Video Transcript: Introduction to the Dating Module

But another way to go, is to have a series of meetings, maybe over a 10 week period, or 10 sessions over a 20 week period, where you say, hey, let's dive deep into the journey. The journey of preparation, the journey of acquiring knowledge, I go back to this concept we're talking about in the first session about golf. You know, Golf is a hard game. And it truly has taken more than 10 sessions for me to play it as well as I do. And I'm still not the greatest at that. But I actually understand it now, when it would have been really nice when I was like 12, if somebody would have sat me down, and really talked about the theory about how a swing is a circular motion, how, what a hinges, and how that helps clubs speed, and how that actually works. 

What I would encourage you, as a matchmaker minister, when you talk to someone who might be interested instead, you know, you may spend 1000s, and 1000s of dollars on a college degree. But to live with someone undoubtedly  part we hardly make zero investment in that. So in this ministry, this could be a opportunity for you to support a matchmaking ministry, through your gifts and supporting the fees of this ministry. 

But more, you will also create an opportunity for something special. So what we're suggesting that you do, is say, look, here's x amount of sessions, and you can look at your own matchmaking ministry, and define that on your own. But we're going to give, I'm going to give you some modules that you can share and reproduce as is in there for you. And you can print them out, put them on pieces of paper to follow that you can create a series or maybe 10 weeks or whatever, eight weeks, seven weeks, where there's teaching, there's discussion, there is a ministry conversation about matching about finding your life partner.

So I would suggest that your first meeting would be about dating itself, courtship it the introduction to dating.  And what this would be, maybe it would be trying to figure out with your client, what dating actually is. It's a process of getting to know someone, Christian dating with the intention, that there might be a possibility that God was going to bring you together to be a kingdom partnership married. Now in our world, there's definitely different destinies definitions, there's dating, in many people just think about dating as going out on a date. 

And in that there are different types of dating that are in our culture. There's casual dating is very less serious and just focused on having fun. I noticed that a lot of younger people who are not really even ready to be married, will develop skills with the opposite sex as they are casually dating. Now, this is unfortunately also connected so much today with sexual expression. If you go to a college, there'll be casual dating, and there's many times and expectation of sexual activity that goes along with it. 

Now Christian could enjoy the casual fun of meeting people without going into that sexual encounter. But again, that is going to be why a matchmaking minister ministry is so important because what we're trying to do is are Try to help have like there, there is some value in casual dating, yet still maintaining that the sex is for monogamy. 

Then there's exclusive dating. And this is when dating is more serious, more long term in lot of times, again, this was where temptation can often go deeper in, there's an expectation in many circles in the Western world, at least, where there's long periods of time for there's long periods of time for the dating process, and we as a matchmaker, matchmaker ministers, you don't want to probably encourage like, hey, identify who you are, let's help you go forth on that. But often, we don't meet those kinds of people, because they're already in a relationship. We're just talking about definitions now.

 And then there's also the courtship dating, where it's clear, someone is called by God, to meet someone and get married. So these are some of the definitions, and it would probably be a good thing to sit down and talk about dating, and talk about the different places. And that dating is. And I would suggest there's reading here, where all the places you can find Christian spouses, I think that is some very important to do to where can you find Christian spouses. 

And you know, some of those places, of course, our church, small groups, there could be volunteer work, certain hobbies that Christians like to do. Websites of course, we know online tools. And these are some of the things that we are talking about in this class to get really good at. I think dating from a matchmaker minister perspective, we want to prepare them for the facing failure and rejection, and talk about dating in light of that in help your clients address some of their feelings, figure out how they can get the backbone.  

So to speak, to get into the dating situation, the courtship situation, knowing that there may be several failures along the way. And it's not they are not failing, maybe there's an event of a failure or there is a rejection, but they are not rejection, they are not failure. And here's where a matchmaker minister can bring hope in offer support. 

One more thing on that I would suggest is to look through the agenda for the first meeting. And then the agenda, what I would suggest, what I'd recommend is that you have a meeting, and maybe it's going to be an hour and a half. And you set that aside, you have your suggested donation, or you have an arrangement with your church and how you can support your family. 

