When a Single Mom Comes to Church
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Focus on the Family has great resources for all types of families. And what I would encourage you to do is to go on their website, poke around, see what type of resources are available. They have an 800 number that you can call. You can talk to someone. You can even pray with someone at Focus on the Family. And they will steer you in the right direction. Linda is a big believer in our mission to strengthen and support families. And that's why she gives monthly to Focus on the Family.

You know, whether it's just, you know, getting resources online or being able to make monetary donations. It's a great ministry. I'm Jim Daly. Working together, we can be a lifeline to families, giving them godly truth and hope. Join our monthly support team today by calling 800-the letter A in the word family or visit focusonthefamily.com slash families.

Okay, so you're at church and a single mom walks in, and I wonder, how do you respond and reach out? How do you welcome her into your body? I'm John Fuller, along with our Vice President of Parenting, Dr. Danny Huerta. And Danny, churches can be a make or break point for moms, especially single moms. I imagine it's really difficult for a single mom to say, oh, I haven't been to that church, I think I'll try them out. Yes.

What we've done at our church, when a single mom comes in, we want to make sure she's well taken care of. They point her in the direction for her kids. She knows what is available at the church for her and treat her as a person that's very important to us at the church. The friendliness is a key component.

Single moms many times are coming, especially a young single mom. I've seen this before where they've come in kind of tired. They're worn out. They've got the kids there, recognizing that they are – if you see a mom that's tired –

just the friendliness can help energize her, not in a fake way, but in a genuine way. Hey, we're thankful you're here. And what we've done as well in our church is just being available, inviting them to things that are there for them to participate in. We've had game nights, board game nights with moms at the church that are single and dads as well, inviting them into

the day-to-day with us and then just being as encouraging as we can be. What I loved about the previous episode, John, from Pam and Peggy Sue was this humor aspect of

The lightheartedness that we can bring to difficult situations. Now, I'm not making light of it, but when you come to church, it doesn't have to be all serious the entire time. Bringing some of that lightheartedness within the relationship, that creates attachment, that creates a softening of this is so formal, right?

and helping a single parent feel welcomed into either your group or the church. I appreciate that. And we're going to hear more encouragement from Pam Farrell and Peggy Sue Wells now as they share from their own personal stories. And let's go ahead and listen in as they talked with Focus President Jim Daly.

Welcome back to both of you. It's good to have you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. You know, for those listeners that didn't hear it last time, what's so important for them is to go back and hear your stories. And we don't want to spend the time today to tell too much of that. But for the

Folks who are joining right now, just each of you, and let's start with you, Pam, just give us this thumbnail sketch of what motivated you to be part of this project, to write this book on single motherhood. Right. Well, there's a two-part answer to that one, is I'm the daughter of a single mom who I saw go from broken to beautiful. She's an amazing servant of God today, helping other single moms, in fact.

And the others, I'm married to a pastor and I was director of women's ministry. So we had a lot of awesome single moms and single families helping walk alongside them. So I have a two-part heart. Yeah, that's great. Peggy Sue, your quick story to refresh? Yeah, quick story. Seven kids, the youngest was a year old and we had just had an escalating situation that was not comfortable and not safe in the home. And so we said...

you gotta make a choice. And so I started my single mom journey when the youngest was one years old.

I didn't plan on starting at this place, but I think the Lord's just prompting something here. So often in the church environment, it's a little uncomfortable. We don't know how to manage outside of what normal or how we've defined normal, which is kind of the two-parent family with 3.7 kids. I don't know where .7 is, but they come to the church and we have programs that are...

crafted for that family experience. And there's just an uncomfortableness, I think, with the single parent situation. We're not quite sure what to do. And maybe even, if I could say this, in some circumstances, especially if that spouse that isn't there did not pass on that it was a divorce, we're really uncomfortable with that in the church setting. And is that a fair assessment? I haven't experienced that, but I'm just...

kind of stabbing here to say, is that what you experienced too? Not at the fault of the church, but maybe people just uncomfortable. We are uncomfortable. As a child, my parents split up and I can remember going to church and people not talking to me as a child or my mother. And it

And again, they don't know what to do with us. When my divorce happened, it was the same thing at our church. They didn't know. And I was seeing a counselor at our church, and I said, this is just awkward. Nobody wants to look at me. They don't want to talk to me. They're kind of like...

distancing themselves from my children. And he said, we as a church do not know what to do or how to best handle being a single parent. And if you think about that, what a great opportunity for the church to embrace this. You think of Jesus at the well.

He went at noon to the well, knowing the Samaritan woman would be there because he knows everything, right? So he knew she was going to be there, and he started asking her questions, right? And it's a wonderful mission field. Yeah, marital status, the whole bit. So, I mean, I think Jesus was modeling that we engage as a community of believers, single parents, single women, right?

