Church Shopping and Serial Dating…?
CHURCH HOPPING AND SERIAL DATING
When we think about the Church as the "bride of Christ," we must remember how easy it is to bring our anecdotal images, ideas, and societal expectations to bear. For instance, how does one get married in twenty-first-century America? Sadly, the ethics of dating in the Church do not differ drastically from the ethics of pagan culture.
In this culture, you generally meet someone who gives you a mystical spark. Then, after no time at all, you have fallen head over heels in love with that person as they develop an unhealthy emotional obsession with you. Then, the two of you bypass good old-fashioned common sense for a season, only to find out you are not who you thought each other was. So you break up, rebound, and move on, rack up a few dozen of these relationships until you find "the right one," Then you enter into marriage with more baggage than a fully loaded 747.
Not only does that sound like a recipe for disaster (and a major contributing factor to high divorce rates among Christians, rampant infidelity even among believers, commitment issues, carnal expectations, and a host of other marital toxins) it also explains why so many Christians have a low view of the Church and a base view of commitment to the body of Christ. If the Church is Jesus' bride, and we have ignorantly bought into the lie that brides don't come about until the tenth or eleventh lover, then trends like church shopping, church hopping, and church dating make all the more sense.
But we have to ask ourselves the question. Is this culture of "dating the church" a good thing? Should we "try before we buy?" Should we play Church until we are ready to make a commitment? And does that behavior produce the kind of men who will build Christendom or the ones who will pursue their preferences and lusts? Does it create the type of women that raise the next generation of saints? People, who love the Church? Are faithful to the mission of Jesus Christ?
I plan to explore that in this short little article, and we will do so by drawing a comparison between hookup culture and church hopping.
THE PLAGUE OF SERIAL DATING
As a man or woman stockpiles intimate relationships, the expectations for a perfect spouse will increase, while the likelihood of finding a suitable partner will inevitably decrease. For instance, Person A may have had the best eyes but no personality. Person B had a great personality but wasn't all that attractive. Person C was mean to you but was sexually gratifying. Person D was smart but had the body of a muffin top. Person E was witty but tremendously self-absorbed. On and on this cycle goes.
And guess what? The longer this list of relationships becomes, the more certain two things will be to happen. First, you will never find someone who meets all your carnal preferences. You will have created a "perfect spouse" like your own personal Mr. potato head that is the amalgam of all the "best" parts from all your previous lovers when no such person exists. I want to be optimistic that Christians are not dating and treating relationships this way, but I have seen far too much carnage in this area to pretend it doesn't exist.
Second, when you hold onto such a superficial standard, you will either remain single forever, leaving you discouraged, or marry with significant sacrifices, feeling like you have "settled." Again, this could have been avoided if we had prepared ourselves (and our children) for dating Biblically.
If we treated dating as the Bible does, then romance, intimacy, and pleasure would follow deliberate platonic assessment. We would not give our hearts or bodies away until we were with our covenant spouse. We would not use erotically charged dating methods to discover if someone had lifelong potential. We would not move in with them and play house to see if we could be married. Instead, we should discover those things first by interviewing them, examining their doctrine, inspecting every nook and cranny of their life, and inviting the parents and our churches into the process.
If that is how we approach things, men and women could freely and joyfully enter into the sexual, relational, spiritual, and emotional intimacy they long for within covenant marriages as God designed. And they could do so without all the scars, wounds, and baggage that come from following the world. If we treated potential suitors as our future spouses, or at the least as brothers and sisters in Christ, we would enter marriage Biblically prepared, with no regrets, no unrealistic expectations, and an overwhelming sense of security, satisfaction, pleasure, and joy.
THE EXAMPLE OF ADAM
Think about the first man and husband, Adam. Here we have a man who was prepared for his wedding day in a way few could ever dream. He had never seen a female body, so he had nothing to compare her to and nothing to be disappointed with. Her body was exactly what he wanted because it was all he had ever known. He did not have a thousand expectations of waist size, leg length, hair color, nose shape, or anything else clinging to his prefrontal cortex.
Now, compare that to the hyper-sexual nature of dating, entertainment, and the proliferation of pornography today. And when you do that, ask the average woman to compete against the kaleidoscope of pornographic preferences many carnal men have developed and see how she compares against everyone else's best features. Adam had never seen or met a woman, so everything about his bride thrilled him and sent shivers down his spine. His lack of experience increased his enjoyment of her. His innocence fueled deeper pleasures and joy! Can you see how backward our society has it?
The same is true for personality, chemistry, intelligence, physical attractiveness, social standing, ethnicity, height, weight, and every other conceivable category that people typically use to evaluate a possible mate. As a result, the more partners we woefully collect, the more we sin against God and one another, and the more impossible it will be for us to find a suitable spouse.
