token single white female
Welcome to our Church family!
Have two church type incidents I must chat about.

church incident #1
One of the churches I attend is very large and is big on members attending small home groups in order to facilitate personal relationships within the church family. I've tried to land a small home group before, but I've never quite found the right one. When I was going through the dissolution of marriage I did not feel like I belonged in a singles group, and I didn't want to be around a bunch of happy marrieds.

Recently the pastor did a 4 week series and encouraged this small group involvement during the series. The church said you could sign up if you wanted to participate in a group...and you would be contacted by a group leader. I did this twice and was never contacted so I didn't have a group for that series.

Anyway, we are starting a new message series and the church is encouraging everyone to find a small group for the 6 week devotionals. It's a bit different this time as you can get on their internet site and search for a small group. So you have to put yourself out there and contact the group leader instead of a group leader contacting you. So I got on-line, searched and found a group. I emailed the group leader and received a very warm response - we're just starting up our group, we're very excited, you're one of the first to contact us, you'll be part of creating this group.....blah blah blah

But here is the kicker...the group leader said they weren't limiting the group and all are welcome - marrieds, singles, people with kids, people with no kids, all ages.

So last night the leader of the group calls me again to let me know that I am the only single person coming and she wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to feel uncomfortable. Well, no I wasn't, at least not until you made sure that you have pointed this out to me. Uh, but now I will. So I told her that did not make me uncomfortable and she said "good, it will be nice to have the perspective of a single person". Sigh. So now it has turned from something I was semi-excited about to me feeling like some sort of patronized, ostracized freak.

church incident #2
I went to a women's bible study last night. I try to do this things so I can socialize and then I always feel like I don't belong. The bible study is two parts: first group discussion then watch a video. I was the only person at my table who didn't take my bible with me. I was also the only person not married. During the group discussion part they completely deviated from the topic at hand and started talking about babies. This is not a particular topic of discussion that I'm comfortable with so I decided to take a bathroom/get more coffee/send text messages break. I want to watch the videos, I enjoy those, so next time I will just skip the first hour which is the group discussion.

Here's what really bothered me though. There was a pregnant lady at my table (PL#1). Another pregnant lady (PL#2) in the room walked up and started a conversation with her which I could overhear. PL#2 was obviously fairly new to the church, and in a delicate situation without a husband. PL#2 asked PL#1 about the small home group PL#1 attends. PL#2 was apparently, like me, looking for a small home group for the new study. PL#1 told PL#2 "well you can come if you like but you probably wouldn't feel comfortable because it is all married couples".

The pastor espouses that we be a church that doesn't restrict to people who look like us act like us dress like us....and the congregates bob their little heads up and down, but when you break it down into individuals and small groups it seems like I always see something entirely different.

Sigh. I feel like a giant bitch already. There is this older lady who offices on one side of me....she's not in my area and I really haven't spoken to her. But today, all of a sudden, she had her computer set quite loud so that every time she hits enter or something it bakes a "bing". Finally, after enduring this for a couple of hours I realized I might go insane or have some sort of outburst or incident so I asked her to turn it down. If you've ever seen that movie Office Space it was similar to the way that one lady answers the phone... I am only capable of drowning out so much. Anyway, I feel really bad that the only interaction I've had with her is telling her to make it stop.

-Robyn...you would be in a small home group with me, wouldn't you, even if I told you to turn the computer down?

- posted by Robyn @ 8:45 AM