Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Christian Dating Red Flags: What to Look for in a Relationship | Dating Advice for Christians with Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Wondering what red flags to watch for when dating? In this episode, we discuss personal, familial, relational, and spiritual warning signs to consider in Christian relationships.Learn about setting healthy boundaries, how to evaluate potential partners, and get practical advice on questions like "How long should I date?" and "What if there's no one at my church?" We dive into important topics like handling someone's past, financial readiness for marriage, and whether Christian dating apps are a good option.This conversation covers essential dating wisdom including:- Key personal red flags like social awareness and financial stewardship- How to navigate family dynamics in relationships- Spiritual maturity indicators to look for in a partner- Practical answers to common Christian dating questionsWhether you're looking for your first relationship or trying to make better dating choices, this episode provides biblical perspective on finding a godly partner who demonstrates the character traits that lead to a healthy marriage.Watch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

How should I ask someone on a date? Just ask. What if I'm a girl? One of the questions is, does a guy have to make the first move? Yeah, I've been asked that by many girls in our young adult ministry at Stone Ridge. Are we endorsing Ruth and Boaz?

She doesn't want a man that she truly can dominate. She wants a bold, courageous, strong protector of a man. And I would say, like, that's part of when you just think about dating and the type of people that you want. Like, those are some characteristics that I would think any girl is gonna want in the man

that she's gonna eventually marry. If there's no one solid and single at my church, what about a Christian dating app? Oof. We get a lot of those. What do you think? All right, Brandon, I wanna talk about some relationship, relational red flags. Let's define red flags in a dating relationship.

People have said like, hey, how do I know if I should marry this person? Part of the way we would want to answer that question is, well, we've talked about what to look for in a spouse previously. How to date, what you should be looking for in a spouse. I want to provide maybe some red flags where you go, hey, I'd pump the brakes at this point and kind of pull it for air, reevaluate. But let's define what we're saying. When we talk about a red flag, we're not saying like,

hey, you have to create an unrealistic standard where you're looking for the Messiah or Elizabeth Elliot. Define a red flag. Yeah, I mean, we'd almost say like, hey, it's a caution where you got to have some open communication. You got to talk through these things, be aware of them. And if it's a consistent pattern, it might be someone you go, hey, maybe this is not the right relationship for me.

And get some wisdom on it. Maybe people in your life say, hey, this is one of the things that I've noticed. Here's a theme. It didn't just happen once or it's not just something that happens occasionally. It's actually, you know, seems to be either a character issue or a personality thing. So we've divided those red flags into a few different buckets. We've got personal, familial, relational, and spiritual. Let's do personal red flags.

They could be, you know, we're not going to do chapter, verse on everything. We're looking at this from, well, in a biblical perspective and then just like a normal maybe perspective, right? I asked you what a personal red flag would be, and you said bad breath. Yeah, that would be a personal red flag, for sure. Hygiene would be a big one. I'm just telling you. We've been in those rooms where you wonder like,

has nobody told you? Yeah, everybody loves a friend when you see something that's like in your teeth and you go, you have something in your teeth. Show some love. So there you go. Social awareness. Let's talk about social awareness because a lot of people, I think, lack social awareness.

They don't know how they're maybe coming across or let's talk about that. Yeah. I mean, I would say that's kind of base level in the sense of like when you meet somebody to be able to know that they can hold a conversation, there's some interest in having a conversation. And I know we've talked about this a lot, but like, do they ask any questions or do they constantly talk? And it's like run on sentence after run on sentence because they never really show concern

or care about who you are and go, hey, tell me about your whatever. I've already told you about 15 different vacations I went on. Would you like to share one that you've been on? Like something like that would say social awareness, like being able to read somebody and understand, knowing that we all have different interests. We all have different things like the way we communicate, but just a base level of social awareness.

Or like an interrupter would be another one. I think that's like something people do a lot. And this isn't obviously like, hey, you can have someone with a sincere love for the Lord, right? So they could be a good person. But then this is a personal red flag where you've gone, hey, this person interrupts everyone they're talking to, interjects, isn't interested in the other party. We talked about apathy, you know, just in general, which could be like towards other people or it could be maybe just life. In life, yeah.

