How can you explain the differince between dateing and a Christian courtship?

Question

I have chosen to court enstead of date and people always ask me what the difference is...I try my best to explain it to them but most the time they look at me like I am the weirdest person alive but I know this is what God wants me to do!!! How would you expalin it? if you can help that would make my day !!! God bless!!!!!!!!

truely and honestly I know I can talk to and hear from my God I have a steady relationship with him and he guides and directs my path !!!!

Answer 1

First off, don't bother to explain to people who just want to laugh you off. Only talk to people who seriously do want to understand. I like to put it this way. This is what I told my husband when he wanted to date me and he had this question.

What are you looking for? To invest into something solid like an oak tree that will be strong and lasting or a weed that is here today and gone tommorrow. Courtship is like being very careful with something that is totally valuable to you and making sure that the relationship you're building when you do marry is going to have the most important and lasting qualities. Qualities such as rock solid trust, emotional security, hope, strength to overcome life's challenges. Dating many times is just watering a weed, and some weeds last a long time but are blown about in the wind, weak tattered eventually just fading away. You may enjoy it for a moment but in the long term you're just wasting your time. Not to say that dating is bad, alot of strong marriages were started by dating. However, most people who date end up going through lots of hardship, investing into lots of relationships that are just weeds. Courtship is being more careful to build something based on commitment and values. Courtship maintains bounaries that protect both parties from the emotional consequences of getting too close physically and sexually and emotionally and then just breaking up after giving yourself to someone else. Courtship ensures that you're just friends until you're sure about one another based on becoming good friends. After all, if marriage is your goal, then you want to have a strong relationship first off. All of the other stuff is just a byproduct of a good relationship. People tend to think they want to know someone sexually before marriage but the opposite is true. If you have a great relationship - great sex naturally follows. So, courtship is just setting yourself up to skip over all of the guys that aren't worth my time anyway and getting to the bottom line in meeting the right one! This is based on my personal experience, I didn't even kiss my husband until we said I DO! Courtship means making a commitment to marry in the future. It's like a pre-engagement that takes you from friendship towards marriage with a promise for the future. It's for people who don't want to play games with the most important decision of their lives and it's for people who want to give their husband 100% of who they are before giving part of their heart and soul to someone else who wasn't worth it.

The relationship can end during the courtship phase and if it does - not as traumatic as it could have been if you had given yourselves to each other completely in other areas already. There will be some relationships that don't pass the courtship test and that's okay - but it makes the whole process so much easier. Why kiss a gazillion nasty frogs when only one is your prince?

So before I met my husband, I was "courting" this other guy and during the courtship phase he went ahead and developed a "friendship" with another girl - red flag that he wasn't serious as he said he was. The relationship fell apart, hurt a little bit but not nearly as bad as if I had had sex and kissed and gotten all emotionally entangled in a guy where it wasn't God's will and would have been a disaster.

Some people enjoy going from weed to weed - that's okay for alot of people - but that's not what I'm looking for.

Alot of people told me that I was never going to meet anyone who would want to court. I was also told that no man would want to marry me without even getting to kiss me first. I was told that I was arrogant by some, others told me that I must have had a traumatic past and was avoiding getting close to people. Some thought I must have some issues with being a "cold fish" and not having interest sexually. None of that nonsense was true of me. Just ignore them, they don't know what they are talking about!

Answer 2

I even have heard courtship defined as "courting with a purpose." the version with courtship is which you, first, grow to be acquaintances with the guy and get to understand them on a friendship point. Then, you exhibit to them your opt to courtroom them with the assumption of marriage being the purpose. it is not some "call exchange" as some human beings could think of. courting must be greater advantageous defined as paying for. how many situations do you pass by using a shop, %. up diverse clothing, attempt them on, and then carry them back on the rack? courting with a purpose (courtship), on the different hand, potential which you're courting with the point of marrying the guy you're courting. It potential that, in this time, you do your superb to guard your individual coronary heart and the different guy or woman's from being broken by using a "casual love." As for no remember if courtship is completely a Christian practice or no longer, i might say that it is not. i think of, as an entire, society has forgotten this eye-catching practice of waiting for the single which you have been meant for. C'mon human beings of Y!solutions, enable's initiate the courtship revolution!

Answer 3

Dating is usually done for the sake of having a companion, (Short term or long term). There is usually no real shared vision for the relationship and it tends to sway all over the place as two people "go with the flow" and figure out if they even like each other or not. Eventually they will break up or maybe get married, only to just sort of wing it once again.

Courting on the other hand is done once a person has a solid foundation in Christ and once they are able to share their Christian life with another person.

Courting affords two people an ability to learn if their 'togetherness' would further bless God or not. They might ask, "Is it God's will for us to become husband and wife?" "Does God's plan for us as individuals seem to have drawn us together for a much greater purpose?" "How can I support this man as my husband as he continues his ministry for Jesus Christ?" "Will I be able to lead this woman as my wife before the throne of Jesus Christ?" ---All very important thoughts to consider before becoming husband and wife.

Courting is done with a purpose and with the intention of discovering God's purpose in their lives as possibly husband and wife. Sometimes, two people, while courting and carefully praying (Together and apart) and through Godly council, discover that God would rather they remain friends and not be married. Hence of course the added rule which typically does not allow kissing, petting and or pre-marital sex.

