All names in this article are pseudonyms except for Wang Xiaofei, as members of house churches face persecution from the Chinese government.
In May, Luo Yiman was laying in her bed in Shanghai, struggling to roll over due to a spinal compression fracture from a car accident, when her mom brought up marriage again.
“All the eligible girls in the village have gotten married this year, except for you two,” she said, referring to Luo and her sister. “You really need someone by your side.”
Luo’s mother and others in her generation think 34 is too old to still be single. Yet Luo noted that since graduating college, she had been too busy working long hours, first as a consultant in Dalian and then a project manager in Shanghai, to find a boyfriend.
In 2020 a friend invited Luo to a local house church, and a year later she became a Christian. Life in the church brought her community and support—many church members brought meals and visited her in the hospital after her accident. But it’s even more difficult to find a husband, as the pool of single Christian men in China is so small.
Luo’s church has more than 100 members, including 20 single women and only five single men, most of them in their 20s. This gender imbalance is common in urban house churches in China, and as a result, many single Christian women struggle to find a spouse.
In Chinese society, many young people are putting off marriage as they pursue their careers, fear the responsibilities of marriage and children, and focus on personal needs over the needs of others. These mindsets are also seeping into the church, according to leaders of singles ministries that CT spoke to. The parents of first-generation Christian singles also struggle to understand their children’s insistence in dating and marrying only fellow Christians.
House churches are banding together to help single Christians meet, while pastors are taking on new roles as matchmakers. Some singles are also learning to trust God and find contentment even if he calls them to a life of singleness.
“Marriage is a divine gift,” Luo wrote in her blog in March. “However, if God has something else for you instead of marriage, that too is a blessing. Embrace it wholeheartedly, as nothing should come between you and your relationship with God, including marriage.”
While the gender imbalance in churches tips toward female, in China as a whole, the one-child policy combined with traditional preference for males has led to a ratio of 105.7 men for every 100 women. The distribution of single men and women vary by region: In rural areas, low-educated single men often find it difficult to find a wife, while in cities, matchmakers consistently see more women than men inquiring for their services.
Luo longed to find a partner she could connect with on a deeper level. After moving to Shanghai in 2017, she downloaded the popular dating app Soul, as her busy job left her little time to socialize. Yet she was quickly disappointed. Married men reached out to her, as well as others seeking merely one-night stands. She couldn’t tell whether her matches were catfishing her with fake photos and backstories.
Frustrated with online dating, Luo deleted the app. But caught in a cycle of loneliness, she reinstalled it again and again.
Things changed after she accepted Christ in 2021. At her house church, she found a mentor, a badminton partner, and friends who encouraged her when she was feeling weak or down. She found herself becoming more patient and forgiving toward her sister and parents.
“Having a satisfying church life and close relationships with family fulfills my emotional needs,” Luo said. Her desire for a husband remains, although she feels the chances may be slim. “I also look forward to more intimate relationships or experiencing different types of connections.”
Because house churches congregations need to stay under about 50 people to avoid government scrutiny, individual churches don’t have enough congregants to run singles ministries. Some churches organize joint dating events for singles to meet each other. Vis-à-vis is a group in Shanghai that hosts events like afternoon teas, English lessons, and secondhand markets on the weekends where single Christians can mix and mingle. Through these casual activities, leaders model and teach about marriage. A few Christian online dating sites also exist, such as the app Mengai (“Beloved”), where Christians create profiles and the site operator arranges offline meetings between potential matches.
One long-running singles ministry in Shanghai is called Alumni Camp, which leaders from various house churches launched 20 years ago. Every two years, Alumni Camp organizes a cohort of Christian singles who meet every Sunday afternoon for six months. Applicants need to fill out questionnaires about their faith, with questions like whether they read the Bible out of obligation or genuine desire.
Pastors and Bible teachers give talks about the biblical view of marriage. Participants are also assigned reading about marriage. Most singles enjoy the planned fellowship activities, such as gathering in groups to walk around downtown Shanghai and eating together. During the cohort, participants have two chances to submit a list of three fellow participants they would be interested in dating. If there is a match, Alumni Camp shares the other’s contact information.
