From what I have experienced, most women like a man who can make them laugh, but what about a man who is truly serious about the things of the Lord? Not just in how he treats you, but also in his godly desire to help others? Would you be okay with that, or would you selfishly try to keep him away from ministering to others? I ask this because I have seen this very thing in other people's relationships in the past.
Selfishness is a two-way street. The other side of the question has to be asked too -- would he be willing to put aside his ministry enough to make a relationship and most especially, a wife and family, his new top priority? And who is he ministering to? Obviously, if he feels he always has a "calling" to minister to women, I'd rather just stay friends and not have to worry about any entanglements that might happen.
I think that anyone who believes they are active in ministry has to also develop the discernment to know that if they are going to have a relationship, they will have to put a priority on the person they're seeing first, and some of their ministry work will fall into the background.
I was once talking to a guy who was a newer Christian (about 3 years) and he had a huge heart. He literally wanted to help everyone, to the point where he was almost giving away so much money that he was starting to struggle with his own bills. Now there might be times God wants us to do that. But for the most part, I think God wants us to learn to be disciplined enough to not get ourselves into trouble for the sake of others.
Having been single for a long time and doing what all the good Christians told me to do (serving in a lot of ministries over the years,) I've found that many people are in ministry work not just to serve God, but also, to an extent, themselves. Yes, some are naturally caring, but also people-pleasers who get to a point where their entire self-identity is wrapped up in serving because it props up their own self-worth.
I'm certainly not saying that everyone who serves in ministry is like this of course. But I've worked for, and around, some people who literally could not live without the self-validation it gives them, and that becomes an even bigger motivation to them than just serving God.
I've also heard a lot of stories of, say pastors whose own families resent them because they always felt they had to make other people more important than their wife and kids. Sometimes it was necessary -- sometimes it was to look good in front of the congregation. I heard an interesting sermon once about a pastor whose kids resented him and the ministry because he never attended their events, etc. He was too busy "ministering to others" to be there for his own children or attend their events.
I used to be part of a ministry that wrote to and visited prison inmates for around 8 years. I became good friends with one person from that time and am still in contact today. We used to talk about how we wanted to "continue the cycle," and he kept his promise by now going and speaking to disadvantaged youth who are in danger of the same things he was.
I would love to go back to that ministry, but when an inmate escaped and killed a young woman in my home state who was doing the same thing, God told me to stop, and when I've asked if I can go back over the years, the answer always seems to be no.
I also believed that He was telling me, "If you were to meet someone, he obviously wouldn't want you to be doing this kind of work." Well, that was a long time ago, and I never have "met someone" in a dating sense. But it taught me that if I did hope to meet someone, sacrifices must be made, and I couldn't date someone if he didn't have a grasp on that as well.
But if God ever DID call me back to that kind of work, how many guys would be willing to date a girl who's ministering to prison inmates?
I've obviously switched to other kinds of ministry work, so if I were dating someone who was serious about the Lord, we would obviously have to have a talk about where we feel God has called us, and where we would place each other in the hierarchy of whom we were to serve. I would ask God to test us both in that way, to see whether we were truly serving God, or if we were mostly just propping up our own self-esteem through others. It could very well be that if God had us in a relationship (and especially a marriage,) our most important task now was to minister to each other and back away fom other ministries.
Personally, I wouldn't be able to proceed further with the relationship until I had some clear answers to those questions. And then of course, I would do my best to go with what God directed.
But if a guy ever told me, "You're selfishly keeping me from those I'm meant to minister to," I would ask God to give me a ministry in which he would feel the same way about my work in order to test us both.
Next Question: Is it a problem if a woman is making more money than the man in a relationship? What happens if they get married and she's paying most of the bills? How does he lead as a husband when she's paying for most everything?
I ask because in every dating relationship I've had, I've wound up paying for the man. Not because the guy wasn't hard-working, but because he bought other things for himself -- games, clothes, car parts, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. -- and was always behind on his bills, which I wound up paying. For me, it wasn't just about money, but rather, that fact that he wasn't financially responsible.
I wouldn't feel secure with someone buying novelties over paying for a roof over our head first.
). I have struggled with this issue myself so I'm not just supposing, my first thought was literally that she might be an interested avoidant. Just thoughts though, hope I'm not leading you astray but ya seem like the kinda guy who could handle a lil embarrassment if I'm wrong lol 
