PCA Singles in Central and Northern Virginia (Unofficial)
A regional event-driven group for connecting PCA singles for fun activities and new relationships. We focus on PCA singles between Washington DC, and Richmond, VA, between Charlottesville, VA and Colonial Beach, VA.
Vision:
Where can PCA singles, aged 23-35, meet other singles who share the same values and beliefs as one another, for fellowship, fun, connection, and the possibility of deeper relationships? We organized this group to provide a place for PCA singles to meet one another.
Singles in many PCA churches face challenges of simple fellowship. While many of our churches are excellent in providing hospitality and help to singles, at times we need chances to meet other singles to address the aloneness that we experience, especially over weekends. On the one side, many of our churches have only a few singles, but we love our churches and we don't want to leave them to go to another. We don't want to leave our church for the big church down the street that seems full of single men and women, when the PCA has our tradition of rich doctrine, godly piety, evangelism and mission, and dignified worship.
That's why we put together this group.
Here is our mission: We are a regional event-driven group for connecting PCA singles for fun activities and new relationships.
Let’s highlight some of our mission statement above:
For Fun Activities and New Relationships: We want to highlight that this is not a dating group. While we unabashedly desire that dating/courtship and even marriage relationships might grow out of this group, we want a fun, light-hearted place to meet others without lots of pressure. So for us, dating and marriage is an honest desire, but not a goal of our planning or activities. Everyone is on their own timeline and should be able to participate according to their own timeline for relationships (or no timeline at all).
We are from the PCA: We purposefully invite singles from PCA churches in Northern and Central Virginia by actively inviting them to participate. (*Note that this is not a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America, but a gathering of people who are in PCA churches. We have no formal connection with the denomination or oversight from it.)
The PCA is a denomination built upon the authority of Scripture, with a doctrinal tradition found in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. It is a denomination that holds to doctrinal positions such as Covenant Theology, Calvinism, Presbyterian government, traditional marriage between a man and a woman, complementarian gender roles, with a focus on the Great Commission and evangelism. While this group does not focus on teaching doctrine, we believe that these doctrines matter, and our hope is to provide a place for singles who are aligned on these matters to meet.
So while people outside the PCA are welcome to join us and there is no test for doctrine or anything, this is our self-conscious commitment, and most are here with the hope that we can build relationships that strengthen our convictions in these areas, not distract from them.
One of the advantages of being part of the PCA is that we have the help of connected pastors to help support the development of new relationships. We actively reach out to them to make our events known. Please encourage your pastor to forward events on to the singles in the church.
We maintain our identity as PCA singles by having at least one elder as part of our planning team. Right now, Pastor Sean Whitenack of New Life in Christ Church in Fredericksburg, VA is part of our planning team. Our planning team is committed to meeting once a month.
We are regional: This group started in Fredericksburg Virginia with the hope of connecting PCA singles within 60 miles of our home. Our rough estimate would include people from Washington DC in the north, Richmond, VA in the south, Charlottesville in the West and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. We believe we are in the perfect position to connect a lot of very interesting people and want to honor the Lord by doing what we can.
Why regional? Most relationships today are started online, but we want to provide an opportunity for new relationships to grow in an organic personal atmosphere. Many who have tried online dating apps get frustrated with the process, needing to filter through so many people just to find one person who may be of interest, only to find someone who doesn’t align well. Our mission is to help build a pool of personal relationships to grow out of.
Our region contains many singles, and while we are within driving distance of one another, we have no clue we all exist. We hope to help remedy this.
Event-driven: This group does not replace a Care Group, Small Group Bible Study or church services. While we might have short devotions and prayer, our focus is on meeting up for monthly fun and fellowship. Right now, we have a bonfire planned, a hiking trip, dinner and games, a board and video game night, a snow tubing day, and some time at the gun range with a picnic.
Furthermore, we actively affirm that participants should continue active membership in their own churches. We are not trying to pull anyone to a different church.
Singles: We choose to focus our attention on singles ages 23 to 35. We share this as an age range for focus more than a specific limit. We believe that other groups should exist for singles of other age ranges and encourage you to find a model that might work for you.
For us, “singles” include people who have never been married, men and women who are divorced, and men and women whose spouses have died. While we believe that the Lord restores people from sins and mistakes from our past, we encourage that any potential relationship, especially with divorce, work with their local church in assessing whether any relationship, or marriage, is biblically permissible or advisable, according the Scripture.
Would you like to join us for an activity? Contact Pastor Sean Whitenack at sean [at] nlicc.org or 540-786-4848 and he can help point you in the right direction.