Despite providing Christian singles with spiritual guidance and mentorship, success rates of Alumni Camp are low, said Xie Yi, a mentor at the organization. Yet she explained that the cohort has a deeper purpose.
“What matters to me is that from the day they leave Alumni Camp, they have a new perspective on choosing a partner and understand why they want to marry,” Xie said.
In Xie’s 10 years of working with Alumni Camp, she’s found that a main reason Christian singles are unable to find a spouse is their unwillingness to let go of their personal preferences. “Especially for women, they carry many expectations”—such as a man’s height or how much money he makes—“and are disappointed when their partners don’t meet them,” she said. “Being willing to compromise on nonessential matters can lead to blessings.”
Another challenge facing Chrisian singles is parents who meddle in their love life. A 2019 survey by the China Youth Daily’s Social Survey Center found that nearly half of unmarried young people are “concerned that when parents assume a gatekeeper role regarding potential matches before a blind date, their advice and care may lead to acting on their behalf.”
Chen Ye, the pastor of a house church in Shanghai, said that one of the main reasons Christian couples break up is that they are “overly tied to their original families.”
Many parents, including Christians, use secular standards to evaluate their children’s potential spouses, looking at education, family background, appearance, and even political views. Young Christians find themselves having to choose between their parents and their partner, Chen said.
Huang Xintai felt that firsthand. An only child, she long desired to get married and find a companion for life. In 2017, the then-29-year-old met her boyfriend through Alumni Camp. However, when she introduced him to her parents, they were furious. In their eyes, the young Christian man did not measure up to their daughter and her prestigious university background, high-paying job, and good looks. Huang’s parents threatened to cut her off if she didn’t break up with him.
Her mentor at Alumni Camp advised her to stand firm and continue the relationship. Yet Huang felt overwhelmed. She didn’t want to disappoint her parents, who had recently undergone major surgeries, but she also didn’t want to let down her mentor. Under this pressure, her boyfriend decided to break up with her.
To add insult to injury, her mentor chastised her being too influenced by her parents, noting that she lost a good man. That response caused Huang to question her faith.
“I felt very distressed and began to doubt whether I was a saved Christian,” Huang said.
Three years later, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Huang could not participate in many of her usual activities like singing in a chorus. As she reevaluated how she spent her time, she started participating in more church ministries. She helped with childcare, translated Christian articles, and connected single church members with families in the congregation.
She got to know more people in her church who were in different life stages. They prayed for her as she shared about her desire to find a husband. At the end of 2021, one church member tagged her in a group chat, saying, “There’s a single Christian man working part-time at my gym. Want to give it a shot?”
Huang agreed. “I first worried that my short-sightedness would lead me to focus on worldly matters again, but my Christian brothers and sisters consistently supported me, helping me view him through a biblical lens,” she recalled. She found herself increasingly drawn to the young man, Zhang San, and his proactive yet humble nature. After a year of dating, they got married.
Zhang had faced his own share of challenges in before meeting Huang. Church friends introduced him to many single Chrisitan women, but his passiveness left him unsure of what he wanted in a partner. He recalled that his dates lost interest as he never made the first move in the relationship. Yet as he grew in his faith and learned about the attributes of God, he became more willing to take on the responsibility of leading in the relationship.
Wang Xiaofei, the wife of a house church pastor in Xiamen, noted that the single people at her church are often the ones visiting members who are sick or in need, volunteering at the local orphanage, teaching children’s Sunday school, or working at the church’s school.
“Single Christians are among the most devoted and loyal individuals in Christian schools and churches,” she said. After years of serving singles at the church, she has learned to consider their perspectives more deeply instead of hastily arranging introductions.
“Everyone has their own thoughts on marriage,” she noted. “When they haven’t crossed that threshold yet, they need understanding and acceptance.”
Wang and Zhang now have a 2-year-old son. They frequently share with younger members of their church how God brought them together.
For the single Christians in their lives, “we should … regularly pray publicly for them,” she said. “Let them feel that they are not alone on this waiting journey; there’s a group accompanying them, just like the apostles waiting for the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, trusting in God’s promises.”