Answer 4

My views, your views and the world's views are probably 3 different things.

I can equate it with dance. In olden times they did a dance called a Gavotte in which the man and woman danced around each other, giving them time to talk and respond, but they never touched each other.

This was the olden way in which Courtiers could get to know each other and introduce each other publically.

But the idea of a Gavotte is an interesting one. A dance between two people with no physical contact.

Another concept of this particular dance is that you are required to change parteners periodically. Hence two never stay together for excessive or exclusive periods of time.

Dating is a ruitual I've never fully understood. It's the concept in which you barely know someone or almost never speak with them except to ask their phone number so you can get them alone on some outting. And then the ritual is about going places and doing things you will hardly ever do once married, especially if you have children. It's about seeing how close you can get (making moves) with an ultimate goal of exclusivity.

In dating when you go to a restaraunt, even as just a couple or with others, you immediately sit together and exclude all others from your physical world.

Here the dance is the Tango. A suggestive dance of close physical contact, pulling away, pusing away, dominating, being dominated, but never giving in.

Under the rules of the Gavotte there is always a table between the two of you, be you at right angles or face to face. There is that separation between you.

The closeness comes from eye contact, word contact, emotional contact and mental contact..

Can Christians Tango. I don't see why not. You can only Gavoette so long before you have to decide, but it's by mutual decision and then you do it with grace and respect, knowing already what the accepted moves are and what you can safely do.

No party in the Tango ever gives in or submits or gets taken. It, too, is a dance with walls and barriers, but it is a physical contact dance. One of equal control and equal respect.

One, however, does not Tango from the first or second date and one does not Tango with hesitation or fear or taking the other person beyond what they are capable of doing in the dance.

It is not a wrestling match.

Most people don't Gavotte much, usually because the man wants to close dance as quickly as possible and it becomes a tug of war which turns into a very sloppy Tango, because the man usually wants to dirty dance.

It would not be unwise to Gavotte for years, just to see if the man will stay in his place and respect the distance.

I've often wondered if Christians should wait for the first kiss to be at the marriage.

I see no reason why this should not be.

Do you marry someone based on how you like they way they kiss. Pretty shallow concept.

Once a man has been trained to sit on the other side of the table and learns to accept that position in life you can have a life.

Even a Christian man has to be trained, because men are men.

Courtships in my frame of reference are not about outtings to the movies, but about outtings to the store, to members of the family, out with other friends. The things you do for real. The things you will do in your life together. And effective use of the table.

It takes a lot of dancing to get to know someone and the Gavotte keeps both people on their toes.

As most girls will atest, once you make it clear to a man you have no intention of ever advancing to the Tango, the seat at the table becomes vacant, which is very un-Christian-like.

I guess even the best Christian men have a problem with watching the girl go off from the table with someone else to do the Tango in public.

But this is life and how it works.

Answer 5

I'm a Christian, but I've never heard of "Christian courtship." Sounds interesting. Without knowing what it is exactly, may I suggest you simply tell people what you DO differently in a CC relationship, as opposed to a dating relationship? That might help them to understand.
God bless you, too!

Answer 6

Well I commend you! That is a wise decision, not to mention glorifying. Way to go!

If I had to explain it, I would mention that you want to be above reproach, and that in courting you are attempting to keep you and your "other" out of tempting situations.

Again, I congratulate you! May the Lord bless your efforts!

Oh, I found this website that was helpful: http://polynate.net/books/courtship/part7.html -- that is the last page of it, but from there I think you can find the "home".

Answer 7

I love that old word"courtship". It is a very thin line between the two...and the world today has lost the beauty of courtship. In courtship the young man is usually mush more attentive to you as well as your famuly. He has a willingnes to wait for youa nd put no worldly pressures on you. Dating...is more limited in understanding...I am dating him or him....courtship is saying I am dating to meet my potential mate on a more serious and spiritual life partner. This a confusing one for most to get in the world today. Hold on to your morals wether you call it dating or courtship.

Answer 8

I'm not a Christian, but your question made me want to know the difference for myself, so I looked it up and found a couple sites that may help you explain the concept.

http://www.catholic.com/chastity/Q3.asp

http://www.christian-singles-hope.com/courtship-vs-dating.html

Hopefully those will be of some help to you.

Edit: Interesting that I've posted nothing offensive here but got a thumbs down.

Answer 9

THERE IS A REALLY GOOD BOOK BY JOSH HARRIS CALLED "I KISSED DATING GOODBYE".
DATING IS WHEN TWO PEOPLE GO OUT WITH FRIENDS OR ALONE TO BE TOGETHER ROMANTICALLY.
COURTSHIP HAS BEEN AROUND FOREVER AND IS WHEN THE YOUNG MAN ASKS PERMISSION FROM THE YOUNG LADIES FATHER TO CALL ON HER AT HER HOUSE AND VISIT HER WITH HER PARENTS.
I COURTED INSTEAD OF DATING AND IT IS GREAT, IT CAN SAVE YOU FROM REALLY GETTING HURT.
I HAVE NOW BEEN MARRIED FOR ALMOST EIGHT YEARS :-)

Answer 10

It means God is in control of the relationship, not the couple. I wish you the best of luck!