wfn.org | Being alone is not cause for fear, bishop says

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 4, 1998	Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
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JACKSON, Miss. (UMNS) -- In our culture, people who are alone and single
are often considered suspect, a United Methodist bishop told leaders of
single adult ministries at a national training event. 

Yet, at some point in life, everyone is alone, said Bishop Peter Weaver,
head of the United Methodist Church's Philadelphia Area.

Weaver who has been divorced for four years, said that he didn't realize
how he had internalized feelings that being alone was something to
dread.

"I was afraid of being alone," he said. "It was not something that I
wanted. . . . I had never been alone. I had been involved in helping
initiate singles ministries for 20 years, and then all of a sudden I was
alone."

Single adult ministries must embrace those who feel alone because of
their circumstances in life and avoid reflecting the cultural biases
against people who live by themselves, the bishop said.

Weaver gave the July 30 keynote address at Jammin' In Jackson, a
four-day conference for leaders of single adult ministries. About 300
people attended the July 30-Aug. 2 event, where they learned about new
ideas and resources and met colleagues in ministry. The biennial event
is related to the churchwide Board of Discipleship and United Methodist
Single Adult Leaders. Single adult ministries serve people who have
never married or have been divorced or widowed.

Often in the culture and the church, "alone" spells fear, inadequacy,
being left out, or being abnormal, Weaver said. For example, he said,
Russell Westin Jr., the man charged with the recent killing of two
Capitol police officers, has been described by the news media as "a
loner." Others, such as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, would-be
assassin John Hinckley and fugitive Eric Rudolph have been profiled as
"deranged loners who have lashed out at society."

The church often co-opts society's biases and begins to think there is
something wrong with being single and alone, the bishop said. Those in
the church who live alone amid those biases "sometimes internalize the
belief that something is wrong with them," he said.

Although 40 percent of the American population is single, Weaver said
there is a paradigm that expects adult life to revolve around a spouse,
two children, pets. The church in many ways has presented the "culture
of the family paradigm" or family as the norm.

The paradigm that being alone is wrong "is only some sort of a mythical
reality," he said. People forget that Jesus Christ, St. Peter and even
John Wesley himself were alone, contrary to the standards set by
society,  he noted. 

Being alone has nothing to do with marital status, he said, because
married people with families also deal with feeling alone, wounded, hurt
and broken in their relationship. "The reality is that a-l-o-n-e does
not have anything to do with marital status or the exteriors of life,
but it has something to do with the interior," he said. Being alone has
nothing to do with how many people are around you but about values and
the experience of real community, he said.

The denomination's Social Principles affirm the integrity of single
people and calls on the church to "reject all social practices that
discriminate or social attitudes that are prejudicial against persons
because they are single."

If the first syllable in the spelling of "alone" were shifted, it would
become "al-one," Weaver said. In terms of singles ministry and from a
theological viewpoint, al-one means to be a part of the body of Jesus
Christ. "Shifting 'alone' is a radical shift," he said. "It is a radical
counter to American cultural understanding of life." He used 1
Corinthians 12:12-26 to say that if one member of the body suffers, all
in the body of Christ suffer.

Ministries that reflect the cultural myth that single people are alone
and incomplete, which are perceived as negatives, and that the real goal
is marriage and family, which is viewed as positive, "will miss the
transforming love of the Gospel, that by God's love and grace that
whoever who are, we are all one . . . united into one body," Weaver
said. 

Marriage is a vocation, he said. It is a calling from God as a member of
the body. Being single and celibate also can be a vocation in the body,
the bishop said.

"The highest fulfillment is not dependent upon having said, 'I do' at
the altar, but having said, 'I believe in Jesus Christ' at the altar,"
Weaver said. "The highest fulfillment, joy and meaning is not our
marital status but our spiritual status. . . . It is not the context of
couples, but it is being in community. ... We are all one in Jesus
Christ, a radical shift from what the culture continues to say and from
that (view) which we have internalized. "

He cautioned single adult ministry leaders not to dwell in what society
teaches but to teach "agape love." He asked that they allow agape love
to become the theological foundation that embraces congregations so that
the church can become the leveling influence in the community. That love
should bubble out into the community so that those in the shadows
feeling alone will know Jesus and become al-one in the body of Christ,
he said.

Jammin' In Jackson participants attended 45 different workshops focusing
on three types of knowledge: professional, spiritual and improvement.

The Rev. Gary Gray, publisher and editor of Living Solo magazine, led a
workshop on singles recovering from loss, rejection or failure who are
striving to focus and balance their lives spiritually, mentally and
socially. He offered 10 challenges facing Christian singles, centered on
children, church, economics, family, God, intimacy, rejection, culture,
singleness and society.

Another workshop, led by Sue Nilson, single adult ministry leader at St.
Mark's United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Neb., dealt with the
never-married adults who are the "invisible people" in single adult
ministry. Often, the ministry focuses on divorce recovery, single parent
and grief groups, and those who have never been married are forgotten,
she said.

Never-married singles usually fall into two stereotypical categories:
the comfortable and the disillusioned. The comfortable, Nilson said,
accept life and enjoy it as it is, confidently making decisions with
little sense of day-to-day regret. The disillusioned, she said, expected
to be married by a certain age and now struggle with a denied dream.

She said single adult ministries become closed to never-married people
when the ministry or church:
*	has a narrow view of the definition of family;
*	has an attitude that singleness is a temporary state that should
be overcome;
*	gives leadership positions only to people who are married;
*	fails to target or mention never-married people in advertising,
announcements, mission statements or at events; and
*	provides teachers, speakers or curriculum that use only
illustrations related to divorce or grief situations.

In other action, the single adult ministry leaders learned that:
*	49 percent of all single adults in America have never been
married;
*	one of four American households has a person living alone;
*	23 percent of all adults in the United States have never been
married; and 
*	the summer of 1998 is significant in Mississippi because 200
years ago, a circuit rider, Tobias Gibson, went there for the first
time.

They also collected $952 for the Council of Bishops' initiative on
children and poverty. 

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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