How to meet Christian singles when your church is small

The real problem with a small church

It is not that there is nobody there. It is that everyone knows. Ask one person for a coffee and by the following Sunday it is a topic. That social cost is what stops most people, and it is a completely reasonable thing to want to avoid.

So the goal is not just meeting more people. It is meeting people where a first date can be a first date and nothing more, without an audience.

Start with the wider network

Regional and diocesan events

Almost every denomination runs something above the level of the individual church: area services, conferences, retreats, young adults weekends, choir festivals. These are usually poorly advertised and better attended than you would expect. Ask whoever handles your church's noticeboard, because they will know about three things you have never heard of.

Larger churches nearby that run something midweek

You do not have to leave your church to go to someone else's Tuesday night group. Bigger congregations often run walking groups, book groups, courses and social events that are genuinely open. Turning up to one of those as a visitor is normal and nobody will interrogate you.

Volunteering and interest groups

Food banks, night shelters, cathedral choirs, community projects, Christian Aid and similar. You meet people while doing something, which removes the worst part of meeting people, which is standing around trying to think of something to say.

Then look online

Online is the only option that reliably solves the numbers problem. Thirty people in a congregation is thirty people. A dating platform is thousands, filtered to people who have already said that faith matters to them.

Two things make the difference between it working and it being a slog:

• Widen your radius before you widen anything else. An hour's drive is not far for the right person and it is a much smaller compromise than the ones people usually make first.
• Be specific about faith in your profile. Not a statement of doctrine. Just enough that someone can tell if you are in the same place they are. "Church every week and it shapes most of my decisions" and "I was raised in it and it still means a lot to me" are both honest and they attract different people.

What tends not to work

• Waiting for someone to appear at church. If it was going to happen there, it probably would have by now.
• Asking your mum's friend to set you up. Occasionally brilliant. Usually a long evening.
• Treating every single person in a twenty mile radius as a candidate. People notice, and it makes church uncomfortable for both of you.
• Deciding your town is hopeless and stopping. The most common outcome, and the only one that guarantees nothing happens.

A month that would actually move things

1. Week one. Find out what your area or diocese has coming up in the next three months. Put two things in the diary.
2. Week two. Find the two largest churches within half an hour and look at what they run midweek. Go to one.
3. Week three. Write a dating profile properly. Give it an hour, not five minutes. Ask a friend to read it.
4. Week four. Message five people with a real question about something in their profile.

Four weeks of that will not necessarily find you someone. It will reliably change how many people you are in front of, which is the only variable you actually control.