This not only makes sense and can be supported in Scripture, but I have also seen this play out in the marriages I have counseled and in the lives of couples for whom I performed their weddings. When a couple does the diligent work of examination first and saves romantic feelings and intimacy until marriage, the couple is more likely to have a joy-filled, satisfying, and happy marriage. However, the opposite is also true, the more worldly a couple is before they are married, in their dating, and in their engagement, the more trouble, misery, jealousy, chaos, and radical repentance will be needed. The difference between these two is not even close.
But, you may be asking, how does this apply to the Church? Don't worry; we are getting there… But first, let me mention a couple of points of application.
THE APPLICATION TO DATING
First, If you are single, think about these things with great diligence. There is no reason to trade lasting satisfaction in future marriage for a few cheap thrills in modern dating. Especially when the success rate for worldly marriages is less than fifty percent. You do unspeakable damage to yourself for an outcome that is not only cheapened but with no guarantee, it will even continue. With that, there is no reason to collect exes like plastic trophies that your future spouse will be measured against. Treat dating, instead, as a business decision, without the complication of emotions. Those must come later, and what a blessing that will be once you have entered into a covenant marriage. Being diligent in these things will increase your joy and pleasure in marriage. It will protect you from the deepest pains and scars. And it will prevent your future spouse the need to forgive you for the sins you have committed in these areas.
SECOND, If you are married and did not apply this when you were dating (like most of us), remember that there is forgiveness at the cross of Christ. There is healing for patterns of sin. There is restoration and redemption, and you can have a marriage so patterned on the bedrock of Christ that the world, the flesh, or the devil could never sever it. So throw yourself into the arms of Jesus. Receive His intimate love, forgiveness, and grace for you! Cling to His glorious Gospel, dear one. It will transform you and your spouse both now and forever! It will take you and your marriage where Christ desires it to go.
THE PERIL OF CHURCH HOPPING
Everything in this post can be applied to our relationship with the local Church. Think about it, if we treat finding a church like the world treats dating, we will fall into the same errors we have mentioned above. We will go to a church, develop quick excitement, and fall in love with the people, the sermons, the music, and the programs, only to discover something is wrong here too, and it is time to pack up and go to another church.
When we do that, we will develop a picture of the "perfect church" that does not exist. We will wish for Church A's music with Church B's preaching and theology. We will hope for Church C and D's community life but with Church E's approach to missions. Unfortunately, when we do this, we do the same thing men and women do when they pornify dating. Except this is worse because we are doing that to Jesus' Bride. We treat His dearly beloved wife as a prostitute, which greatly inflames His righteous fury.
Instead of that, let us do the work of investigation so we can find a church that meets the most essential Biblical criteria. Let us find a place we could commit to for a lifetime if the Lord allows it, with no intention of leaving unless the Lord demands it. Let us find churches that love and submit to Scripture and are bound to Reformation confessions.
Let us find churches that are patterned off the three aspects of a true church, located in article 29 of the Belgic confession of faith, where they: 1) They preach and teach the pure Word of God, 2) They administer the sacraments Biblically, faithfully, and regularly. And 3) they believe in and practice church discipline for the building up of the Church. If we find a church like that, especially in such an age of compromise and ear-tickling as this, then let us not be easily separated from it! If we do not live near a church like that, let us sell our homes and move! It is that critical.
I pray that we will abandon this pagan and toxic culture of church dating. I pray that we would not make all our consumeristic secondary, tertiary, and quaternary issues of preference so primary that they cause us to leave good churches. If you are new to the faith, new to going to Church, or even if you feel like a "seasoned veteran," I pray you would avoid "church shopping," "church-hopping," "church-flipping," and "church-flopping" as you would the bubonic plague. Bouncing from one Church to the next does not prepare you for life in the community. It does not prepare you for fidelity, commitment, grit, and life in the Kingdom. And it causes you to never be happy or satisfied in your community.
If you have racked up former churches like exes, now is an excellent opportunity to repent of that. Turn to Christ for that sin. Stop treating His bride like she is there to serve and meet your needs and understand that you are there to meet and suit the needs of Christ.
He is the only Lord the Church must look to, not you. He is the only one we labor to please, not you. Therefore, his opinions and preferences are what we care about disproportionately more than ours and yours.
Receive His love and grace for how you have approached His Church in sin. And then find a faithful, Biblical, and local church to be a part of. Interview it well, understand their doctrine, treat that process with sobriety and wisdom, and when you have found the place you can be committed to, commit to the glory of Christ! Be active, faithful in worship, and engaged in the life of the Church. Help that Church grow to accomplish God's mission.
If you do that, here is what you will discover. You will not only bless that Church by adopting such a faithful posture, and you will not only be obedient to God and His vision for your life, but you will also bless yourself and your family for generations.
Many blessings,
Kendall
