Dating With A Purpose
by Pastor Jack Schaap
Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana
Chapter One
Starting Right
Frequently I am asked by both teenagers and parents, "At what age should a teenager start dating?" I often answer that question with this:
A teenager is ready to begin dating
when he (or she) has made a commitment
to purity in his (or her) dating standards.
This commitment should be made to the parents and the pastor of the church and should be made clear to the person you intend to date. It's too late to guard your purity after you've lost it. You can't keep what you don't have.
Being committed to purity means more than promising your parents and God that you will try to behave yourself on a date. It means following some simple but hard rules on every date. Good intentions are not enough. Obey the rules that are listed in this chapter.
Be sure that the people you date know where you stand before you get involved with them. When my wife was a teenager, a boy asked her to go on a double date. The other girl promised my wife that she would abide by my wife's standards. However, within just a few minutes after leaving their parents, the other couple began to hug and kiss. My wife's date thought he could do the same with her. Immediately, my wife shouted to the driver, "Take me home, now!"
I am thrilled to be married to a fabulous lady who many years before she began dating me was committed to guarding her innocence. Once you have made your commitment to purity, be prepared to have that commitment tested.
Principles for Beginning Dating
James was a freshman in college. He had met Tricia in the registration line on their very first day at college. Three days later, James came to my office to get a few pointers on dating. After I explained the basic principles that are listed below, James swallowed hard and said, "Brother Schaap, I've broken every rule you have mentioned so far."
James and Tricia are not alone in getting off to a bad start in their dating. Unfortunately, a bad start does not appear bad until the relationship is well under way.
The biggest mistake I see in dating couples today is the lack of policy and principle and a premeditated plan. Dating tends to be haphazard, spontaneous, extemporaneous, and often tragic. Dating tends to be more like a bumper car event at a county fair rather than an organized racing event.
I think dating couples and young teenagers should decide what rules they will use to determine whom to date, how often they will date, where to go on a date, what to do on a date, how to behave on a date, how to decide if it is time to break up, how to break up, how to treat each other after breaking up, how to treat parents while dating, how to ask out a girl for a date, how to say "yes" to a boy when accepting a date, what policies to live by if a date becomes improper, what rules to live by if a boy or a girl misbehaves on a date, how to propose to a girl, how to decide if a man is the right one to marry, what rules determine when to marry, etc. All of those policies should be determined before a couple in their teenage years begins to do any kind of regular or serious dating.
The following are some basic principles to help guide dating couples through the beginning days of dating.
1. The man should ask out the lady before each date. The couple should never assume they will go out on a date with one another. Even if one of the dates is a regular date on the same evening each week, the man should ask the lady for the date at least a few days in advance.
2. Limit the number of dates to a maximum of three per a two-week period. In other words, during any 14-day time period, a couple should not be together more than three times. One of these three dates could last from two to four hours. Each of the other two dates should not be more than 45 to 60 minutes long.
3. Do not spend unscheduled time together. It is exciting, but often harmful when a couple decides to spend time with each other that is not part of the regular dating schedule. In later stages, there may be some room for creativity within the dating schedule, but in the early months, special care should be taken to avoid this.
4. Couples who date while attending the same school should not visit each other between classes. This is unplanned time, and too many problems arise that cannot be settled during this brief time. Perhaps one or the other failed a test or quiz. They may appear to be discouraged or down-hearted. This would not be good during these early stages of dating.
So often I walk down the hallways of schools and look at the couples "dating" between classes. More often than not, the couples are trying to squeeze more out of the occasion than time permits which often leads to frustration, fussing, and disappointment.
The wise dating couple understands that their schooling is very important, and mental preparation between classes is essential for proper learning in the classroom. Then, too, each day should be spent gathering interesting material to bring to the planned dating time later that day or week.
Couples who have unscheduled dates or couples who date between classes, quickly exhaust their interesting conversation material. Then, when they meet for their planned date, they often resort to conversing about matters that are too intimate, personal, or mature for their stage of dating; thus, rushing the dating cycle and stealing from their future dating enjoyment.
5. The man should plan an outline of activity for each date Often men are told to be the spiritual leaders in a relationship. What exactly does this mean? The word spiritual comes from the word spirit. "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." (Proverbs 16:32) "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. "(Proverbs 25:28) These verses command us to control our own spirits. Being spiritual simply means having command of our spirit, or planning a controlled environment. Spiritual leadership on behalf of the man means planning each date carefully to avoid boredom, improper conversation, or improper behavior. It also means planning a delightful and uplifting date. I will list several ideas for dating in another chapter.
