unless I had that connection with his wife or something, and so just really feeling like, yeah, invisible. And like I said, just a little bit of experience here in Atlanta where that’s not the case, and it shouldn’t be if they’re my brother, right, like, it shouldn’t be that weird. So yeah.
Danielle: Yeah, Christine, I visited a church once and went to the connection time, and I watched the male campus pastor walk around to every couple in the room, and he stopped before he got to me, and the one female on staff came and talked to me, and I said, “I know why you did that.” But yeah, I one hundred percent feel all of that and just said that the overarching theme of my experience as a single woman in the church is just I’ve been largely ignored. If I do try to push back on those ideas that are offered, I’ve been dismissed, told that I am just being nitpicky, that they didn’t really mean that. Yeah it’s just, “Well, that’s their experience. Everyone has to talk about their experience. I’m married. Of course I’m going to talk about my experience.” And I just, I hate that. You know, we talked about this earlier, but Jesus was single, and we hold to that. He was fully God, fully man, and so a complete human experience doesn’t require marriage, even though that’s kind of how a lot of people in the church would act towards me. And I think we lose so much when the Bible is preached and we don’t pull out like, “Hey, Paul was single,” “Lydia, likely single,” “Ruth before she got remarried to Boaz, single.” And you just lose so much in not highlighting that and the only time you talk about singleness is what you said Ruth, when you say, “You have so much time. Use your singleness to serve the church, but don’t ask us to serve you in any way.”
Nicki: That’s it for part 1. Come back next week to hear part 2 of this conversation.
Transition Music
Closing: I want to thank Sequana Murray for the voice clip she sent to me for the episode intro. You can purchase her music on Bandcamp at bandy17.bandcamp.com. Her music is available on most streaming services under the name Bandy. I also want to thank Jordan Lukens for his help with editing and Danielle Bolin for creating the episode graphic. Please subscribe and review the show, but only if you’re planning on leaving a 5-star review. Otherwise, you can just skip this part. You can access the Broadening the Narrative blog by visiting broadeningthenarrative.blogspot.com, and you can find the Broadening the Narrative page on Instagram by searching for @broadeningthenarrative and on Twitter by searching for @broadnarrative. I hope that if you know and love me you can engage with the Broadening the Narrative blog, social media accounts, and podcast, as well as any recommended resources. Then, you can share with people who know and love you, and little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. Grace and peace, friends.
Outro Music
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