There was a time when being a single Christian in your 20s came with a built-in expiration date. College was basically a four-year waiting room for your soulmate, and if you hit 25 still unattached, people at church started looking at you the way they look at the leftover donut table after service—confused, concerned, maybe a little judgmental.
Not anymore.
Today, a growing number of young Christians are choosing intentional singleness—and not because nobody asked them out after youth group. According to Barna’s “Restoring Relationships” study, 68% of practicing Christian young adults are single and, crucially, not desperately swiping for a way out. They are not waiting. They are choosing. Singleness is no longer the sad appetizer before marriage; it is the whole meal.
It is not just a church thing, either. Across the board, young adults are rewriting the rules. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that 54% of Americans say marriage is not necessary for a fulfilling life. (Sorry, Hallmark movies. We still love you, but no one is taking life advice from a story about quitting your law career to run a maple syrup farm with your high school crush.)
For many Christians, this is not a begrudging resignation to hookup culture or a byproduct of “the apps are terrible.” It is a deeply considered, spiritual decision. They are looking at 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul talks about singleness not as a punishment but as a secret weapon—less distraction, more devotion. John Stott, the renowned Anglican theologian who remained single his entire life, called it a vocation, not a consolation prize.
“The gift of singleness is more a vocation than an empowerment,” he said, “although to be sure God is faithful in supporting those he calls.”
In other words, it is not about twiddling your thumbs until your Match.com prayers are answered. It is about fully living out the mission God has for you, solo.
Christian counselors are seeing this shift play out in real time.
“A lot of young adults are no longer seeing marriage as the only way to ‘arrive’ spiritually or socially,” said Dr. Debra Fileta, licensed counselor and author of Choosing Marriage. “They are giving themselves permission to grow, heal and build lives that are rooted in purpose first—not just partnership.”
But the rise of intentional singleness is not just a personal lifestyle tweak. It is pressing hard on some old fault lines in the church. For all its sermons about identity in Christ, the modern evangelical church still tends to build its social life around married couples and young families. Singles often get shuffled into awkward “young adults” groups that feel like bad speed-dating setups or, worse, get treated like they are stuck in a waiting room for adulthood.
Rosaria Butterfield, former professor and Christian author, does not pull punches about it: “The Church must become the new family promised by Christ for those who forsake their former loyalties and allegiances to follow Him.”
In other words, if singleness is going to be seen as a valid, honored life path, the community has to step up. That means no more “well, when you get married…” assumptions tucked into every sermon illustration. It means valuing people for who they are now, not who they might be once they get a plus-one.
Statistically, that shift cannot come fast enough. A study by Eido Research found that 63% of single women in church had not even been on a date with another church member in the past two years. Not because they were not open to it, but because the opportunities—and often, the intentionality—simply were not there. Add to that the fact that many church events and ministries are heavily centered around marriage and family life, and it is not hard to see why singles sometimes feel invisible.
And here is the thing: most of these young Christians are not rejecting the idea of marriage. They are rejecting the pressure to treat marriage like a spiritual merit badge. They are saying, “I am open if it happens, but I am not putting my life, my calling or my joy on hold in the meantime.”
For some, that looks like diving into ministry or missions work without worrying about the logistics of dragging a reluctant boyfriend to Mozambique. For others, it is pursuing graduate degrees, starting nonprofits, planting churches or pouring into deep friendships that carry just as much spiritual weight as a marriage would. It is about living fully now, not betting their whole sense of purpose on a relationship that may or may not materialize.
It is worth noting that the Bible never frames marriage as the end-all, be-all of Christian life. Jesus, the single guy who literally saved the world, is a pretty strong case in point. Paul—arguably the most successful church planter of all time—said he wished more people would stay single so they could focus on kingdom work without distraction.
None of this is to say that marriage is less important, or that wanting it is wrong. It is just not the only good story. In fact, for many young believers, choosing to be single right now is a radical act of faith. It is believing that their lives are already complete in Christ—not someday when the wedding registry gets built, but today.
It is choosing a different kind of intimacy—one built through vulnerability in friendships, service to a community and a relationship with God that is not shaped by anyone else’s expectations.
If the church is serious about calling people to lives of deep faith and radical love, it has to start honoring the ones who are already living that out without a ring to prove it. Because this generation is not waiting. They are already building something beautiful—and they do not need a plus-one to do it.