Right, like they've got no motivation, they've got no drive, no interest, not just in the things of the Lord, but in life. Yeah. One of the other things that we talked about is just close friendships. One of the things that we discussed in our previous episode is who do they hang out with? But a relational red flag for me would be one of the first things I ask every guy that's dating a girl or interested in a girl, I say, Hey, who are her best friends? Maybe just, you know, elaborate on that for a moment. Like, what are you looking for in someone's friends? Not that they have to be, you know,

the disciples, but, you know, just in regards to their friendships. Well, your friends are going to shape you. I mean, I think our parents probably told us that a hundred times when we were kids, right? Paul says that too. Yeah, there you go. And he's probably a little better than my parents, but my parents were probably quoting Paul. A little bit being the key word. Yeah, just a little bit. But you know, like the people that you spend the most time with are going to influence you. So is that a type of person that you're like, I want to be influenced by? But I would say just practically, like, if I just look at the friends I have today, I enjoy their spouses, it would be

really difficult to spend long periods of time with really close friends. If I didn't enjoy being with their spouse, at some point you go, I just don't want to be in that same room for or go on vacation with them or whatever it might be during that time. So you're looking at them going, Hey, what are they like? What are they into? Do they have friends? I mean, that was another one that we kind of touched on. Like if there's a person who has no friends and you realize a huge part of marriage longterm is friendship. Um, like can they keep a friend? Can they not keep a friend? Why you'd want to know those types of things walking into it I don't think most people realize that you end up spending the most time as a married couple with like other

Couples that you can tolerate like the wife doesn't hate you. You don't you can hang out with the wife You know, like I think that's good Gossip, you know, I think I talked about this before but if every single conversation starts with have have you heard? Or did you hear? That would be a red flag because it goes back to not only a lack of social awareness, but a spiritual immaturity. So I think those would be, one other thing I would add under the personal banner would just be a poor perspective on financial stewardship,

especially if you're a girl interested in a guy. And there's age kind of brackets. When we're talking about dating, we could be talking about a 21-year-old and we could be talking about a 21-year-old and we could be talking about a 35-year-old. But if I'm 30 and I have no idea about how to handle money and I'm just spending it willy-nilly, that would be a concern.

If this is a guy wanting to date my daughter, that's one of the questions I would ask him is, hey, how do you, from a biblical perspective, steward your money? Anything else to add there? No, I mean, I would agree. Like, that's a big thing to kind of go. It comes down to discipline,

comes down to your view on things like money and how are you going to, I think a lot of it is like, what do you know about them? So for instance, someone comes out of college, we're in a lot of debt, we're in a different scenario, but be honest about that.

So you know, kind of what are we getting into and how are we going to manage and think through what the next phase of our life is going to look like. Yeah, we're not saying you don't marry anybody with debt necessarily. But it's something to consider. To know and consider for sure. And it would frame maybe when you got married, what the timing of that would look like, your plans.

If you marry someone and you both have 80 grand in student debt, it does affect maybe the timing or your initial plans. Yeah, where you live, what type of job you need, just the reality of what life's going to be like for sure. Okay, so that's personal. We talked about familial, and we were talking beforehand about how maybe we could frame these as yellow flags. There you go.

A little caution. Give me some yellow flags from a familial perspective. Yeah. So I would say having a close family is a really good thing. Hallelujah. Yeah. Awesome. You find the right mom, dad, especially if you want to have kids and they want to help watch the grandkids and give you opportunity. All that kind of stuff's awesome. A yellow flag would be an overbearing like mother or father-in-law, meaning they need to be involved in every decision you make. We've got to talk six, seven times a day.