And not to be awkward with it. Or afraid. Fear holds a lot of people back. Like, oh, I'm afraid that they might drain my church as a pastor. Right, okay, that's understandable. Yeah, 85% of single-parent homes do not attend church.

And those of us that have been in church, it gets a lot easier to sleep in on the one day you can sleep in on Sunday rather than go if it's going to be so awkward there. And just know that when the single mom walks into the church, she's already feeling judged. She's already feeling less than. She's already feeling really wounded and broken from the experience. So even when you come up and say hello to her, if she's kind of like holding back a little bit, it's not you.

She's already carrying all this, and so are her children. So if you can just treat her like a normal person, welcome. We're glad to have you. Come sit. I have a place for you. Come be part of our Sunday school class. We're not going to relegate you to the singles. You are part of the group. And our children need to see those healthy families and those healthy relationships because I want them to see that.

And then they have other places that they can go to ask questions. They have places that they can go when they need to talk. Mentors. But then they have great mentors. And then they get strong enough that when they choose their relationship later, they will do a good job. Well, I really appreciated Pam and Peggy Sue and their vulnerability. I mean, I was thinking about that sense of, I'm an open book here when I come into this church. And there are going to be uncomfortable questions sometimes.

I really appreciate how Peggy Sue brought up that our kids need to see healthy relationships at play, and the church can be a great place for that. I mean, we hope it is. Well, aspirationally, yeah, we want to be. So how do you encourage a single parent to kind of role model healthy relationships? Because I imagine for a lot of single parents, it's like the home is it, and I don't have time for other relationships. But we really do need...

others and we have to model that for our kids. It's gotta be hard. It's tricky. It is tricky, John. You know, my counseling practice, I've worked with a lot of single parents.

trying to figure out how to help their kids through this unexpected divorce or loss, death, a variety of things that the children are having to adjust to. And in that, the kids have to be exposed to a variety of relationships. They'll have coaches. They'll have teachers. It's a different type of relationship. Within the church, you get to see family units, right?

And as a church, I encourage families, pastors, class leaders within the church to keep this in mind. As families come in, how are we modeling and how are we valuing and emphasizing healthy relationships within our church? Something that we emphasize in our parenting resources here at Focus on the Family is the pursuit of healthiness. Healthy conflict,

healthy relationships, healthy balance with physical exercise and just exercising. That can be really good for difficult situations, but also you can get off balance because you rely on it too much. Conflict can be very fear-producing and it can be destructive, but it can also be very healthy and it can create a depth in relationship. Kids need to be taught this

And a church environment's a great place to do that. And so we love to come alongside churches and provide resources that would be great for the families to be able to learn these types of things and then to model them. And as single parents are part of that culture, the kids naturally benefit from that. But as a single parent coming into that, help your kids see, maybe it's after church or in other places, say, did you notice...

how that husband or that dad or that mom or that child did this. Notice those healthy movements, point them out to your kids.

And that's a way to just, in real time, point out and highlight. Like you're taking a highlighter in the story and saying, hey, pay attention to that. Oh, I like that. So as a parent, you can be a part of that teaching, but as a church community, let's emphasize that and value that. I appreciate that. It's messy. Yes. But as believers in Christ, we should be equipped through the Spirit to deal with messy. I mean, that's really the essence of the gospel is get in there and do battle with people.

on their behalf and embrace some of that mess. It takes time and it gets messy, like you said, John. Yeah, and it may be that you're listening thinking, oh, it's great for these guys to say, but I don't have anybody.

If you're a single parent and you just don't have anybody to turn to, let us kind of fill the gap temporarily at least. We have caring Christian counselors. It'd be a privilege for us to offer a free phone consultation with one of our counselors. We'll set that up for you when you call 800-the letter A in the word family. That's a free phone call. Our donor community makes it possible for us to offer counseling.

literally thousands of calls every month. And so please don't hesitate to reach out. If you're looking for a little bit of a deeper dive and enjoyed what Peggy Sue and Pam had to share, we do have their book, The 10 Best Decisions a Single Mom Can Make. It really is a great resource to inspire you. And we've got details about the book and how to get a copy in the episode notes.

Next time, we're going to hear from Jodi Berndt. She always brings some great perspective, and she'll share what life was like for her as a teenager. It's going to be a fun show. And for now, I'm John Fuller. On behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

If the fights with your spouse have become unbearable, if you feel like you can't take it anymore, there's still hope. Hope Restored Marriage Intensives have helped thousands of couples like yours. Our biblically-based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face them together. Call us at 1-866-875-2915. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. That's 1-866-875-2915.

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