Navigating the Space between Singleness and Marriage

There’s little doubt that the modern world creates some unique challenges when it comes to navigating the space between singleness and marriage. There are a host of factors that exist across Western culture and a separate bundle of issues that exist within Christian culture. Put together they can create significant difficulties in successfully pairing up and transitioning from singleness to marriage. This challenge is the topic of Paul Grimmond’s new book Water For My Camels. Though the title is clever …

Why Modern Dating Is So Difficult

One matter that constantly perplexes me is just how difficult it is for young Christians today to figure out dating and romantic relationships. What was quite straightforward in my day seems to have become much more complicated in these days. But as I study the cultural ethos, it begins to make sense, for in my day the cultural assumptions and the Christian assumptions were quite similar. Today, though, they are worlds apart. Paul Grimmond expresses this helpfully in his book …

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Seven Steps To a Good Breakup

Not every relationship works out. Not every couple who begins dating ends up getting married. Neither should they. In fact, for a dating relationship to be healthy, there must be a way out. As Sam Andreades says, “If you are not able to end a dating relationship, you should never start one.” And so, “Before the day you say I do, you always have to be able to say, I don’t. In your heart, you must be able to not …

4 Guidelines for Dating Without Regrets

Somewhere between my generation and the current one, dating became difficult—far more difficult than it had once been. I am sure the so-called “purity movement” bears at least some of the responsibility as does the modern-day hookup culture. So, too, do the ubiquity of pornography and the rise of social media and dating apps. What was once relatively straightforward seems to have become strangely complicated. In his book Pure, Dean Inserra commends an approach that he calls “no regrets dating.” …

I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye

There are times when a kind of weirdness settles over evangelicalism, when for a while people are swept away by strange and flawed ideas. This usually happens when Christians are attempting to counter ideas that are prevalent outside the church. Instead of reacting in a measured way, we collectively over-react. I think the purity and courtship movements were two examples—or perhaps one example, since they were so closely aligned. You can hardly remember or evaluate either without raising the name …

The Space Between Courting and Hooking Up

I have often reflected on how and why dating has become so difficult in the 20 years since it was of any real concern to me. At least, when speaking to today’s young adults and observing their lives, it sure seems there has been a significant shift. Something has changed between then and now so that what once seemed relatively simple has become strangely complicated. I know there are many reasons for this, but I’ve been pondering the possibility that …

Lust, Porn and Dating

How can young men best cope with their struggles with lust? And is it wrong to pursue a wife before that sin has been conquered? Join me as I discuss this issue. Transcript What advice do you have for young men struggling with lust & porn? Like a lot of men, probably most young men struggle with sexual purity at various times and for many, it’s an ongoing struggle all the way through their lives. But for young men, in …

What’s Wrong with Christian Dating

What on earth has gone wrong with Christian dating? Why does it seem so much more difficult today than it was just a generation ago? In this video I discuss some common questions about dating and purity. It is available in both YouTube and Facebook formats.   Transcript How should Christians approach dating in our culture today? So, somehow between 1998 when I got married and today, all sorts of weird things have happened. And somehow dating, pursuing marriage has …