Throughout my years at Bethel I’ve grown to understand and appreciate community at a deeper level. I’ve shared joys, misunderstandings, struggles, and happiness on different levels with a diversity of people. Many of those people were a part of the Co3 community. It seems there’s a special bond that can happen between people who are walking and living in the same season and on similar paths.
This is our first Co3 Community feature article. We will feature people in the community who exude the values of Co3: committed to Christ, connected to each other, and community servants. If nothing else, we hope that the features will introduce you to people of the community and inspire you to connect with them and others at a deeper level.
In this month’s feature, it seemed befitting to introduce you to the Co3 Community key leader, Steven Martin. I’ve had the privilege of serving with Steven on the Co3 leaders’ team for the past 4 years. He’s grown from acquaintance to brother. He’s truly a proven brother and friend.
Meet Steven:
What is your Co3 story?
At first, I wasn’t excited about being involved with a single's community. I’ve been in the church for as long as I can remember and always had the impression that the end goal for a single's ministry was solely matchmaking, and it always just felt a bit awkward to me.
I don’t remember who invited me, but the Bethel Singles Community had a big conference event called the Waiting Room. Myself and a female friend that I’d known for years during college were both invited. In full disclosure, because women always seem to outnumber the men, I felt like I was going to be treated like a “piece of meat,” so I asked my friend to block the women for me. Ha! Not long after the event, I had spoken with Danielle Kimmey (Torrez), who was the leader at the time, about my misconceptions and she explained to me the true purpose, that it was not about making matches, but more about ministering to people and reaching them in their single season. I thought this was an incredible vision, and it is something that I’ve since adopted, especially as I’ve grown as a leader. The way I see it is that if you meet someone, great! But if you don’t, that’s also great! I feel like you’re in this community with other people who are in the same season of life and you’re receiving the types of messages that are relevant to who and where you are.
In addition to that event, I continued to come and be involved because I knew both of the leaders: Crystal and Danielle. One day, Danielle came to me and said, “I want you to join our leadership team,” and I was very hesitant, because I thought it was too much responsibility and such a heavy weight, and again I had all of these preconceived notions about singles ministries. However, she essentially wanted me to come on as the singles worship leader, and she reassured me that the role would consist of things I already knew how to do. At that time, we were rolling out our monthly Sunday services called “Singled out,” which included worship sets and a different speaker each time.
I did it with a bit of reluctance, but eventually I started to enjoy it. With time, Danielle and my friend Gabe became engaged, married, and soon started a family and they decided it was time to step away as leaders. With them stepping away, I remember having some conversations with Crystal, who is one of my very best friends. She was such an asset to the community, but had some reservations about the prospect of leading alone. I certainly didn't want her to step away, so I offered to co-lead with her. Honestly, for a long time, I feel that she carried most of the weight, but I really do feel like I grew a lot in that season and I learned how to spearhead events, organize people and how to cast vision. Fast forward, and this past year she felt God was calling her to step away and to redirect her growth and focus into some new areas. So that’s where we find ourselves today – I prayed about it and I knew that God still wanted me to serve and lead the community, and I think we have a really strong team. The people that we have are hard worker’s and we’re getting a lot done. Crystal did an amazing job with the leadership transition and she made sure everyone was trained up and prepared for where we are going.
What was the evolution of the name “Co3”?
The 'Co3 Singles' community used to be called Bethel Singles Community. It’s been about 2 years since we went back to the drawing board and discussed who we are and what we stand for.
At the time, the church was doing a series about the Discipleship Path and emphasized the three steps: Connect, Grow, and Serve. Ultimately, we adapted that to our ministry. Connect - as friends and spiritual family, this refers to our CONNECTION to one another. Grow - this growth is all about our edification spiritually. In our name, this is what we refer to as our COMMITMENT to Christ. Serve - this has to do with our outreach or what we call COMMUNITY service. It really helped us to have a streamlined vision, and we hold it up as a measuring stick for every event that we consider and we ask ourselves the question: “Will this event give someone the opportunity to focus on Connecting, Growing, or Serving?” If not, then we don’t execute that event.
What would you say is the purpose of the Co3 community?
Whether you want to be married or don’t; whether you’ll be married in one year or 15 years – you’re not married right now. So, you’re in a unique season where you can both serve and be edified and not have to the additional responsibility of a spouse or child (for some) – this is a season where you can be selfless with the amount of yourself that you’re able to give. Our community offers events that are helping people to be edified and to grow deeper as a spirit man/woman and ultimately just knowing God’s word better and being in stronger connection. We offer events that allow people to reach out next to them and have community.
