Reforming College Dating through Discipleship
We love a good party as much as anyone. But the logistics of trying to get to know someone in a packed basement over blaring trap music while someone does body shots in the corner are a bit challenging. It’s not exactly the prime environment for romance. Although maybe you’re not looking for romance? Party on, friend. Dating apps are the saving grace of college students everywhere.
The phrase “ring by spring” is used to describe students’ desire to find a partner and Dating and Relationship Cultures at Christian Colleges.
But he also offered practical advice to balance the relationship pressure students on Bison Hill may face. Dunn, who serves as marriage and family ministry director for Focus on the Family, presented his message during the final chapel service of Focus Week, an emphasis each spring to encourage members of the OBU community to strengthen healthy relationships with God and one another.
After relaying his own story of college dating – which he recalled as “awkward” – Dunn said an ongoing problem for college students lies in the extreme labels assigned to relationships. He said in college, students assume either someone is not dating at all, or that he or she is in a committed, “on-the-verge-of-marriage” relationship.
He said he understands the frustration college students feel in trying to define where they are in relationships with one another. For chapel messages, follow this link. Dunn said his major problem with the perceptions associated with dating on a university campus lies in the fact that most people live their lives somewhere between the extreme labels. He said one way to deal with the pressure and to change an “all or nothing” dating culture is to focus on building healthy relationships regardless of whether the relationship has a romantic aspect associated to it.
As a child, Dunn said he learned from his father to always leave things a little better than he found them. A similar principle can be assigned to building healthy relationships, he said. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. While Dunn was dating his future wife, Krista, her father said he had seen his daughter “blossom” into the woman God created her to be. Dunn said the same benchmark should be assigned to all relationships: to make the most of every encounter with others to help another person become all God has intended for his or her life.