All of that is clear. And you're going to meet for an hour or an hour and a half, whatever you want to do, it could be in person, or it could be online. If it's in person, be very sensitive to the male and female dynamic. Because you want to if you're let's say a matchmaker minister male and you are meeting with female clients, one on one. That that would be something to be very careful about because I know that the spiritual warfare can occur. Someone who's hungry for intimacy, meaning with a put together minister, could create temptations from Satan. 

What I have done throughout most of my ministry, and I say most because when I first got to seminary, I did not practice this. By the grace of God. I did not fall or I did not cause someone to stumble. But I will say that very early in my ministry would if I met with someone, especially my age, I would make it very careful to have my wife there.

Or I would meet in such a place where there was a window and everything was wide open or at a restaurant, or today we have zoom So again, I bring all of those cautions in because you are called to be a minister who professionally sets boundaries. 

So having done all that, and we've talked about some of these things in this class, so I don't want to talk about them again, what I'd suggest to do is have that first meeting, and the first meeting, go through the agenda, pretty close to what we've suggested here, what I've suggested for you to look at. So that you have, you know, you have something to say, and there is an agenda, you can even print the agenda out, share it, you could read it. 

Believe it or not, what I really like is, I like just read it as it is, and then get right into the discussion. Don't feel you have to elaborate all the time. You know, I have made that mistake. So many times where I just elaborate and elaborate when I just stay to your script is one of the things I love about the Anglican Church, Episcopal Church and other churches that the Catholic Church have liturgies they just stay to their script. And I couldn't imagine the early church, there were that balance between being the same with everyone and staying to the script. 

And the Catholic Church in the Ancient churches, eventually got a script now, they call that liturgy. I like that. But I also liked the freestyle, I like the freestyle in the discussion aspects in the time they have. So here is a script, evaluate it, you maybe want to make some changes. But for the sake of time, just go through the script, there's a little devotion, Bible study devotion, then topics that are covered, and in many of them are talking about what we've even said in this little presentation here. 

But what's great about this, is you follow it, and it actually gets action going. And the first topic is dating. So go through this. And then there's some homework that your client can do when they leave when they leave, just to think about. So that but what you're really doing here, the homework and all that what's happening is you're creating a teachable spirit. In this area, in really so much dating failure has to do with people who are stuck, they themselves are stuck. 

But if they're meeting with a matchmaker minister, now all of a sudden, things are happening in Holy Spirit is using you to sort of make things happen. So let's just to do, there's an agenda here a suggested agenda, look it over, I'm sure, add a few things, take something out if you want. But I would suggest to stay pretty close to that. And then the first half of the meeting, go through the agenda. So that means an hour, the first half, you know, half hour go through the agenda, as is. 

Or if it's an hour and a half the first half hour, go through the agenda, and then just have a conversation about items in the agenda. And as you go through these modules, each module will have an agenda, it will have stuff, they can go together with your client, in order so great about this. It's like it's right there. So you can have your meeting. Your life is busy, you're not making unique agendas for everybody. 

These are the agendas that are out there that people who are looking for a spouse in the Lord are needing to understand as they take their next step in finding their life life partner, what we want to do for you, as a matchmaker minister, is have something reproducible, something that you can just have meetings,  here,  this is what we do. The first module is this. And then we just talk about these things. We share it, there's prayer in there. There's a little Bible study in there. 

Now, here's one of the temptations that you may have. And I totally understand it is that as a minister, you may look at wow, I just I'm into the subject of I have better Bible passages than what I saw on the agenda. And you know, something, that's fine if you do put them in there, but keep it to the same time. Be clear, be concise, because the longer you go into a lot of these things that really are about teaching, the less you're doing with application and processing. 

So what you want to do in my opinion, it again I'm sounding like I'm just so directive here but I understand this so humbly, even though I'm really very directive here but humbly I just know that state to a half hour of teaching or or TT time, that kind of discussion, get the prayers very important. You're a minister, God does hear those prayers, but then give a discussion based upon that first part of the module discussion. And then as you go through each of these modules, stick to that pattern and see how the Holy Spirit brings transformation.