Christian matchmaking services

Hi Everyone,

I’m wondering if you know of any Christian matchmaking services that, in order to do their best to filter out the ineligible from the outset and determine if a person’s interest in the service is genuine, requires participants to provide:

• A Statement of Faith (state when and how we were spiritually born again/converted to Christianity, including a paragraph that defines what we believe is a proper Christian lifestyle);
• Proof of Identity (eg a Photo ID such as a current Drivers Licence, that displays our Date of Birth and PostCode for where we live);
• A Police Check/Clearance Report acquired within the last 6 months;
• A properly completed personality profile with a current photo plus other modest pictures, scripted using clean language, showing a well defined list of personality traits and interests, and a list of the desired characteristics of an ideal partner including any age group preferences;
• If we’ve had a broken marital or de facto relationship, then we will be required to provide a statement declaring why we believe we are eligible for remarriage.

If you do, or have any thoughts on the matter, please let me know.

Shalom,

Tony

I do not know of such a site. I can only think of Christian Mingle but I think the site is open to everyone.

As a female, I would not be comfortable providing proof of identity, photo ID, or post code on/to the website, much less this information being viewable to strangers on the site. I think this is just something you have to find out in the first couple of dates in person. I would be cautious with post code until later.

um no

Most churches are not that clinical
what usually happens is, you tell your pastor you are looking for someone to marry, and the pastor (or his wife) keeps this thought in the back of their brain

Then a potluck dinner or dance or some kind of social event is organised, and you just happen to meet miss eligible future wife cos shes sitting near you or at your table. Without even knowing that it was all a set up.

Also at the potluck, miss eligible has taken the time to prepare your favourite dish because shes asked the pastor's wife what she should bring.

Then you start talking and miss eligible causally mentions that she's always wanted a church wedding. That is your cue to start courting her with praise songs.

I understand your concern. The administrators of the site should use the information only to vet applicants to the service, and it should be held in confidence and not open to public or other members view, or deleted. I would need to ensure of that, too.

Having a Police Check/Clearance done would require a submission of Photo ID to the organisation that does the check anyway, so the the need of a photo ID might be redundant, except the photo may help the administrators confirm the legitimacy of other current photos of myself that I might present on my profile,

I could redact any information from the scanned photo ID or reports that I submit, such as street address, ID number, and signature, to adequately protect my privacy (I think?).

Noting down the area where I live on my profile could help the service's event organisers plan activities that others in my area also have similar interest in, so that they can draw people together face to face through those. Submission of a post code when matched with an IP address' issuing location can help administrators detect scammers sooner than later.

Thanks heaps for your feedback. 👍

Well, I'm with you on the first part of your response, but not the last sentence 🙂.

I agree though, a safe church social environment is the ideal vehicle, but that is not always available to everyone.

Maybe the kind of matchmaking service I'm questioning about here won't be of interest to those that can be helped through their church associations, but it may be helpful to those that don't have access to that and yet yearn for Christian companionship.

In the past I've found that the older, or long term single, and single parents' special needs are often overlooked by the church oversight. Maybe such a matchmaking service, if it exists somewhere, would be helpful to them.

There's also the thought of those singles that are members of small church communities, that don't have opportunities to socialise with members of the opposite gender in their peer age group. There could be someone in the next Street to them that might make an ideal partner, but because they belong to a different church group they're not aware of each other's existence. Yes, we can ask Jesus to facilitate our meeting a companion, but because the church is so disintegrated, and our theology so disparate, we make that a very difficult task as against one that is supposed to be a relatively easy for Him to facilitate, if He wished.

Thanks heaps for your feedback, it's much appreciated 👍

Ah, see, NOW we get to the root of it!

The problems you mention have been mentioned on this forum many times. Unfortunately nobody has ever found a solution. You can find a lot on it by looking for threads with titles about the church failing older singles.

But if the church DID help out with this, I'd hate to hear what Jesus said about it. "My house is supposed to be a house of prayer. A den of thieves was bad enough, but you've made it a meat market!"

Unfortunately, I think there's very little incentive for even the most sincere of Christian dating sites to do that kind of in depth analysis on their potential members. They'd spend a lot more money, end up with fewer members paying for the site, and those two together would probably price them out of range for many other potential members.

