Key Points:

• Who, or what, is our ultimate source of significance, satisfaction, security, identity, and belonging?
• "If you can't fit everything in the 'everything box,' it's not the everything box." - Alan Platt
• When relationship with God is our EVERYTHING, we can receive and steward ALL THINGS with gratitude, joy, contentment, and purpose.
• Why should relationship with God be our everything box?
• Only the Creator of all things can contain everything.
• Only the Reconciler of all things can hold everything together.
• Only the Ruler of all things fills everything in every way.

Reflection Questions:

• What idols have you chosen to make your counterfeit everything box?
• How could you move toward trusting God as your everything box?
• How can you take a step to trust God as the Creator who can contain all things, the Reconciler who holds all things together, and the Ruler who fills all things with life?

Scriptures:

• Ephesians 1:15-23
• Ephesians 3:14-21
• Colossians 1:15-23
• Psalm 115

Key Points:

• Singleness is an opportunity to live a life of undivided attention and devotion to the Lord.
• A life of singleness is an invitation to become more like Jesus.
• A life of singleness is a good and holy thing in the eyes of God.
• A life of singleness is not less valuable or less important than a life of marriage and / or parenting.
• Marriage is not the main goal for those who follow Jesus.
• Singleness is not better than marriage, and marriage is not better than singleness. The Church needs healthy married people and healthy single people.
• Many single people in the Church feel like their singleness is a problem to fix rather than a life to be lived.
• There is no "single experience" of singleness.
• Ways to love single people well:
  • Don't assume that you know what it's like to be us.
  • Invite us into your life.
  • Help carry the load.
  • Value what singles bring to the Church.

Questions:

• What if we could acknowledge that it is possible to love the life you have, and still grieve something you deeply desire but do not have?

Stats:

• Only 23% of active churchgoers are single. (Barna Group)
• 46-47% of adults in the USA are single. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025)
• On Amazon, there are 298 marriage books for every 1 book on singleness. (Heart of Dating Podcast)

Scriptures:

• 1 Corinthians 7:7-9. 26-28, 32-35
• Matthew 19:8-12
• Isaiah 56:4-5
• 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20
• Ephesians 2:19

Spiritual parenting is an important responsibility for all disciples of Jesus.