Christian Singles: Grow Personally and Spiritually Before You Marry

The Short Version: A Christian dating coach and the founder of Single Matters ministries, Jill Monaco is devoted to guiding Christian singles toward love through work on both the spiritual and the emotional level. Jill walks her clients through faith-based dating with an emphasis on personal health, spiritual growth, and each person’s journey of self-improvement.

If religious values guide your life, finding people who share them can feel daunting. But as Jill Monaco, a Christian dating coach, knows, the hard part isn’t landing a relationship or even holding on to one. Helping a relationship thrive is. That requires telling your spiritual needs apart from your emotional ones.

Single Matters, Jill’s ministry, helps Christian singles build genuine, lasting connections that put faith first. Jill draws on her own experience: “Even though I was dating, the other person may not have been in the same place as me emotionally or spiritually.”

At Single Matters, Christian singles look for true love without losing their connection to faith.

Single Matters gives Christian singles time to compare religious values before making a lasting commitment such as marriage. Jill shows them how to date without compromising their faith.

“What really made me passionate about starting Single Matters was conversations with friends about not being able to find online resources that were really helpful in the Christian space,” Jill said. In particular, she meant online resources showing Christian singles “how to be healthy and whole and prepare for marriage in a way that (isn’t about looks or finances).”

Fortunately, Jill shared a few ways to ease the process: put your personal health first, nurture your spiritual growth, and commit to self-improvement.

Put Your Personal Health First

Ever heard the saying “Put your oxygen mask on first”? It means you can’t help or look after anyone else unless you’re helping and looking after yourself first.

Jill made much the same point when she explained why personal health should come first. And personal health goes beyond hygiene; it’s the capacity to be confident, to heal yourself, and to forgive.

“Let’s focus on ourselves and be the one before we find the one,” she said. Consider what traits “the one” should have for you, though perfection is too much to expect.

Being a single Christian brings its own challenges, after all, including the occasional expectation that singles should marry young. If that’s not for you, say so right away. Some people may judge you for staying single, but Jill knows just how young singles can hold their ground.

“I recommend that singles flip the script,” Jill said. Your love life is a personal matter, so why not answer nosy questions on a personal level? “I’ve had people say, ‘Why aren’t you dating?’ And I’m like, ‘What makes you think I’m not dating?”

Jill urges Christian singles to build their capacity to heal and to forgive.

According to Jill, some Christian singles feel caught in a tug-of-war between secular and religious pressures. “(Christians) feel like we need to be honest and tell everyone everything and be transparent,” she told us. “But before I walked with Jesus, that was never a pressure.”

When friends or family push you toward marriage, or even just a date, Jill suggests building up your confidence and standing your ground. “If we’re confident enough in ourselves, we can very lovingly say, ‘Thank you so much for asking. I’m working on it,’” she explained. Nobody is owed an explanation for why you’re single.

Maybe your issue isn’t confidence but forgiveness: forgiving yourself for how you acted in a past relationship, or forgiving the way a relationship ended. Jill stressed the importance of “overcoming any kind of area of your life where there’s been unforgiveness, including parents or siblings or friends, because one area of unforgiveness will taint your romantic relationship as well.”

Left unaddressed, low confidence, unforgiveness, and an inability to heal yourself can ruin a promising relationship, both with a partner and with God.

Tend to Your Relationship With God First

Jill believes a person’s relationship with God matters even more than their romantic ones.

A person’s early steps toward lasting love should include trying “to have a really intimate relationship with God, and just really walk the walk,” Jill said. To “walk the walk” means living by the Bible’s instructions.

Jill noted that many people experience a disconnect between their religious values and the temptations of everyday life.

“A lot of people are reading the Bible, going to church, and praying, but they’re getting drunk and they’re having one night stands,” Jill explained. If you want a partner as devoted to your faith as you are, pay attention to what they do in their free time.

“I think it’s important to get to know their friend community, and the community in which they live,” Jill said. 

Together, the two of you can work toward closer theological alignment.

Remember that nobody walks the walk without stumbling now and then, and that includes you. “You’re never going to be perfect,” Jill reminded us. “You’re never going to have all your spiritual disciplines to the place where you’re good enough.”

Still, reading the Bible, praying, attending church, and journaling will keep you headed the right way. “Those are the basics,” she said.

For spiritual compatibility, you and a potential partner should be religiously in sync. “I think some of the nuances of Christianity make dating a little more difficult because if someone’s Baptist and the other person’s Catholic, you may just not theologically align,” Jill explained.

That doesn’t make a happy relationship impossible; quite the opposite. But if you’re set on a partner with the same beliefs as yours, your search will get a lot narrower, and you’ll need to adjust your deal breakers to match.

“I’ve seen couples where a man is really studying his Bible and the woman is not, or vice versa. That’s not a deal breaker,” Jill said. What truly matters is a person’s willingness to grow spiritually. If you’re both able to, then in the view of Jill Monaco Ministries, the relationship stands on far firmer ground.

Growing spiritually alongside your partner is key to a happy Christian relationship. Growing as an individual before a new relationship even begins matters just as much.

Self-Improvement Never Stops

“If you struggle in singleness, you will struggle in marriage in the same exact areas,” Jill said. Whatever your religion, it’s a simple truth, and a daunting one.

If you won’t grow or change for someone, you can’t expect them to do it for you. Jill’s course for Christian singles, “From Looking To Loving,” guides people toward positive changes in their lives. The self-paced course treats spiritual and emotional health as the bedrock of a lasting, loving relationship.

Jill shows Christian singles how to put faith first and move past fear.

“Am I willing to grow in the areas where I know I’m weak? And will this person inspire me to be a better person? It’s okay if someone’s a little behind you in the journey, but are they willing to grow?” Jill suggests putting questions like these to yourself while getting to know someone new. Ideally, a partner will push you to become better and keep growing.

You also have to push yourself to grow and change, though. Before a new relationship begins, deal with the baggage your last relationship left behind.

Overcoming unforgiveness is just one way to improve yourself; according to Jill, getting past rejection matters just as much. “If you’re afraid something will happen again, it probably will. We create the world around us that we expect,” she said.

“We need to overcome our expectations of the worst happening and heal from rejection in the past,” Jill stressed. She told us Christian singles must “know who we are in Christ.”

Working through your fears, especially fear of the unknown, may be your surest path to alignment with God, Jill told us: “Whether it’s fear of finances, fear of love, or fear of being hurt.”

The aim is to “get to the point where we truly believe that God is in charge, God is protecting us. If we walk faithfully, we have nothing to fear,” Jill said.