(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John Podcast. We are putting the finishing touches up on our 2015 Conference for Pastors, which begins here soon in Minneapolis. It actually runs next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and your prayers would be appreciated. But for the next several episodes, we're gonna be joined by Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Dallas.

Matt is the author of several books, including his newest title, "The Mingling of Souls, "God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption." And he joins us on the phone from Dallas. Matt, thank you for joining us. - Oh, it's my pleasure, brother. - I actually want to take this time to focus in on relationship questions faced by young Christian men and women in particular who are single or dating and who are not yet married.

This is a season of life that awakens a lot of desires, a lot of hopes, and it brings with it a vast array of tricky pastoral questions. And we get emails from listeners in this season of life every single day, and I'm grateful for three single friends, especially, who helped me write and sharpen these questions to maximize our time together.

Special thanks to Lori Ferguson, Paul Maxwell, and of course, to our very own Marshall Siegel. So Matt, with this list of 10 questions, we will just start working through them, and here is question number one. The Bible, of course, commands Christians to marry in the Lord, that is, other Christians.

But in a day when there's so much nominalism that passes for authentic maturity, give us a few simple marks of spiritual growth that a man or a woman should be looking for in a potential spouse. - Well, I think what you're looking for is a seriousness about growing in the person's faith.

And so I think the way the church really serves and helps Christian singles consider marriage and consider dating is that in the covenant community of faith, a person should be known, and there should be those around them that can speak of their reputation, whether they're growing in the Lord, whether they're serious about growing in the Lord, whether they're putting sin to death in their life.

And really, that's what you're looking for. You're looking for, is there a seriousness in this person to grow in their relationship and understanding with the Lord? Because what I've found that's so tragic is that Christian singles, they'll hit this area of desperation, particularly young women, and they'll go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a Christian.

"He comes to church." And really what they're saying is they come to church a couple of times a month, but outside of attending a service, there's no real seriousness about growing in their understanding of the Lord, growing in an understanding of the Bible, being a prayerful person. There's no real vivification or mortification that can be spotted, and no one who really knows them enough to speak to the growth in their character.

And so I think that's what you're looking for. Is there a seriousness to grow in the things of the Lord? Now, practically, I think that's gonna look like they're involved in the life of the church, they have sought out people to speak into their lives, they're being discipled, whether that be organically or organizationally, so they're a part of a church's systems for discipleship, or they've just found an older man or an older woman and invited that person to speak into their lives.

And I think if those pieces are there, those are a much safer gauge than just say they highlight passages in their Bible or you see them at service every week. - Very good, and I wanna come back to this and have you speak to ladies who think that these standards rule out every guy in her life.

And I also wanna hear more about how the Village Church corporately seeks to cultivate solid marriages, but we are gonna have to take a break for the weekend now. We return on Monday, and I'll ask you, Matt, if Facebook has ruined dating. I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll see you on Monday.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)