Sam Allberry: Pastoring While Unmarried

Sam is a pastor from the UK who writes on a variety of issues, some related to being single or celibacy, some related to other ministry aspects. I have come to deeply appreciate his wisdom on various matters, and his dry wit from across the Atlantic. You can find him on twitter @samallberry and as a regular contributor to Living Out.   

1. Do you feel a certain call to remain single or do you have a desire to be married? Why?

I've never felt a particular 'call' to singleness other than knowing that it is God's will for me for as long as I remain unmarried. I've never had a clear sense of God telling me I'm going to be single for the rest of my life. I do have a sense that I probably will be, that marriage is unlikely, but would not want to describe that as a 'call' as such. So my hunch is that I will be single long term.

That said, there are times when I deeply desire to be married. I would love to have that kind of companionship - to come 'first' for someone. Even with good friends it can feel lonely and isolating at times to be single. So yes, there are times when I would love to be married. And times when I am very happy being single.

2. How are you serving the local church and the Kingdom with your portion of singleness?

I work as a pastor at a church, and I know that being single releases me to do this in a way that would not be as easy were I married. I can be out most evenings and weekends without the issue of neglecting family back home. I can spend more time at the office. I will have a slightly different capacity than some married colleagues might - able to give more time to certain aspects of the ministry.

More specifically, I hope I am able to teach and model something of what the single like should look like. There are a number of people at church who are single and over-40, through bereavement or divorce. The temptations to become romantically involved and even marry unbelievers is acute for many of them. We have lost too many through that route. So I hope when I speak to that from the pulpit that it carries credibility. I do know what it is like to fall in love with someone the Bible would forbid you from marrying. I can speak from experience and echo some of the pains, all the while calling people to remain faithful to Christ. I think it helps to have single people involved in pastoral ministry.

3. Talk about the process of wrestling, either in the past or continued, with your portion of singleness. What contributed to your confidence in Christ in this season?

There have been a lot of ups and downs in my experience as a single Christian. There are times I have resented being single. I went through a painful period when I began to realise that getting married and having children were not a 'given' and I had to come to terms with the possibility that they might never happen at all. In my late twenties and early thirties it felt like going through a bit of a bereavement as friends went through these stages and I began to sense I might not have the opportunity to.

Throughout all this, one of the key things I have had to learn is that the key to contentment as a single person is not found in being content in singleness - in persuading yourself that it is the best thing ever. The key is being content in Christ, as a single person. If I was married, there would be the same number of ups and downs as I currently face as a single person. The grass will always seem greener somewhere else. But the more I have learned to find contentment in Christ, the less it seems to matter to me whether I am married or single. Knowing Jesus is the key to life.

As I say that, I am conscious it is a battle to keep believing it. Every day I need to make time to get my heart glad in the Lord. It's a fight. But it's a fight that makes a whole load of other fights much easier.

4. What is the deepest challenge to you do ministry unmarried?

One of the hardest things for me being single in ministry is that I often feel emotionally spent, and then find myself returning to an empty home. It is hard not having someone to process things with, to laugh and cry with. Ministry exposes you to the best and worst of God's people (and of yourself, too, for that matter) and it is hard not having someone to share all that with. Sometimes it feels like I bottle up a lot of this stuff for weeks at a time. I may have a greater time capacity as a single person, but I sometimes wonder if I also have a smaller emotional capacity.

5. What is the richest blessing to you in your singleness today?

I guess what I am dong right now is a huge blessing. As I answer these questions, I'm doing so while staying in the home of some very dear friends who I have the opportunity of spending a few days with. I wouldn't have come across you, Lore, and a great many other people, were it not for the ministry opportunities that have come my way as a single person. So this very moment typifies some of the things that are best about being a single person - a wide range of experiences and friends I otherwise would not have had, all of which in his unfathomable goodness God seems to be using. That blows my mind. So there it is: being single has been a means God has used to impress upon me his goodness.