Jonathan explores five reasons why, over time, he has come to appreciate the value of singleness. While being honest about the struggles he's had on this journey, he shows why singleness is not second best, and indeed why it offers some distinct advantages over married life.

Our pastor recently preached a Sunday morning sermon on marriage and the family. He prayed for “our marriages and families” at the end and then added the line, “and we also pray for those who are single.” He might just as well have said, “and Gary too”, since I was the only single person there!

In June 2019, I circulated a pair of surveys about singleness in the UK church – one survey for single people and one for married people. The purpose was to collect some perceptions of singleness from a range of people – male and female; single and married; young and old.

The topic of masturbation is rarely addressed by churches and so Christians can find themselves conflicted by feelings of shame, confusion and self-justification on this common struggle. Gary explores out what the Bible says about masturbation and proposes some practical wisdom to escape from the cycle of shame, frustration and failure.

In those moments where we singles may be struggling, probably the last words we want to hear are, “God has just called you to be single, right now”. Something about this isn’t very reassuring, especially if we lack any sense of calling to singleness. Don’t worry - this kind of plainly apparent calling isn’t the experience of most.

Receiving a gift should stir feelings of great gratitude. But if we were to play a word association game with ‘singleness’, how many of us would associate it with joy, thankfulness and other positive emotions? There have certainly been times I’ve failed to treat this gift as something good, provided by our loving heavenly Father.