17th February, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

They’re a growing proportion of the Australian community yet in many churches they’re still a largely overlooked group.

Data from Australia’s last census in 2001 shows that the number of lone parents had risen to 762,600, up 38 per cent from the 1991 figure while the number of men and women living alone increased to 1.6 million, a rise of 43 per cent on the 1991 figure.

A SOLO WALK: Data from the 2001 Census shows that 1.6 million Australians now live alone. PICTURE: Cral Dwyer (www.sxc.hu)   “A lot of people in that category don’t feel it’s an understood group. It’s still a group with a stigma over it - it’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there,” says Jenny Reed.

Yet, according to Jenny Reed, single people have been a “very overlooked” group in many churches in the past when it comes to recognising them through dedicated ministries.

“I think anybody can get their needs met in God and we all do - but as far as targeting that group as far as other ministries go in the church, (they’ve been) very overlooked,” she says.

“A lot of people in that category don’t feel it’s an understood group. It’s still a group with a stigma over it - it’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there.”

The 44-year-old mother of four and grandmother of two aims to change that. Reed, who first became a single parent at the age of 17 and then again some 15 years later following a divorce, is writing a book which she hopes will raise up some of the issues singles are facing. Among the subjects she intends on covering are loneliness, sexuality and single parenting - particularly with regard to those who also work or study, and wholeness.

To that end, Reed has been surveying singles from both sexes across the country with the aim of gaining a broader view of the issues affecting them. When Sight spoke to Reed recently, she had already collected around 200 surveys.

“It seems to be confirming what I thought - that most people go through the same issues,” she says.

Reed - who recently spent five years running a community group for single women in Mackay, Queensland, before moving to her current home in Lismore, northern New South Wales - says that issues affecting singles are going to become increasingly important in the church as their numbers continue to swell.

“I believe singles ministries are going to explode because God wants to meet the needs of these people,” she says. “And while He does anyway, I think he wants to do it in a little bit more of a concentrated way and all of us that have been in this situation for some time will need to minister to these people.”

Asked about the stigma that can still be attached to singles in churches, Reed says that in most cases it's subconscious. She says, for example, that there are many preachers who still address their messages to the nuclear-type family - “mum, dad and the two kids” - when, in fact, “these days a lot of people who are sitting in churches are in single parent families or they’re singles”.

“This whole ministry needs to come up to the surface more because there’s a lot of people that will be hurting; that are still trying to work it all out and are thinking ‘Well, where do I fit in the church? Do people really accept me here?’”

“It’s not recognised enough that there are other different kinds of families...” she says. “It can still be like well, if you’ve been through a divorce or if you haven’t got a husband or a wife and you’ve got children, then something’s missing in your life...and that may or may not be the case."

Reed says that the growing number of people who have been through a divorce need to know that they’re accepted and that “the church is the place for them”.

“I think basically the whole thing is that we need to get better as a church now,” she says. “This whole ministry needs to come up to the surface more because there’s a lot of people that will be hurting; that are still trying to work it all out and are thinking ‘Well, where do I fit in the church? Do people really accept me here?’”

Reed, who hopes to travel the country speaking to groups about the issues affecting singles after the book is published, says the book is something that has long been on her heart.

“I’ve personally been a single parent since I was 17 - before I became a Christian - so being on my own is something that I’ve had a lot of personal experience with,” she says.

“I found the Lord a couple of years later, married and then 10 years down the track found myself a single parent again pregnant with my fourth child (through divorce). So I’ve had the situation before and after being a Christian, as a younger girl, as an older woman.”

Reed hopes the book will help others to realise that they are not alone in facing issues as a single person.

”It really does help people in any situation just to know that they’re not on their own,” she says.

“People will be able to read this book and relate to a lot of people across Australia who are going through the same thing and just that in itself is going to help them.”

• If you'd like to complete a survey, you can send an email to Jenny Reed at simplysingle@optusnet.com.au

~ http://members.optusnet.com.au/~wjennywren/