Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling
Ebook
How can the church do better for its millions of singles? Journalist Anna Broadway traveled around the world to interview nearly 350 Christians for answers.
Solo Planet draws on her 17 months of fieldwork to provide a first-of-its-kind account of the single life of Christians from nearly 50 countries. Discussing a variety of topics—loneliness, sexuality, aging, housing, cooking, celebrations, parenting, and many more, it gives us the global-church story of singleness. Because when singles thrive in a church, everyone benefits. But consider these typical barriers within most churches:
- Singles and marrieds often don’t know how to talk to each other.
- Christians continue to act as if nearly all will marry—and if you don’t, then something must be wrong with you.
- Churches teach that marriage and family is God’s greatest gift outside of salvation—a perspective that deserves theological challenge.
- Women in the church outnumber men by a factor of millions—and churches do very little to acknowledge this gap.
Solo Planet calls Christians to a more faithful vision of singleness through the wisdom and stories of the global church: young and old; abled and disabled; and Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. Through its deeply researched account, Solo Planet shows how a more biblical approach to singleness can strengthen churches and empower singles to thrive.
As a single man, I found myself deeply cared for as I read Solo Planet. In many circles these things are not often seen or approached well. I think this book was written for that set of followers like myself who feel a calling to righteous singleness, and not just as a holding pattern for marriage. I think discipleship on this level can really make a difference in the global church, as people want to find support as single followers but also want to be all in for the Kingdom and all the opportunities that are in front of us. This book does a good job of covering a wide variety of cultural differences and related hardships that Christian singles face. I was most impressed. I feel a lot of grief about this personally, and reading the stories within made me feel seen and appreciated.
Anna Broadway has written an astonishingly broad-ranging analysis of Christian single life that is at once astutely sociological, deeply personal, sincerely prayerful, and boldly ecumenical. It is a mature achievement that deserves serious attention from clergy and lay leaders alike.
Anna Broadway has written an astonishingly broad-ranging analysis. A smart, convicting book whose stories from across the globe on singles and their lives throw open a welcoming invitation to churches and believers to embrace the unmarried with joy, acceptance, warmth, and love. Anna Broadway’s tour de force of worldwide research is sure to help God’s Kingdom reimagine a more integrated church with room on every pew—and at every table—for all. Brave, exciting, and worthy of attention and action. May many read and heed.
Anna Broadway asks the hard questions of Christian singleness: How can you thrive as a single when you have not chosen it? How do you deal with desire and longing? Through an incredible journey across the globe, she interviews Christian singles on six continents. With their voices and her sensitive insight, she guides us on a journey of understanding. The journey leads us to our core—God and His community—which brings renewal and hope. Highly recommended.
I have watched Anna Broadway undertake this labor of love, Solo Planet, over the course of her long journey across the globe, into strangers’ homes, and inside gatherings of local congregations near and far. In this culmination of that journey, readers will find a holistic, faithful, probing, and challenging call for all Christians to love one another better as brothers and sisters, regardless of marital status. Those called to minister “solo” are no less a part of the family of God, and Solo Planet offers a holistic and helpful approach to enacting this truth.
Anna Broadway has a keen insight into how singleness and service in Christ’s Kingdom go hand in hand. In Solo Planet, Broadway also welcomes in the voices of a diverse, global community of others who have walked the paths of discipleship and singleness at the same time—bringing many fresh and personal perspectives to the vital roles singles play in the church. Solo Planet is an honest and, at times, quite vulnerable book. I highly encourage Christian leaders, whether single or not, to engage this book with open hearts and minds to be encouraged and challenged by the many ways God is at work among Christ followers who are single all over the world.
Every single Christian is single for at least some season—if not all—of their life. So how can the church live up to the biblical call to truly be God’s family of married and single people alike? Drawing on a vast array of voices, Anna Broadway helps us see both the struggles and the victories of the global church in this area while casting a vision for what it means to be the family of God in everyday life. This is a valuable work of practical theology for the church today!
- Title: Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling
- Author: Anna Broadway
- Publisher: NavPress
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781641586870, 9781641586856, 1641586850, 1641586877
- Resource ID: LLS:9781641586870
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-02-01T01:40:14Z