Also, something that I’ve been passionate about came when the church was doing our relationship series, called 'Loving Well.' So much came to the surface for me, because I think that while the church does a really good job of preaching toward marriage, there’s not a lot of messages that specifically target singles. So I believe that’s a specific role that the singles community can serve. We can commit to walking alongside each other in our singleness, which is what the Bible commands in Acts chapter 2 – that we eat and pray and study God’s Word, and to do all of these things together in common.
What would you say is a common misconception of the Co3 community?
Who we serve! I think that there’s a lot of people that think that it’s just a post-college or young adult group. But actually, we’ve done a lot of surveys and many of the people in our community are in the late 20s thru early 40s age range.
Another thing would be the very definition of single. There are a lot of people who look at me and say, “Steven, you’re dating Karie! Why are you involved and why are you still leading Co3?" And my answer is because we’re not married. Anyone who is unmarried has a place in this community. That could mean never married, engaged, divorced, widowed, single parents, etc. If you aren't married... to me, you're single!
Of course, there's also the misconception that people are only here to link up and meet their future spouse, which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I met Karie at an outreach event that we helped put on. However, I just don’t like when that’s the only impression of the community. I do think that it’s fine that the church provides a safe place for singles to connect and relate to each other, and that could be for friendship or even a romantic connection. But again, there's so much more to what we're doing for this population.
What is the hardest thing about leading and trying to cultivate community with singles?
As singles, I think we tend to be all over the place sometimes. We have more freedom, just by virtue of not having a spouse (and most of us not having children), so I think we have a tendency to take on whole lot more. Sometimes it’s hard to nail everybody down and have people that are ready to be committed to consistently being involved with the community. To be blunt, some people are single because they can’t commit. So, looking for commitment from them is challenging. I’ve personally been there and I’ve actually learned a lot about this through our men’s class. We talked about the idol of comfort, where I might say: “I just want to do what I want to do with my schedule and come and go as I please." You may have fewer of those commitment challenges with married people who have more routine with spouse/family obligations.
Also, we’re leading a community that’s constantly evolving. One big factor is that you have the natural phenomenon of people getting married. People aren't single forever, so it's not realistic to think everyone will be involved for years at a time. Another factor is that singles are always serving and getting pulled in different directions. Finally, preferences change. For example, when I first joined, people wanted services, but nowadays, most people want to learn more skills and build friendships.
What’s your journey as a single person?
I’m definitely a relationship type of guy, but coincidentally I don’t necessarily have a lot of dating experience. My mom really drilled it into me to respect women, so it made me opposed to hopping from girl to girl and being a woman-chaser. But as a result, I feel like I spent a lot of time walking on eggshells, and I wouldn’t exert myself to a girl even if I was interested. I was very passive! It took a lot of growth and learning in recent years for me to get to a place where I was comfortable expressing interest and doing that both confidently and respectfully. If I could’ve had it my way, I would have graduated at 22 and been married right away, because I’ve always desired marriage. That didn't happen, and I felt like I was waiting forever and had a “woe is me” mentality for a long time. I would always get a little frustrated when I'd hear married people talk about how it wasn't until they stopped focusing on dating and meeting people, that then that special person just came along. However, this did turn out to be true for me, too. I focused on using my time as a single person on building my relationship with the Lord, until I could confidently say, “I am satisfied with just you, Jesus.” Then after last year's fast in January, I remember God really impressing upon that something big was about to happen and to get ready.
Then in March, I met my girlfriend, Karie, at a singles service event at the Bridge. Because of the ways I'd focused on preparing myself, I was ready for her. Whereas if she would have come along a year sooner, I would have been too immature to step into a relationship. I’m very much a commitment type of person so I expect our relationship to go far and I’m excited about it. I feel like she’s an answer to all my prayers and such a blessing to my life.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
A big burden of mine specifically is single men. I want to work with other guys and help them discover the same type of confidence. Challenging them and asking “How are you relating to one another? How are you relating to women? How are you leading?” My personal goal is to create a community of “marriageable men” – I want to think about how I can position these guys to be future husbands. I think a challenge is that there are not a lot of single men in the church. Even with the men’s ministry there’s a misconception that men’s ministry is only for older or married men, so young single guys are just not as prevalent.
A quick word to the single women: Know your worth and your value! Don’t let anyone come along and devalue you. On one hand know what you stand for, but also, know that there are good men out there. So don’t be afraid to give them a chance!