Dating.reverend.com by Amy Shorner-Johnson
April 13th, 2010 by bwimadmin
I’ve had fun talking with friends over one of the recent articles on the Associated Baptist Press website about dating as a minister. I’ve enjoyed the conversation so much because I’ve been there, out in the dating world with a big “Reverend” on the front of my name that usually sent people off running before they had a chance to figure out my last name. I remember walking into the office of the church where I work in Athens, Georgia, talking to the office manager about the possibility of putting myself on a computer dating service. She looked at me and asked with a twinkle in her eye “Well, in a university town filled with undergrads, how else are you going to meet people?”
So the next week, I got on Match.com and slowly filled out the information sections about myself. Some questions were easy no-brainers. Others I had to choose carefully what I wanted to expose about myself. I debated about identifying words like “Baptist” and “minister” as they might scare men away. I decided that I would use them both to get it out of the way and ward off any folks I’d rather not deal with. I ended up taking out the “Baptist” part because it so readily identified me (I had a few folks I had decided to cross off my list show up to church, and I realized I was the only female Baptist minister in town)!
After a few weeks, and a few e-mails proclaiming that it was destined by God that we meet on-line (in their first e-mail to me, I might add), I met a wonderful man, and we began talking. We quickly learned that we both had only been on-line for a few weeks before finding one another. And to top it off, the music minister at my church was his advisor for his master’s degree. He informed me on our first date that it scared him to death that I was a Baptist minister, but since he figured my being female afforded me a chance. I’m so glad he took a chance. We’ve been married for two years now and have many opportunities to look back at the fun stories and strange mishaps of meeting people on the worldwide web.
Does anyone else have an online dating story to share?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Amy Shorner-Johnson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
I tried the online thing but it did not work for me. One man contacted me after learning that I was a pastor and told me that “God would hold me accountable for what I was doing.” I replied, “I know. That is why I am doing it.”
I met by husband at the church I served as pastor. He was newly widowed when I met with the serach committee. His wife had died just eighteen days before, and his son was on the search committee. About two years after I went to his church we began to spend time together. Our dating adventure was very public. Church members asked many nosey questions, but mostly they cheered us on and prayer for us as we determined what GOd had in store for us. We announced our engagement at the close of worship on Sunday morning. The announcement was recevied with applause and hugs. When we married later that year, the church practically threw the party. They helped with flowers, the rehearsal dinner, donated the videography, cake and reception. There was a portion of the ceremony where all of the church members stood and pledged their love and prayer support as we began our life together. My husband has a cousin who is a male minister type who loves to tell of his deacon cousin who married his preacher.
It’s a great life!
April 15th, 2010 at 12:34 am
I saw the ABP article too. I’m so glad it was written to give others an idea of opportunities out there. I’ve had lots of interesting conversations with folks because of it too. There are folks who think that’s not wise because you may not know your partner or the person you are dating that well. I think no matter how you meet the person, you should take time to get to know the person. I met my husband on match.com too! We both had jobs that kept us very busy and had friends who had success stories with it too.
After we met for the first time, we realized we ended up having “mutual friends” who knew each other. It’s fun to talk about our first impressions from early emails and how nervous we were about our first date. I’m so thankful that both of us decided to try something different.
Online dating afforded us the opportunity to ask tough questions early in our dates. I think it helped us to establish really honest communication from the beginning of our relationship. I was serving a church at the time. It was so much fun to introduce him to the congregation, have them get to know him, and enjoy the celebration when we got married there two years later.
April 16th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
I met my husband on eharmony though I had always told God I didn’t want to do that. I told God I was just doing it for fun until I met the love of my life (not online:)). My husband was the first and only truly positive experience I had with the site. I’m glad I didn’t quit the site before we met! What I appreciated most about the experience is that we did indeed “meet” online, but we truly got to know one another in person. We met in person after communicating just a few times through eharmony for only 3 weeks. We both decided the other one wasn’t scary or psycho and that we were interested in each other, so when he asked me on a date, I said sure. I followed all the online dating safety rules for our first date and it was really great. It turns out we, too, had mutual friends. We were married a little over a year later!
PS One fun little tidbit: At one point in my eharmony journey, I was matched with my pastor! I was working as a chaplain at the time and attending his church. He and I are the same age and were both single at the time. Obviously, it was a little awkward, but mostly just really funny.