You may be right, but if such a service was available on Facebook there shouldn't be much cost involved, only the cost of acquiring a Police Check...in Oz that's about $30 au. That would be payable by the applicant. And why do we need to make money out of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, surely there should be enough suitable, spiritually mature Christian people willing to volunteer their time and abilities to assess applicants' eligibility, and the accepted applicants can help with the organising of social activities. I'd put my hand up to help out. And the incentive is, that I would be helping brothers and sisters in need of help.

Anyway, I do appreciate you presenting your thoughts on it, thank you 👍🙂

I think that's a very cynical and uncaring comment. I know what He is saying, and that is "we should be getting off our lazy butts and helping each other out!" Notice that I put that last comment in parentheses. Be careful/think deeply about any reaction.

So you are dead-set on this idea and react very strongly to anybody disagreeing with you. Right. Duly noted.

Good luck.

It's not me I believe you are disagreeing with. If I thought that, I wouldn't have made the comment. I long ago gave up caring about my own opinion, I'm not interested in it, nor do I think much about others opinions unless I know them to line up with the Lord's.

Lemme get this straight:

You believe, and you can back up with scripture, that God wants us to start a dating service in churches? And you believe if I disagree with this, I am deliberately going against God's will?

Everything that needed to be said to you, has been said. I will say no more.

Not everything by half. Answer the question.

Or at LEAST give some scripture to back your claim.

Hi Tony,

I appreciate your thoughts about what it would take to run a Christian dating service that would actually match up Christians, but I would like to share a few thoughts.

I've been single for a while now (in the decades range,) but I'm not claiming to be any kind of expert, just someone who has observed a few things in her extended time of being single. I've done a little of everything they recommend to singles, and even some things they don't, lol (meaning, a lot of Christians I've known are against online dating sites, but I've been on a few.)

I've been part of of a few dating sites, one real-life match-making service, and many, many groups at churches (some social, some for service.) Here are some major obstacles I see to the kind of service you are suggesting (and if it does exist anywhere, someone please let me know, because I'd like to see how it's done.)

1. As much as we'd love to believe that people, especially believers, will just do things out of the goodness of their heart (and for the love of Christ,) they won't or can't. I think the proof is in a lot of churches themselves -- maybe you are blessed to be part of a very different church, but every church I've been a part of has a constant cry for resources, both for money and for resources.

If people can't or won't volunteer for even the most basic of service-oriented tasks at church, I would be willing to wager that there aren't going to be enough volunteers to run any dating service, let alone one that detailed.

I have to agree with @cinder -- it would either fall apart due to lack of volunteers, or it would become a money issue in one way or the other. Either people will become sick or burned out from doing so much work for free, or someone will decide to turn it into a business, even if it starts out as just charging a fee to cover costs. And how would the intake of any fees be handled? How would it be kept accountable to protect against fraud? I've been in some churches where money was being stolen by those who were put in charge of collecting it or paying the bills.

Unfortunately, even as Christians, we have to be realistic, and anyone having access to the money coming in might be someone who is potentially tempted to "borrow" that money for their own purposes, no matter how "well-intended."


2. What kinds of guidelines would the service have as to who or who isn't allowed to post a profile? For example, if background checks are required, what if something comes up in a person's criminal history and how is that handled, or are they automatically rejected?

I'm thinking of examples such as someone who stole something from a store as a teenager and maybe even wound up in jail for the night because of it. But maybe it's been years or decades and that person has grown and changed, or maybe they weren't a Christian then but became so later in life.

Regardless of spiritual status, the black mark on their record will remain for some time, if not indefinitely. Would that exclude them from being allowed to participate? Who will judge them more -- the people deciding whether or not they're allowed to post on the site, or the people who read their post? Where is the line between the love of God and giving someone a second chance VS. "OH NO, GET THIS CRIMINAL OFF THIS SITE!!"?


3. If it's one thing I've learned in my time of growing up within Christian circles, it is that many Christians, whether we admit it or not, are judgmental and often base most judgments on first sight.

Putting up any amount of personal information is going to bring on heaps of judgment (just look at the many negative responses a lot of people get here whenever they share something others don't automatically like.) Now of course I'm not talking about blatant sin, such as being in a godless situation and bragging about it with no remorse.