6. The early stages of dating should be filled with action-type dates rather than conversation-type dates. There are some important reasons for this. If your dating relationship continues, you will want to relive sweet memories. Shared experiences bring closeness. If I want my wife to feel close to me, I simply start talking about the experiences we have shared through the years.
However, rarely have we reflected on the times we sat around and talked; although, we have discussed the time my pregnant wife slipped on a freshly waxed bowling lane and slid halfway down the lane with her bowling ball.
As I spoke to my wife about this chapter, she reminded me of the time I first introduced her to my uncle. We were standing by the door waiting for my uncle to answer. When he did, a giant drift of snow from his roof fell on my girlfriend's head knocking her down. There she was, buried immodestly in a pile of snow, her lovely hairdo ruined, tears streaming down her face from pain and embarrassment, and my uncle laughing at us hysterically. I thought it was funny then, and we both think it's funny now.
And as we share these experiences, we sense a love and closeness to each other that further knits our hearts. Build a storehouse of memories from fun, spiritual, and crazy experiences you enjoy together. If the bulk of your early dating is purely conversational, you will have "precious little" to relive later.
For the lazy couple who only want to get serious quickly, it is easy to spend hour upon hour, date after date talking. The problem is that quite soon after you start dating, you are both all talked out of the simple and harmless topics. At this point, most couples reach into their private lives and reveal too much of themselves; or they discuss marriage, engagement, child rearing, or intimate feelings in order to maintain that romantic momentum.
Then, after they have exhausted those subjects, they get fussy with one another, they critique each other's moods, love, and countenance. A moody "up-one-day, down-the-next" syndrome develops that drives a wedge between them. And sadly, many couples break up or get physically involved to escape the pressure.
Keep your early dates fun, light-hearted, action-oriented, and well-planned. This certainly does not mean you should not talk. By all means, converse with each other. I simply think it unwise to spend large amounts of time on a date doing nothing but talking. Talk while you are bowling or playing miniature golf or paddling a canoe or feeding the ducks at the local pond or ice skating. But keep your "let's-sit-down-and-talk" time to 10 or 15 minutes per date.
Then too, many first-time daters have a bit of difficulty talking comfortably early in their relationship. Going on church activities and group outings and action-type dates makes it easier for the "silent types" to enjoy themselves without feeling too pressured because they can't think of anything to say.
7. Remember that you cannot go backwards emotionally in a dating relationship. It is very easy to accelerate your relationship, but nearly impossible to slow it down. If one day a man tells his girlfriend that he loves her, she will never be satisfied with an "I like you" again. If a couple dates four or five times per week, it is devastating to drop back to two or three times per week.
Therefore, don't move faster than you can comfortably sustain over a long period of time. If you're going too slow, you can always speed it up immediately. If you're going too fast, it will take a minor miracle to slow down the relationship. Seek the practical advice from your parents and pastor to help pace you relationship.
Couples who progress too quickly in their relationships usually find themselves facing one of three tragic pitfalls:
(1) They get physically involved in their dating behavior. (Se the chapter on Purity.)
(2) They run away together and elope or move the wedding day up much too soon, usually delaying or canceling their preparation for God's plan for their lives.
(3) They break up because the emotional strain has caused them to become irritated and frustrated with one another and to say damaging and hurtful words that wound their spirit beyond healing.
There are many couples who should have married, couple who were God's will for each other, but they broke up because they simply failed to carefully pace their dating. Then, after they broke up, they quickly got serious with another person in what might be called a "rebound relationship" and never married God's perfect choice.
8. Remember that most people do not marry the first person they date. If a couple does break up, they will want to end the relationship with no regrets about their behavior. So many couple with whom I counseled have guilty feelings from their poor handling of previous dating relationships.
9. Date only one person at a time. Some good people may disagree with me on this point, and because of that, I have explained the matter more carefully in the chapter entitled "One at a Time Please."
10. Be an exceptional couple. No doubt there are "successful exceptions" to some of these pointers. I know of a happily married evangelist who married his wife eight weeks after they met. It is very unwise, however, to build your principles upon exceptions. It seems popular to want to be an exception to the rule, so that, in reality, the exceptional young couple is the couple who lives by the rules.
I have given you "safe" advice in this chapter. These are time-tested principles that are good insurance for a solid and lasting relationship, assuming of course that you are dating the right kind of person.
