Once upon a time, someone had the bright idea that you could do singles events for all ages. Other people thought it was such a swell idea that they began to copy the idea...in cities all across the land.
And no one ever questioned whether or not 23-year-olds would want to hang out with people who are older than their parents...at a singles gathering.
Then someone said, "Since it's for singles of all ages, there should be a praise band that plays really, really LOUDLY," because everyone knows that singles of all ages are just overgrown teenagers, or maybe they're all just hard of hearing - nobody knows for sure - but whatever the case, music for singles is supposed to be really, really LOUD.
And it was not good.
But they kept doing it anyway.
And then they realized they needed a speaker.
So they recruited a youth pastor to speak to those singles of all ages. A youth pastor who got married the summer before he started seminary and really didn't know squat about being single. That would have been great if the youth pastor had chosen to talk about general topics, like how to be a better follower of Christ. But no, he wanted to be relevant to singles of all ages, so he talked about the things he thought a "young" single would want to know. (Because he didn't know that all ages would include people over say, 25.)
So the older singles (over 40 - the really older ones) sat around wondering what the planners meant by "all" ages and started to grumble amongst themselves about all the other things they could be doing instead. Some of them tried to make the best of it by saying "I'm sure the 20-somethings are getting something out of this."
And the 20-somethings sat on the other side of the room, wondering what the planners meant by "all" ages and started murmuring amongst themselves about all the other things they could be doing instead. Some of them tried to make the best of it by saying, "Maybe the older group is getting something out of this."
And the planners never had a clue what was wrong.
So they decided it should be a quarterly event.
And then they wondered why fewer people came each time.
So they blamed the singles. "They just won't commit to anything," they said.
And the singles wondered why no one ever asked them what they thought of the idea of an event for singles of all ages to begin with.
The End.