And before I'm willing to agree to anything with you, I need to run it by my mom. At some point, like that would be a yellow flag. Let's understand that relationship. And you touched on this in your last, you know, kind of comment, but there's a difference if I'm 17 and if I'm now 30 on my own

and I'm still needing, as I'm dating you, to figure out exactly what mom thinks about where we're going to go to dinner tonight. That's a little different scenario than, you know, I'm 17 and I still live with my parents and I'm under their leadership and all those things. So then how would you respond to the rebuttal going, hey, for a woman, for instance, if she's not married, she's still technically biblically under the authority and care of her father. I marry people like every other weekend. And one of the things that I say is your parents loved you, cherished you and taught you knowing that one day they would give you away to another man who would love you, cherish you and protect you the way that they have.

So there is that real biblical element where she's not yet leaving her father and mother to cleave to her husband. Uh, so how do you find maybe like a, an appropriate middle ground there? You talked about age, but let's just say hypothetically, I'm a 28 year old woman and I no longer live with my family. But, you know, maybe now that's like, hey, the parents are calling and give me the play by play. Yeah, I think, again, I'd go practically. That's why I said yellow flag. You're just trying to understand what is the relationship. And in some ways, that relationship will change.

But in other ways, it's not going to. So that's where I would look and I'd go, hey, we want the wisdom from your parents. They've been through life. They have cared for you. They have loved you. And I'm just going to use a practical example. If it's got to have six, seven phone calls a day, I start going, wait a second. Like, can you make a decision on your own?

That would be another one of those flags which I think we'll talk about. But it's those types of things where I would say the overbearing nature of a parent is just something I'd be concerned about and want to understand. Maybe even the why. Maybe there's a rationale behind it. Which is at least worthy of conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that I think would be worthy of conversation would be if you grew up in a family where if you're dating a girl and you have an expectation that like, hey, we want to have a bunch of kids. And she grew up where her mom is a neurosurgeon and works 70 hours a week. And that's the only type of modeling she

has. That's at least not that being a neurosurgeon is bad. It's just worthy of a conversation to go, Hey, there might be some differences in the way that her upbringing shaped her future view of marriage and family and motherhood that aren't necessarily like, hey, break up with her, but just have the dialogue. Have the dialogue, for sure. Okay, relational red flags. We've done some personal, familial, relational red flags. One of the ones that I would say is manipulation.

That's a big one. You don't want to marry a manipulator. It goes both ways. It goes both ways. Yeah, yeah. Explain that. Well, I'd say there's different ways, obviously, the different sexes manipulate.

But the reality is like a man can manipulate a woman. A woman just as likely can manipulate a man. So it goes both ways. But yeah, you don't want to be in a relationship where you're always like, what is really going on here? And I need to figure that out because they're trying to lead me a certain direction without really telling me they're leading me in that direction. And it can become, it's unloving to be manipulative in the sense where it can be overly emotional, which would be another, maybe relational red flag, always kind of trying to ascertain like what you've done wrong or things like that.

Gifford talked about this when we were talking through relational red flags, he said one of them would be a physical touch as a constant source of affirmation, maybe too soon in a dating relationship. That's obviously one of the questions people ask a lot is like, Hey, what's, what's the boundaries from a physical perspective. But if you're dating someone that needs physical touch as an affirmation of your interest in them at all, you know, like all the time. And even from the get go, that'd be like something I'd be concerned about. Isolation is something that you mentioned. Yeah. Maybe just talk about that.

Yeah, just say like, hey, I don't like to be with your friends. You don't like to be with my friends. We need to be alone. And if every time we're together, it's like, well, where's our time where it's just going to be the two of us? I think you just want to be careful that, one, what happens when you're alone, but also just the idea of can you get along with different people? Are you interested in that? Or is there, going back to manipulation, is there a reason why we always have to be alone all the time? Yeah. One of the last things I would probably include under this banner of relational is that everyone else is the source of conflict other

than them. Yeah. Right. So I think conflict is inevitable in marriage and life. And if you're dating someone who's constantly complaining about the ways that other people have offended them, wronged them, if you're dating someone whose stories always begin or end with, so they owe me an apology or I was wronged here, uh, that's not going to change when you get married necessarily, because that's just going to be flipped onto you, which reveals pride, which leads us to our fourth maybe category, which would be spiritual red flags.

