Should You Do Witness Dating?

Should you do witness dating? Of course not. Witness dating can and often does hurt everyone involved. Are you doing witness dating and unaware that that is what you are doing?

I think it is very possible to do witness dating and not realize it. If you are a Christian and dating someone who is not, you may be witnessing to that individual whether you intend to do so or not.

I remember when I was out of the church, when I first left the church, I put an ad in the personals of the newspaper in which I said things like "I am serious" (referring to marriage) and "I am not a Christian", and "You are God's answer to my prayers"

Two people answered that personal ad and I chose one of the two. We went on a few dates and I said some things she did not like. One thing I did was to send her some flowers and asked her to go steady. She said that I was "getting to serious", she had invited me to church, then later refused to let me go to church with her. She refused to even allow me to study the scripture with her.

She never said "I'm afraid you are only doing this because you like me," or "becoming Christian is a decision you will have to make for yourself." She said she answered my ad "just to get out of the house", well; you should never date anyone for that reason. She also said "I never ever want to see or hear from you again" and when I attempted to discuss scripture with her made it clear it was for no reason at all.

She was right to stop dating me, but she should have given some spiritual reasons for doing so and remained open to friendship, scripturally based friendship. Under no circumstances does a Christian have the right to permanently have nothing at all to do with someone. She should have introduced me to her pastor or other church leader to study scripture with, and been open to associating with me in the future.

If she did not want me going to her church, she should have asked her pastor to recommend one. She probably did not recognize it, but she was doing witness dating.

When you date someone who does not share your essential beliefs as a Christian (if you are a Christian) you are doing witness dating. This can hurt the other person because you may be leading them to believe things about you that are not true. It can hurt you because the person may not realize how what he or she says is wrong or hurtful and if you are unwilling to discuss your reasons, really discuss your reasons then, that hurts the other person, too, a lot.