What does dating look like in Milan?

By Rachel Buchholz, Milan, Italy

Hello from the group of campus sisters in Milan, Italy!!

This past fall we decided to study relationships and dating. The students wanted to learn more about godly dating and godly friendships with brothers, and they had many questions and thoughts to consider.

Though the initial questions focused mainly on the practical applications, together as a group we began studying the heart behind a God-glorifying marriage, God-glorifying singlehood, and God-glorifying friendships. We pondered how to glorify God in a variety of relationships and life stages. Together we sought to understand how to build convictions on these topics, and where we needed to shift our mindsets.

A common theme that emerged as we studied together was holiness. As we make decisions about our lives, about who we date, who we marry, choosing not to date or marry, and in which friendships we invest (with both brothers and sisters), our main goal should not be to make ourselves feel happy. Instead we need to invest in relationships where we can help each other be holy and glorify God with our lives. We examined our hearts and our own relationships as sisters. We began working to deepen not only our convictions about dating, marriage, and singleness, but also our convictions about what kind of sisterhood we want to have with each other.

As someone who is seeking to shepherd this group of young women, I cannot express enough the pride I feel in them. They have worked hard and continue to work hard to deepen their convictions and their growth, both individually and as a group. Their hard work and growth have inspired me and greatly increased my own personal faith in the power of God. 

After four months of studying this out together, several of our campus sisters led a workshop for the campus women at our European New Year’s Eve Retreat and shared what they had learned. They agreed to share their notes with Women Today International, and so what follows are the main scriptures they drew from, some of the convictions they formed, some questions they considered and encourage others to consider, and some of their newly formed perspectives.

Scriptures

1. Exodus 34:12-16
• The command: “don’t intermarry”
• Verses 6, 7, and 10 help us to understand God’s heart and the context.

2. Deuteronomy 7:3-6

• Explains God’s heart
3. Ezra 9:8-13
• Ezra is heartbroken over the Israelites’ disobedience towards God.
• The consequences are tough but necessary to help the people turn back to God.
4. 1 Kings 11:1-4
• Solomon’s mistakes to marry women who did not worship God lead to Israel’s downfall.
• Our decisions impact others and the future generation.
• How seriously does God take this?
• How seriously do we take choosing a life partner?
5. 1 Corinthians 7:39
• What is the meaning of “belonging to the Lord”?
• Singleness is acceptable and is NOT “less than” compared to marriage.
• Someone “claiming” Christianity or to be a Christian does not necessarily mean that that someone belongs to the Lord.
6. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17
• Sentimentality clouds our judgment with dating and marriage.
• We need to submit ourselves to God and put aside sentimentality when seeking wisdom/advice (the need for humility and devotion). We need to seek wisdom and advice not just from people who we know will simply affirm our wants, but instead from people who will help point us to a truly godly and biblical way of thinking.
• Solomon had ALL the wisdom available to him, but sentimentality and desire took over his decision-making.

Convictions formed

1. Choosing to be single is to choose to devote yourself fully to the Lord and not have your attention and heart divided between a husband/family and God.
• Choosing singleness for ourselves and not for God is not the kind of singleness that God calls us into. 
2. We are called to choose someone who will partner with us in the Lord (not divide our heart/mind/attention). Choosing to get married for ourselves and not for God is not the kind of marriage God calls us into.
3. We are set apart! That is holiness. What is holiness, what does that mean?
• Holiness is an honor, being called into God’s holiness, being set apart by God is an honor.
• Choosing to date someone means inviting someone into that honor.
4. The more we fight for a really deep and close walk with God, the more our desires get aligned with God’s desires. With time, if we continue to deepen our walk with God, this struggle can actually get easier.
• This doesn’t mean that all of a sudden it will be easy to follow and obey God’s will. But the more we intentionally submit our desires to God, the easier our struggle with that desire becomes. With time and work, our desires can align with God’s desires.

New perspectives we have gained

1. Choosing singleness with the reasoning “I want to stay single so that I don’t have to answer to anybody else” is not godly.
2. Choosing marriage because “I want to be happy and I deserve this” is not godly either. It’s not holy; it’s a marriage born of selfish desire.
3. Whatever we do and choose, we should lower ourselves and put God higher. This also means putting others higher (Philippians 2).

Our new definition of godly singleness after our study

1. A decision to not have our interest be divided between God and a family/husband
2. We wholeheartedly want to serve God.
3. We plan to use all our time and energy to figure out how to serve God, God’s kingdom, and others. We choose not to serve ourselves, but to serve God and others. 

Our new definition of Godly marriage after our study

1. A desire to draw nearer to God alongside another person
2. A commitment to work hard together with a partner to get to Heaven
3. A willingness to let our partner call us out on our character
4. We are willing to call our partners out on their characters.
5. We are willing to allow our marriages to expose our characters so we can grow to be more like Christ.
6. We want to serve God with our marriage, and with our partner.
7. Regarding children: we are partners in raising our children in the Lord, that one day they will serve God and help make the kingdom grow.

Conclusions

1. Happiness in marriage and in singlehood are byproducts of holy marriage and holy singleness. Happiness is not the goal. If our personal happiness is the goal then we’ve lost sight of the real goal.
2. Happiness is a gift that God gives us as a result of following Him. However, Satan twists this and makes us think we can create our own happiness, we should run after it ourselves, and that our souls don’t actually need God to be happy. (Psalm 62 “My soul is at rest in God alone”)
3. Our souls cannot be at peace if they are not at peace with our Maker. When we seek happiness outside of our Creator, it might work for a moment, but it does not last long term.

Love in Him from Rachel Buchholz and the campus sisters in Milan, Italy

About Rachel Buchholz

Rachel is a wife and mother of two who serves as the women’s ministry leader in the Milan Church of Christ and a trainer in the European School of Missions. She is passionate about sharing the gospel of God’s love with those around her, especially the young women in the church and moms at her kids’ school. Rachel has served in the full time ministry in Boston as a campus and youth and family minister, and as a missionary for the past ten years in Milan, Italy.