I would say, obviously, like pride, right? Being proud. One of the things that came up, I would say, in particular, when I was in camping ministry, was interacting with a lot of younger guys that think that every church they've been a part of their entire life has it wrong, right? So they're, my pastor doesn't know this, my father doesn't know this, and I'm going to go plant a church at 22. Sure. That type of thing would be a for sure red flag because you're literally interacting, you're dating a person that

thinks they're the smartest guy they know at 22 and everyone else has affirmed my gifting and I want to go do that. And anything else from a spiritual perspective that you'd go like, Oh, you know, pull up, you know? Yeah. I mean, I would say, and again, this is practical, like, let's say you're part of a local church. Like where do you serve? Yeah. Like if there's somebody who just constantly, I'm too busy, so I don't have time to do this or that. And I can't use any of my gifts in my church. At some point, that's a great way for you to evaluate guy or girl, like what interests and where do they serve in their local church would be just a practical way to go. If you have no interest in it, I would say that's a red flag, because that's probably

not changing. The Lord can do any work in anyone's heart. We know that. But if they're just setting up kind of a practice of, yeah, I do whatever I want, and I'm not willing to look for ways to serve you in a local church, would be a red flag. Yeah, and we've talked about this I think in our previous episode, but another spiritual red flag would be like they have no one godlier than them in their life, right?

So being wise in their eyes, it has different ripple effects, but they're not being invested in, they have no desire to be invested in, so that'd be one. Okay, now we've asked some questions in the young adult context on social media I asked for some questions and people were kind of, I want to do a little rapid fire here at the end of this episode. I'm looking for maybe 30 to 50, you know, second, not 60, 30 to 50 second

answers. Just questions people ask, like, can I date my best friend's sister? That's maybe, yes, you can. Sure. You can. Not at the same time. But here, yeah, exactly. But here, here's the first one. How long should I date? What would you tell someone? It varies, right? I mean, I would say enough time that you need to evaluate whether this is a person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. Enough time for you to get some insight from people that are wiser

than you to speak into that relationship. When is dating too long? Like, when is it too long of a dating relationship? I mean, you start talking years, especially when you're like, let's just say in your 20s. Yeah. And you start going, we've been dating for four years. At some point I'm going, like make a decision or get out at that point. Prolonged uncertainty is certainty, you know, make your move. For sure. But I'm going to be as little as a few months. Yeah. I mean, why not? A few months with the right parameters and you're doing what's right, obviously. And you got some wisdom from outside

people. But I've known some people who dated a couple of weeks and realized, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with and got engaged a month or so later and married within six months. And then it ended. And they're thriving today. What would you say if I said, listen, you should have a pretty, pretty good idea if you're going to marry an individual within a year? What would you say to that? I would say, yeah, I think that's reasonable. There's always different, and you know this, but there's always caveats, right? For sure. And I think one of the questions about long, long distance dating think that's reasonable. There's always different, and you know this, but there's always caveats, right? For sure. And I think one of the questions about long distance dating, it's a little different if you're long distance dating

than if you grew up with someone, you've known them for a long time, and then you start dating. And now you're walking and going, hey, we've been dating for a year and we just feel like we're ready for marriage. Like I'm not saying, no, probably not. Let's give it three.

Yeah, I think that. Okay, secondly, differences in theology while dating. Is that okay? I think you would obviously say like, Hey, it depends on the theological difference, but let's just say it's, I would say your view of the scripture really important. If your view of the Holy Spirit would be really important because that would dictate how you make decisions in life. If you're asking for prayer and reading the word to make a decision and she's like waiting for a vision, right?

Those things would be different. What other things would you say would be that theological mismatch would actually be a red flag? Yeah, I mean, I would just say church, like the role of the church in your life would be a big one because that's going to not just impact your relationship, but you start having kids and you're like, what's the role of, you know, how are we going to raise our kids? Whether it's denomination or just the idea of we're going to be people who go every Sunday to church. So I think just your view on church and the role that you're going to play in it would be a big one. I get asked that question a lot and I would say, there's a difference between, hey, this is a person I'm friends with and maybe I'm even doing certain type of ministry with and someone I'm going to live the rest of my life with. Totally.