But for something like divorce, there are a lot of people who will not accept any kind of answer and will only criticize, no matter what the reason. And they will all use Scripture to back their statements (for example, I'm thinking of a recent post here of a woman pouring her heart out and all some people had to say was, "God says to obey your husband.")

The thing with many people who claim to know God is that they will weaponize their alleged alliance with God in any situation -- if you don't agree with them, your battle isn't with them, "IT'S AGAINST GOD HIMSELF!!", and boy will they ever let you know it. For this reason, I have become more selective about who and what I share any personal information about my life with. Our personal lives especially often come with a lot of details you wouldn't tell anyone other than your closest friends and it would take time to get to know someone that well in order to be able to share. For as much as I write on this forum, there are a plethora of details I don't include about myself and never would on a dating site, which I'm sure would make me ineligible to either the administrators or the people on the site.

But the people here I've known for many years who have become true friends understand -- but it's taken years to be able to get to that level. There is a very fine line between sharing enough to spark a potential partner's interest vs. sharing too much that people will automatically judge or misinterpret.

3. How would general accountability be enforced on such a site? No matter how many checks there are, people will slip through the cracks. During my time on Christian Mingle, I learned that one of the hush-hush things that was whispered about regarded those who had met people on such sites and then were sexually assaulted. As far a I know, the sites not only turn a blind eye, but they will leave the perpetrator's profile up as if nothing happened (as long as they're paying, of course.) The only warnings about such people came from whispered exchanges after getting to know some of the other (in my case, female) members who had been on the site for some time.

How would the site you're proposing deal with this? And what about instances where members come across a troublesome member but it's only word of mouth?

As another example, I liked Christian Mingle best when it had chat rooms. I don't think they do anymore and I would be uncomfortable going to a dating site without them, because it was in the chat rooms where I would hear about some members who were suspected catfishes, those who were talking to several people but would say, "You're the only one," or those who put on the most holy of holy appearances but were very different in person.

I know it's hard to judge between gossip and grudges, but I can't think of a time when I was steered wrong by listening to what the majority of longer-term members had to say in those rooms.

How would these situations be handled on such a site? Would members with bad experiences be allowed to voice them? If one member pressured or forced another into sex, how would that be handled if it was a case of one person's word against another? What about people who already had significant others (a boyfriend or girlfriend) and was technically unavailable, but wanted to "see what was out there" (which is something that wouldn't show up in a background check.) This was another type of warning I would get in those old Christian Mingle chatrooms.)

This would be another complication of such a detailed (and especially free) dating site. The other thing I found with free, nothing-to-lose dating sites is that they seemed to attract a plethora of people who already had someone, but were looking for options. Regular membership costs cut down on at least some of this behavior.

As Christians, we would want such a service to not only meet, but exceed the utmost standards of safety, dignity, and moral behavior.

But how in the world would something like that be realistically carried out?

I don't think Lynx is being cynical or uncaring at all.

It perfectly illustrates the experience a friend of mine had while working for a singles fellowship/outreach at his church. I asked him how it was going and he said, "Oh, people just show up in search of a new boyfriend or girlfriend to talk to for awhile, then come back again looking for another one when it doesn't work out."

I know this is part of the dating process, but I think he perfectly summed up what many of us have seen in such situations, no matter how well-intentioned.

Nah, surely not. I can't think of ANYBODY who would do that.

I should add a disclaimer that I'm not trying to criticize those who find a significant other in church, then find it doesn't work out, then go back to either their church or another one in order to try to repeat the process all over again.

After all, this is exactly what all Christian singles are immediately told to do whenever they ask about how to find someone.

It's one of the many Catch-22's of being Christian and single.

If someone says, "I'm a single Christian, but would like to be married. How do I find someone?"

Everyone, in unison, will proclaim, "TRY LOOKING FOR SOMEONE IN CHURCH!" (As if the single person didn't have enough brains to think of that themselves.)

But if they do find someone and it doesn't work out (and maybe they even have to change churches because it's become too uncomfortable or ostracizing,) then they will be told, "HOW DARE YOU TURN CHURCH INTO A PLACE TO LOOK FOR DATES!! WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF PLAYER WHO LEADS PEOPLE ON??? GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SIN-LADEN SOUL!!!"

It's just one of those spiritual games that you just can't win (unless of course, you are blessed find that miracle spouse on the very first try.)

Oh I don't know... There is ONE winning move.

"The only winning move is to not play."