Today in the Mission Yearbook - Lifting up singleness and found family

Podcaster Mary B. Safrit is a recent guest on the ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

October 12, 2024

Mary B. Safrit

Mary B. Safrit, a communicator, creator, coach and the host of the Found Family podcast, did the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” a favor in a recent broadcast, appearing as the guests of Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe on an episode of “A Matter of Faith” called “Knowing Ourselves (and Singleness).” Listen to their 67-minute conversation here.

“It’s exciting to have a fellow podcaster with us,” Catoe told Safrit. “It’s always good to connect with someone who does something similar.”

The hosts posed this question to Safrit: “Let’s talk about everyone’s favorite subject: ourselves! How does knowing and understanding ourselves impact the kinds of friendships we make and the community that we seek, both inside and outside the church?”

“When I think about the church and my relationships with people at church, it’s had a huge impact on me since I moved to New York,” Safrit said. An admitted “recovering people-pleaser,” Safrit said if “I see myself as this irreparably damaged person, of course I’m going to show up in my relationships with a posture that’s not very empowered. Therefore, I will accept all sorts of nonsense from other people because I don’t think I deserve better.”

Safrit “turned a corner through therapy and empowering relationships.”

For Safrit, family “has always been a pretty expansive term. It’s really about a prioritization of relationships.”

“When we talk about ‘found family,’ it’s not found by biology or a legal agreement,” such as marriage, Safrit said. “It’s something we can define for ourselves based on our values and what works for us. It’s something I’ve learned a lot about since joining the queer community for sure. There’s such a rich history of chosen family and found family in the queer community.”

Safrit spent about five years podcasting and writing on singleness in the church. Recently, “I’ve branched out more on inclusion” since coming out.

In addition, some churches “don’t know how to celebrate single people. It’s not a disease or a problem,” Safrit said. “They are human beings looking for a community who have a lot to contribute to the community.”

“Church is not supposed to be a place where hierarchy exists,” Safrit said. “What if we did the Jesus-y thing and flipped the tables and said, ‘These people who don’t have social privilege or power — what is the goodness of the gospel in those people’s lives?’ How can we showcase them, so we know God better? To me, it’s a missed opportunity in a lot of churches.”

There’s a difference between “interacting with a big group of people, which is what the church can be, and our found family, our people we have deep relationships with or are cultivating deep relationships with,” Safrit said.

Doong told Safrit he’d never thought about being single as a lower rung in institutions including the church, where invariably “there will be questions about ‘are you on dating apps?’ or ‘are you seeing anybody?’ People don’t need to be asking those questions. It implies there is a direction your life should be headed. I applaud you for bringing this up,” Doong told Safrit.

During podcasts, Safrit enjoys discussing “the specific value that single people bring to the church outside their usefulness or marriageability. What I noticed when I got into the singleness conversation was that there are lots of folks focusing on getting single people unsingle and a lot about getting singles content, which in a lot of ways means getting them to stop complaining. ‘Be quiet and do your service and be faithful. Go over there and stop bothering us,’” was the message single people often received.

“I was more interested in, if our goodness and identity isn’t contingent on our relationship status, what is the inherent goodness that God has for people who are single?” Safrit said. “Who are we leaving out when we relegate [leadership] to this tiny corner of how singles can be useful to the church, and how they can get unsingle. There is so much we are missing.”

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Watch previous editions here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Podcaster Mary B. Safrit, guest on the ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Angie Stevens, Manager, Communication Specialist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
Cameron Stevens, Mission Associate II, Constituency Relations, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Mission Agency 

Let us pray

Loving God, we know you through your Son, Jesus Christ, and we serve you as led by the Holy Spirit. May we respond to your call as servants even as we seek to be leaders in your church. Amen.