Right? So there are things where I would say, hey, you're a believer and I'm a believer and we can love each other and maybe you're walking around speaking at conferences with people or we're doing certain things together. But if I came home to you every day, you're probably not the person that I'm going to share this with

because you just differ with me on some core base, not base like gospel, but some core things that I hold. Totally. We do the same thing as a church. You know, people come to our church that have theological differences, but they're not on the elder board or the elder team. So,

okay. Third question is what was the worst dating advice you ever received? Oh man. How about you? What do you got? I gave you a lot of great advice, but probably from someone else though. I would just say in general, a lot of the dating advice you receive is bad, right? You know, like, I think the advice I never received, I would say that no one really pushed me when I was dating to like, make sure I was not just dating in isolation. You know, just in the sense of like, you, you date and you're trying to figure it out, especially if you're intentional and you're trying to be like, mature about it. Every single interaction is, you know, it's alone, right? So no one pushed me,

hey, right from the beginning, before you know what's going to happen, before you even are debating marrying her, bring her around your family, bring around the people in your life. Because I used to think, oh, it has to be pretty serious to justify introducing her to Scott and Patty. So that was the advice I probably never received. I mean, I could probably nail like a lot of things that I never received. Or just to be frank, like it's been a while, so maybe I forgot. Or I thought I was more mature than I was, so I overlooked it. But I'm trying to think back of like what are people,

I think the worst advice I got probably is people in the same age demographic as me. Yeah, thinking they know the answer. Right. And at that point in time, that's probably where I got more advice. The bad source of advice period. So when I would talk to my parents who when I was dating, I live far from my parents. You know, I was in California, they're in Illinois, at the time, but I would imagine most of the advice

they gave me, I look back on and go, man, I wish I would heated it, because it probably would have been just better for me. Wouldn't it change to I married because it's the greatest gift God's given me, but probably would have made things go a little bit smoother and a little bit better. Agreed. How should I ask someone on a date? Just ask. What if I'm a girl?

Which I'm not. But one of the questions is, does a guy have to make the first move? Yeah, I've been asked that by many girls in our young adult ministry at Stone Ridge. Are we endorsing Ruth and Boaz? I wouldn't say maybe in the same respects. But I'd say, yeah. Like at some point in time, there's no biblical model where it says, like, girls are not allowed to talk to guys.

And at some point after a while, say, hey, would you like to hang out with me? I would say there's a difference between a girl leading a relationship and expressing interest in getting to know someone. I would say you as a girl are trying to ascertain whether or not this guy is a leader. So you shouldn't be pulling teeth. You shouldn't be trying to corral this relationship leader. Right. So you shouldn't be pulling teeth. You shouldn't be trying to, you shouldn't be trying to like, Hey, corral this relationship necessarily. Right. But you can express interest. Hey, I'd love to get to know you. But at some point, if you did that, you also want to make sure that this guy is leading the

relationship. Right. Which I think sometimes is confusing because people think that if the, the girl is the one that expressed interest in the guy as a follower from the beginning, and he'll be a follower for the rest of their marriage. So yes, a girl can express interest. Sure. But that would maybe that first move might look different if you're a girl than if a guy. I would say that. And I, here's be like just the general principle. Like if you're, if you're the girl who is expressing interest and now it's the sixth guy you've expressed interest in and that's like your way to do things, you may want to be a little more cautious and go, maybe I'm not, need to be the constant pursuer. But yeah, in general, like hey,

you're expressing interest right now. And what would you say to me, like, if it's my daughter, Lily, right, in 20 years, I don't know, I'm not gonna be able to handle this. When she says, hey dad, I'm interested in Billy, you know, I think I want to tell him, I would say, well that guy's a turd, you know, if he doesn't like you, tell him, I would say, well, that guy's a turd. Right. If he doesn't like you,

then you don't like him. Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time. That guy's a loser. I probably would say this to Lily. Hey, Lily, be in proximity without being like weird and overbearing and constantly trying to feel like, how's this situation going to work? But when you're in proximity with each other, I feel like you get a decent idea. Now, as a father who

