Couples Find Love Through Their Faith

Hi Everyone,

I wonder what you think about the couples here--meeting someone that shares your same spiritual faith. I think that spiritual compatibility is very important--that means that you share or can complement and grow from each others POV about the universe and your place in it. I think meeting a mate at a spiritual gathering is a fine idea-however don't leave out all the rest of the equation-physical chemistry, emotional development and mental curiosity and compatibility and if you will just have fun together. Heavenly thoughts are just one important part of the equation. Check out this article below and tell me if these couples could be role models for you.
Wishing You Sacred Love,
Karinna


For love of God: Couples find love through their faith
Some faith-based couples looked no farther than the next pew to find their soul mate
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February 7, 2009
BY PAIGE WISER AND CELESTE BUSK Staff Reporters
Just a couple of generations ago, the church was the social center of any community. More important, it was the most efficient way to meet your future mate. You could get your parents' approval, your pastor's approval and God's approval, all under one roof. It didn't hurt that you could see if the candidate cleaned up well, either.
Today's singles have many more options. But their house of worship remains a reliable matchmaker. The World's Largest Block Party, hosted by Old St. Patrick's Church, is a singles magnet: It's responsible for 80 marriages so far.
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Christy Wong and Gerald Stroud met at Chinese Christian Union Church in Highland Park, where they learned patience and kindness. (Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
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How they found love
Name: Jen Napier, 34, of Roscoe Village
Occupation: "Matron of Marketing" for OneWed.com
Spouse: Met husband Dan in business school, the same way most of her girlfriends met their future spouses.
Advice: Meet people at weddings. "Do research on who might be there, and tell the bride and groom that you're interested in meeting someone. They can seat you accordingly, so you won't be stuck at the bad singles table. The bride and groom are feeling the love; they want to share the love!"
It's rare to find a house of worship that doesn't organize a youth ministry or singles group. St. Gertrude's Parish in Edgewater even sponsors activities for their gay and lesbian Catholic members.
Gerald Stroud and Christy Wong met last year at a college study group at Chinese Christian Union Church North in Highland Park. They were friends for several months before getting romantic.
For them, the church has served as couples therapy. "Church teaches positive moral things," Stroud says. "So for couples, you learn about love and that marriages, friendships and relationships should be based upon the foundations of what love entails, things like patience and kindness."
Wong, 24, lives in Buffalo Grove and works for a local publishing house. Her sister is dating someone she met at church, too.
Stroud, 23, of Gurnee is a part-time college student and meets once a week with his church "accountability partner." He's like a big brother, available to talk about relationship struggles. "They're usually younger than parents and have been through the relationship scene," Stroud says.
Stroud and Wong knew they shared the same values from the beginning. "In our church, we're taught to take relationships slow, exercise self-control, and save sex until marriage," Stroud says.
Purity also is vital to Bruce Lacy and Debra Krich, who met through Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. They dated for two years before Lacy proposed in January -- in church. "We made it this far and really want to be able to say 'I do' knowing 'we didn't' yet," says Krich, 49, of Cary.
Before they met, she and Lacy, 54, of Algonquin were both content to be single. They got to know one another while serving together in the church's divorce recovery ministry. "Dating this way is so much cooler, and has the amazing component of the shared reality of Jesus in the midst of it all," Krich says.
Her friend April Burns says the range of men at church is the same as in the secular world. "We have our strengths and struggles just like the rest of the world," says the 43-year-old Schaumburg resident. "But we also have sources of truth in the Bible, Holy Spirit and God."
The men she's met through church have done some soul searching, so they seem to have more depth, says Burns. "They understand the concepts of forgiveness, mercy and grace," she says.
Dr. Steven Sims, 42, attends New Community Covenant Church in Logan Square. "My bias, unashamedly, is that church is a great place to meet people," says the South Loop bachelor. But it can be distracting when someone is passing you their number down the pew.
"The danger is when the search for a spouse eclipses a desire to cultivate a relationship with God," says Sims. "I also think anyone searching for the 'perfect' mate should look elsewhere. Genuine church is comprised of flawed people in need of grace and compassion and seeking to move forward together."
Church is a healthy place for couples to meet, says the Rev. Ted Curtis of Grace Episcopal Church. "Church is all about relationships with God, and by extension, relationships with each other," he says.
"It's common sense to keep your eyes open at church," says Noel Jones, founder of faithmate.com, a Christian matchmaking site. "Church is an icebreaker. Before you know it, you're talking to somebody."
That doesn't guarantee the relationship will succeed. "You have as much divorce in church as you have out of church," Jones says.
Patrick Shaffer, 33, the pastor of Hyde Park's City of Faith Christian Church, is single but doesn't date his congregation. "I don't know if being a Christian alone is enough to hold two people together," he says. "You want to meet someone who has myriad interests in common with you."
But he won't rule it out for finding a mate. "If you can find love of God in church and God's love in someone else, then you've been blessed."