Ministering to the Young Single Adult - Elmer Towns

apartment building for ten years and yet do not know the other person beyond a name onthe mail box.Mary, a young single adult from Missouri, indicated she wanted to go home.“When I walk down Main Street back home, I nod to people and they smile back, and Ifeel good. I realize home has second-rate shops, no entertainment, little excitement, and anine o’clock curfew for teenagers. When I walk down the street in Chicago I feel theexcitement of the crowd, the anticipation of looking in the shop windows, and the thrill ofbeing something big, but I’m lonely, and Chicago is an awful place in which to be byyourself.”Mary doesn’t need counseling, nor does she need to be lectured. The gospel iscommunicated to her when a Christian reaches out and touches her life. Mary needs toknow:She is a sinner but—Christ has paid the price for her sin and—Her heavenly Father accepts her and wants her to grow in—The community of believers which love her.The average person has a mental image of the church as a building with a steeple,announcement board out front, and a large auditorium. Church is a place where he listensto a sermon, hears soft organ music, and feels the warmth of the sun ray glisteningthrough stained glass windows. If this is what a person thinks—he’s wrong. The truechurch is a community-a body. As the body is made up of many members that depend oneach member to do its job, the church is made up of many individuals and depends oneach to perform his function. Both the community and body are a maze of interdependentrelationships. People need other people as muscles need bones. The church needs peoplewho can help other people.In a sense, the isolated single adult can appreciate the church more than can hismarried counterpart. The young married adult has the family, civic organizations, PTA,and a host of other groups all bidding for his time. The young married couple may havemany opportunities to form friendships. Many of these relationships are forced uponthem. As a result, the married couple may look at the church as just another activity in abusy schedule. Church relationships can get lost in the pressures of life. But the youngsingle adult can find meaning and significance in life through relationships in the church.3. The gospel-content of relationships. We have talked of man’s need-isolation,and the means to solve the problem-relationship. Now the content of relationship, thegospel, must be analyzed.The gospel has two aspects: a proposition and a person. The average churchmember has only one concept of the gospel: it is a proposition or a statement of faith to