only has boys, I'm telling my boys... We're coming at this from a different perspective. Right. I'm telling my boys almost the exact opposite. Like, if feel like you get a decent idea. Now, as a father who only has boys, I'm telling my boys from a different perspective. I'm telling my boys almost the exact opposite. Like if you're interested in a girl, don't be interested, but express that you're interested and you know what, see what's going to happen. If you're going to ask your size. Yeah. That's not, maybe not right away, but yeah, that's where it is different from a girl's perspective. Because I, I would say, okay, if Lily said, dad, can I flirt with a guy? I would say, well, what do you mean by flirting? I would say you can be friendly.

You can be fun. You can be the best because you are the best. But there's even a difference there. You're saying being in proximity. Absolutely. You don't have to be like, I'm not going to. I am a coconut, you know. Okay.

Least attractive traits in a young man. We've talked about some of these. I would say like right off the bat, lazy. Bad breath. Oh, bad breath for sure. Yes. Bad hygiene. Um, but bad, you know, just like laziness. I mean, uh, yeah. Like the, uh, it's funny. We're studying through the book of Genesis right now in our young adulting went through creation. And we're talking about now the curse for the woman is that she's going to desire the role for the man. Um, and as I'm just kind of preparing, thinking and praying through it, I'm going, the irony is like the woman's going to want to take over this role of

the man. But in the end, she doesn't want that man. She doesn't want a man that she truly can dominate. She wants a bold, courageous, strong protector of a man. And I would say like, that's part of when you just think about dating and the type of people that you want. Like, those are some characteristics that I would think any girl is going to want in the man that she's going to eventually marry. I like it. This is maybe more of a serious one. How do you get past, and I have some thoughts, how do you get past someone's sinful sexual past? Go ahead. Oh, I would say, first of all, you should probably get some wisdom from the people in your life about the unique and specific situation.

You know, I think that the Lord obviously forgives, right? So I think that there's an element where he cleanses us from all unrighteousness, not just some of our unrighteousness. I think that there's also some serious things to consider. Like if this was a, if you're interested in a guy that had, let's say multiple, you know, sexual relationships in the previous few years and then got saved, that's definitely something you're pulling in the people in your life. Even if you're going, yes, he's been cleansed by the blood of the lamb. Yes, he's made new. Yes, he's declared righteous. Those are some things that you would want to work through with some godly people in your life. It doesn't mean that there should be any bitterness about those things, but I think you need to walk through

that with wisdom, with the people that you trust, knowing that one, yes, positionally someone can be made righteous, but practically there might be some things that you need to consider. There's two ditches on either side. One going, it's gone. You know, God forgives and forgets, you know, he remembers their sin no more. And let's not even talk about it at all. it's gone. You know, God forgives and forgets. You know, he remembers their sin no more. And let's not even talk about it at all. It's done. The other one would be like, no, this past sin defines who they are. And if this is in their past, this will be their future.

So that would be my initial thought. Yeah, you want to be in the middle. I mean, don't fall on either side of the ditch. The grace of the Lord is more than sufficient. But there's some practical ramifications that just impact who that person is. And you'd want to walk wise through those things. Which means you can't do that alone. Right.

Absolutely. Like you need perspective. Much more could be said there. But I would say that's definitely where you pull in the people in your life that are older, godlier, have maturity, are gracious, right? But have conviction. And two, I think sometimes people want to not tell their parents these things. Right. So then I think that, you know, I get, you know, asked by people like, Hey, I want to mention this to you, but I don't want to talk

about it with my parents because they'll, they'll freak. There's, there's probably an element where I'd say, no, your parents are the people that love you the most in the world. So I, you know, that's where it gets a little tough, but I think the people in your, your life, um, including your parents should know the background of someone. And I think there's, you walk with wisdom in that. Another question would be how financially dependent do I need to be to be married? How fine, like, I think there's, there's ditches again. Sometimes I hear people say like, I need $30,000 in savings before I can get married. But if I'm a guy, you know, I sometimes say, well, can you survive? Right.

