God is building a spiritual family in His Church. To teach about the God Family, He has given us physical families. Many in the pcg are blessed to have physical family in the Church. However, many Church members are single in every sense of the word: They live alone and have no physical family in the Church. It might be easy to overlook the needs of these members of the body.

Reflect for a moment about the everyday activities you may take for granted in family life: morning greetings, someone to discuss your day with in the evening, an encouraging hug after a rough day, someone to share your immediate excitement about a nugget of Bible study, someone to enjoy evening meals with night after night.

The single single doesn’t have these common family rituals. This can create a genuine void. For many, covid restrictions have exacerbated their isolation from others. Single singles can be more vulnerable to Satan’s negative broadcasting of loneliness, exclusion and self-pity.

In Galatians 6:2, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Jesus Christ said in John 15:12, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” If you make the time and effort to embrace a single single and help them feel part of your family, you are engaging in a powerful act to build the Family of God and help erect a fortress against Satan’s attacks.

Here are some ideas for including a single single in your family:

1. Arrange a family video chat with them.
2. Send a card or letter and have everyone in the family write a paragraph about their week, or younger children could draw a picture.
3. Phone a single on a Friday night. This can be one of the loneliest times, especially if they used to be married.
4. Invite a single to drive with you to services once in a while. That would be a welcome change from driving on their own. If there is a great distance between you, arrange to meet halfway.
5. Offer for them to ride with your family for holy days or combined services that might be a longer distance than usual services.
6. Challenge your children and teens to initiate a conversation with a single and find out one thing about them.
7. Invite them to eat with your family during the break between services and Bible study. Don’t let anyone eat alone.
8. Invite a single to join your family for an outing to a park, picnic, hike, historic place or local event.
9. Invite a single to join your family in a home improvement project.
10. Invite them to join you for a family movie or game night, or to watch the stream of an Armstrong Auditorium production.
11. Invite them to join your family for a cookout on a national holiday. These days can make a single feel especially left out if they have no one to share it with.
12. Include your family when planning who to invite. Write a list of all the singles you know of and start inviting with the ones you have never had over to your home before. Set a monthly goal to interact with a single single.
13. Act on the prompting of the Holy Spirit when it puts someone in your mind. You may be just the encouragement they needed at that moment.

Our heavenly Father wants everyone to know that they are truly a member of His spiritual Family. Make it a regular part of your thinking and action to include others who are outside your immediate family, your extended physical family or your circle of friends. Bring in as many single singles as you can so that they truly know that they are included in the spiritual Family of God now. You may never know how great an impact you had on them.

Matthew 25:40 says, “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”