I wrote a long post this morning about bitterness and single women in the church. At the time, it felt like I was writing something very helpful and true. But I read it again tonight and couldn't believe I had written it. Without intending to, I had written something that could very easily be read as harsh and judgmental - not at all what I want to communicate to sisters who are struggling! So I edited myself and you will never see the draft I deleted. (This is the big danger for bloggers - we know what we mean to say, but can't always gauge whether we are communicating what we mean to communicate, in the spirit we mean it.)

But I can't let it go altogether. I feel like there was a nugget of goodness and helpfulness behind it, and I need to share some of what is swimming around in my heart about this.

I admit it:  when I tell people I am attempting to write a book on dating, I get defensive.  I feel obliged to offer a reason for this book's existence.   This section is that defense. 

In other words, my goal is to contextualize my work in the conversation that has been going on the last ten years within evangelicalism about these issues. My goal is to offer a fair appraisal of that conversation (and its participants), and to help my book stand out.

If you're just joining us, feel free to read the first part of the preface.  And you may also want to check out the point of the series. 

continue reading

Just in line at Starbucks.  As I was standing there I saw a man writing in a notebook - he obviously didn’t know I was snooping.  He certainly didn’t recognize the fact that I took this picture with my cell phone!  Sssshhhhh.

He was a middle aged man, and from what I could tell he was listing out the characteristics he wanted in a mate!  I checked and he didn’t have a wedding ring on.  The title at the top of the page was “desired characteristics.”  His list was VERY long - maybe that’s why he didn’t have a significant other…?

Picky?  Maybe, but there might be something deeper going on.

Most of the time when we’re thinking about future relationships we think about characteristics we desire a “significant other” to have.  In many ways I think this can be healthy, but turning the table a bit may be a better perspective. 

How does one start a book on relationships?  It is a question that I have wrestled with often.  My best attempt (for now) is below.  I decided to begin with a "Preface" to explain why I am writing the book and what it will cover, before jumping in to the argument.

“Goodbye, Matt.”

With a smile and a beauty-pageant wave, she turned, bounded up the steps, and was gone. Her brown hair, neatly tied in a stylish side-ponytail, and her bubbling laughter disappeared behind her faded brown door while I stood on the sidewalk below, gazing up at a goddess disappearing into heaven.

Pulse pounding and palms sweating, I began my slow walk home. As I left her house, I resisted the growing desire for “the look-back,” the inevitable turn to discover whether she was watching me walk away. Inevitably, I gave in, hoping to see her look down on me as Juliet may have looked on Romeo. The intoxicating anticipation of hope gave way to the crushing taste of disappointment. It was not to be. At least not today. I consoled myself with thoughts of the next morning when I would meet her again to walk to school: I was so in love.

I was also in the second grade. Second graders who are in love have relatively few options for interacting with the opposite sex, so I spent my days slyly maneuvering to be math-partners. I knew that once she discovered my brilliance at addition and subtraction—I had easily reached the fifth grade level—she would return my ardent affection. I spent my nights dreaming of dramatic rescues and glorious triumphs. My imagination would run wild: displays of glory on fields of battle and sport would result in her running into my arms and joyfully burying her tear-stained face in my shoulder. I wanted her to see beyond my badly formed teeth and tendency to cry to the confident and compassionate man that I had buried deep within.

Such dreams were all I would have. Six months later, we left Montana for a small town in Western Washington. I spent the trip in the delightful agony of remembering all the laughs from our daily walks home and pondering all the happy endings now locked in the closet that houses things ‘possible.’ I persuaded myself that the way of love was closed to me—no real romantic could give himself to two women and I had given myself once. To do so again would be a blasphemy against Love itself.

Not surprisingly, I would love again, only then it would be with a deeper intensity and a more mature purpose. I would love many times more and would experience the rending heartache of rejection nearly as often. I never ‘dated’ causally or flippantly, nor did I date promiscuously. My experience was marked instead by a suffocating seriousness that frightened girls not yet ready for marriage. At least that’s how I rationalized it. The girls would almost certainly say otherwise.

After twenty two years of trying and failing, I finally managed to get someone to say a permanent “Yes” to me. Like so many young men my age, my voyage through romance was marked more by shipwreck than success. If anyone is a “hero of this age,” it’s me: I understand the vices that afflict modern youth all too well. Through a series of painful lessons, I have begun to identify and correct those vices. This book is a product of that process—it is an explanation and defense of the lessons I have learned on my journey to marriage. And this chapter is an explanation and defense of this book.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop (of course) - this one, at this time, will remain nameless.  Why?  Well, I don't want to give this one a bad vibe in anyway.

People have secret lives.  People often aren't what they seem. 

I was hanging out with a couple guys from my church.  We were just hanging out talking about life, laughing.  It was fun.  But then one of them tells me the guy behind me (in business attire) is playing some porn game on his computer.  In a coffee shop?  In public?  Weird.

People sometimes are so lost in their secret lives they forget it's a secret.  They get so in tune they forget others are around.

Apparently, since my friend was sitting directly across from me, he glanced at the guy behind me and saw some reality game on his computer where there was  a night club scene.  And then all the sudden he said the guy clicks on the girl, undresses her so she's dancing completely naked, and zooms in.  All I knew was my friend abruptly looked away (in fact he adjusted his seat to face another direction).  Being that all this was happening behind me I didn't know what was going on, but I could tell from the look on my friends face that whatever just happened didn't settle well with him.  

I have thought for some time that the evangelical world does not need another book on relationships. The good Lord knows that the topic has produced far too much heat with precious little light.   

But I cannot shake my feeling that the current approaches to dating and relationship are no longer adequate for the challenges young people face.  The most popular versions suffer from being outdated—like it or not, young Christians do not experience relationships with the opposite sex like they did 10 years ago. Others are too....trite. I have met many colleged-aged Christians who have been dismayed by the current range of offerings for not approaching the issues with the spiritual and intellectual seriousness they desired.

As I considered these perceived shortcomings, I realized that maybe, just maybe, the world needed one more book on dating and relationships. And then it occurred to me:maybe I should be the guy to write it.

 Went to a different coffee shop today.  The Hawthorne district is a very popular district in Portland.  It's pretty much the place to be if you're in your twenties.  It's known for it's pubs, shopping, night life...and of course, coffee shops.  So, I came to "The Press" this morning.  It's at the end of Hawthorne blvd, with a quaint outside and urban feel inside.  Even though it’s about 25 minutes away from my house, I come here every once in a while because it's a great place to meet people.  

I sat on a couch.  It has a coffee table in front of it with another couch across, facing me.  I sat here because there's a couple sitting on the couch across.  I figure if we're facing each other we're bound to have some type of conversation - at some point.  My assumption proved to be true.  The couple just packed up and left, but we had a great conversation.

Every time I speak on a campus, students ask me questions about sex, God, love, and relationships. Probably because I am transparent about my own struggle with addiction and how God changed my life when I was a student, I feel I can answer your questions from both practical and biblical viewpoints.  

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a communicator and author, as well as the founder of a non-profit student organization, Burning Hearts.  In the past few years, I've had the opportunity to visit over 40 college campuses.  If you've met me personally, you know that I am passionate about three things: being sold out to conversational prayer, being set apart in purity whether single or married, and being sent out with a purpose and passion for life that will impact others eternally.  

Recently, Today's Christian Woman asked me to write a piece on marriage in any direction of my chosing. I was stymied for quite a while as to what to focus on, and then realized I was stalling because I was afraid of the vulnerability required to really write what was on my heart. So ... I drank a good, stiff, Diet Pepsi and wrote the following. (It can be found in the November/December issue of TCW or online at their website.)