Right? Could you afford a one-bedroom apartment? And if you got pregnant on your honeymoon, would you be able to provide for your family? But I think sometimes it can be overdone. Of course. I need a house. Yeah, and at some point you end up looking and going, what type of lifestyle, not do I want, but what type of lifestyle can I do?

God's going to provide all your needs, right? But that doesn't mean he's going to provide the five-bedroom house that you always dreamed about. It may mean I got pregnant on my honeymoon, and next thing you know, we're having to look at a different area to live. Yeah, and you pick up a second job. Yep, absolutely.

And that's where I'd go back to, what's the character? If I have a daughter like you, and you pick up a second job. Yep, absolutely. And those are the types of things. And that's where I'd go back to, what's the character? If I have a daughter like you and Lily gets older, you're going to want a guy who, yeah, it'd be nice if that guy doesn't have certain financial troubles. But more than that, I'd say, you want a guy who's a character says,

I'm going to work hard. And if something bad happens, which inevitably happens to anyone in life in some way, shape or form, I'm going to work hard to figure it out and provide for my family. That's good. Last question is,

if there is no one solid and single at my church, what about a Christian dating app? Oof. We get a lot of those. What do you think? I would say you are free in Christ to do a Christian dating app. There's no like verse in Habakkuk that says like,

don't meet anyone on Christian mingle. I think that there's dangers of doing that. Right. Yeah. I would say, especially in light of what we've talked about previously on just dating in isolation, that you end up getting to know someone and then you're flying them out and then get like a 72 hour stint with your community. You get a 72 hour stint with their community and then both of their communities say, Hey, from what we've seen, this person seems great. Well, you can't really know someone in two days. Right. And so I think that's probably danger or just an area of caution. But I think, yeah, when you align and there's definitely, that's the world in which we live where that's becoming

an increasing source of relationships. People meet online. There's nothing bad about that. You just need to walk with wisdom, which is kind of like a key thing here. We're going, what do we mean by that? Well, you're praying through it. Lord, protect me from the wrong person. Give me discernment. Help me not to get emotionally attached. I mean, if you're 29 and you meet someone that has shared interest online, you're going to have the tendency to like not see maybe potential red flags. Right. So that's where you need people in your life to be navigating the relationships. Obviously it'd be different if, you know, if someone's in California and someone's in Florida, you want to make sure that's a long distance. So I would say sharing those community, getting feedback. I would have people in your life talk to the people in their life to be able to say,

Hey, tell me more about Bob. But I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's great. Just the premise of the question I'd probably start with, look, there's a caveat. Like maybe you're in a church that's 50 people and there's three other young adults. I would tell you the people that I'm talking to where you're like, Hey, you're showing up to a young adult ministry. That's got a couple hundred people showing up. The first thing you want to do is evaluate your own heart. Like, are there not a bunch of, you know, qualified single people because you've just set this unrealistic worldly expectation. That's one. Um, but yeah, after that, I'd say do it in community. I mean, I think cautiously optimistic when I think of like dating apps,

right? Like how do you pursue that? Is it wrong? No. Has it worked out for a lot of people? Sure, it has. Is there hurt for people who've gone through it? Sure, there has. And guess what?

Every one of those things happens when you're not on an app and you meet people in person. So, caution. We're still working on ruthandboaz.org. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Our service. But, okay, that's good. Anything else just to punctuate? Hey, any ditch maybe we went too far into that, hey, I would want to clarify this?

No, I don't think so. What do you got? No, that's it. I think that, once again, we're just not trying to create a standard where you have to check every single box in order to say this person's marriage material. We're just saying, hey, these are things that you evaluate and you pray through and you get people in your life that have wisdom to provide the perspective you need. And then how long do you date? Well, when you feel like, Hey, there's growth in these areas, there's teachability, big idea. And we talked about this last time, then you're able to move forward with a level of confidence saying, Hey, I see this person growing

this area of maybe, you know, hesitation is something that they're, they're wanting to work on and they have people in their life that are coaching and investing in them in that regard. All right, sweet. Thanks, Brandon. You got it. Boom.