From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, singles ministries were a staple in most American churches.
But a general shift away from segmenting congregations has caused single-specific programming to fall out of vogue. The most recent large-scale data says only 13% of American churches have a ministry specifically for single adults, while just 2.6% of those groups are considered “thriving.”
In Denver, Janie Mills is on a mission to change that story one Tuesday night at a time.
Hear how Mills' experience of conversion and healing through a singles' ministry moved her to 33 years of service:
At age 29, Mills became a single mother of two small children after a painful divorce. Soon after, when she began attending church at the request of her grandmother, Mills gave her life to Christ.
Healing through her church’s divorce recovery program quickly became a call to serve those experiencing similar pain, loneliness, and confusion.
“It was just really embracing for me to go through that. It just changed my life. I didn’t know so many of the things [that I learned.] I learned about the love of Christ during that time,” Mills explained.
“I learned everything I know from finding Christ in my life in 1991. And I think as soon as God said, ‘You’re ready to go,’ I was in the ministry and have been [for 33 years].”
As she taught divorce recovery classes, people began to ask her where they could find regular community with other like-minded believers in the same stage of life. She didn’t have an answer for them, so she made one.
Mills would soon create a new ministry that welcomed divorced and widowed singles from any church, giving any unmarried believer a place to find healing and friendship. The group grew, bolstered by a younger “never married” crowd joining their ranks, and continues to flourish today.
Each person involved seeks the same thing.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” Mills quoted from Psalm 34. “That has been my verse for this ministry from the beginning.”
“Because I believe there are so many people who are just crushed in spirit, they’re lonely, they’re brokenhearted, and yet you watch them grow through this, and you see them come on the other side of it.”
The need has only expanded as most churches have moved away from specifically serving unmarried people, leaving many to feel that the only way to connect to a congregation fully is through marriage.
“A lot of churches embrace [singles], but they have nowhere to go, and they feel alone,” Mills said. “They feel like the third wheel, the fifth wheel, whatever you want to say. We help people through that.”
Mills is clear that the ministry is not a “support group,” but does accomplish many of the same things, offering classes, shared experiences, and other resources to teach singles how to be healthy, often after loss or during painful solitude.
Many healthy marriages have naturally resulted from the weekly fellowship, but the group doesn't exist as a speed dating service, Mills says. Perhaps her greatest delight is the support network that single believers experience just by living life together in friendship.
Some have shown up on Tuesday nights with no friends to speak of, wondering if they will ever find community again. Months or years later, they have a thriving network of fellow believers who know them and care for them.
“One thing I teach in the group is that God has you single for now,” Mills said. “So what do you do in your singleness? Do you serve? Do you mope? What do you do?”
“When you look at the Bible, and many single people were in there, you just have to look at what they did with their singleness.”
The group, which more than 200 Denver churches now participate in, has met in a private room at a Denver-area IHOP since COVID displaced them from a regular meeting spot, prompting a rallying cry of “Hop for Jesus.”
Mills and the ministry march on with the same mission: worshipping their God, healing from relational hurt, and learning how to live a full life regardless of the season they are in. Most importantly, they do it together.
"God always, always pushes me to a limit I don’t think I can handle because he wants to handle it,” Mills, who met her husband 12 years ago as the group grew rapidly. “He allows things to happen for a reason. Same with your life.”
“I know this is my passion from God. It’s been pretty remarkable what God’s done through us.”
To learn more about the Single & Single Again Christians group, click here.