 Over the last year, I've used about every dating app out there. In this video, I want to share with you my takeaways, some cautions and an encouragement. At the end of this video, I'm going to rank the best to worst dating apps, so you'll want to stay tuned for that. This is the case for dating apps. Think about 100, maybe 200 years ago, you'd have a lady that would be part of your town or community that would have an extensive contacts list. Maybe she was part of the sewing club, the knitting club. She had everybody's tele... I don't know, what did they do 200 years ago? They didn't have a telegraph. What did they do? Did they have mail back then? They knew exactly where all the single young men and young ladies lived, so she could matchmake for you. You know, I don't think a lot of people would have problems with that. It's just getting two people together that might have some stuff in common that might have potential together. But the case for dating apps is that this is your digital matchmaker, that now instead of going to the lady that has all these contacts and is part of all these clubs that knows everybody in the town, you can go to one of the dating apps to connect you to somebody that might be your potential spouse. And on the surface, this is right, right? Like, there's tons of contacts, there's tons of people that are on these apps, so there's a possibility that you might meet somebody that you would have never met in the first place. And if you're like me having a hard time meeting somebody in person, then the option of a dating app seems like a pretty intriguing one. Now, I couldn't make a video on dating apps without highlighting the case against dating apps. I'm going to share with you one argument against dating apps that I don't think is quite valid, but then I'm going to share with you a couple more that I actually validated through what I experienced and I'll share with those, those with you as well. Whenever somebody starts talking about Christian dating, the idea of waiting will always come up. And I'm not talking about it in the context of boyfriend and girlfriend and waiting to have sex until marriage or waiting to kiss until marriage and waiting in that context. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about waiting in terms of waiting for a spouse, waiting for God to put somebody in front of you that you will marry. Now, this rhetoric has persisted so much that the idea of going on a dating app is almost like spitting in the face of God that you are not waiting for the person that God wants for you. And instead, you're taking things into your own hands and going to the devil's app in order to find the spouse that God didn't want you with. I think this is funny because it totally doesn't take into account the necessity of movement and making intentional effort to meeting new people and how God can use that as a means to actually form romantic relationships and marriages. I do want to be upfront in saying that I believe that it's God's role to be the primary pursuer of the girl. So when it comes to girls waiting, I think that's a lot more valid at the same time, though. I think there's definitely intentional steps and effort that girls can put in into actually finding those new connections. But for guys in large part, I've seen this idea of waiting for your spouse used as an excuse for guys not to step out of their comfort zone and actually make themselves known in a social situation because they're too scared and they're like, well, you know what? I'm just waiting, you know, when God puts the girl right in front of me, then that'll happen. But they won't actually take that step of effort in actually getting to know somebody. I don't think that's a valid argument against dating apps to say that they're not quote unquote waiting for the person that God has for them. Yes, there may be discontentment in their heart and they need to deal with that. But for a lot of people, they need to make that extra effort. And a dating app is just one of those ways that they can make that extra effort in terms of getting to know new people. Here are some of the reasons that you may not want to be on dating apps. Here are some of their drawbacks. Number one is they put too much emphasis on too little information. Each app will get you to input a certain set of information about yourself, whether that be your height, your political leanies or your religious affiliation. And then depending on the app, it might get you to respond to prompts that they put forward and just try to try to help people understand a little bit more about you. The thing is, is that small little information those couple pictures is all you have to go off of into deciding whether you want to have a week to two week long conversation with the person via text before you actually go out on a date. It's not very efficient and I don't necessarily have a solution to that, but it's just one of the drawbacks. Another big problem with them is that nobody is on them. Well, at least not a lot of Christians are on them, at least in my experience. For me, it's like, wow, I want to be with somebody that's very committed to Christ and has a certain mission mindset as I do. You know, I'm not saying they're not out there on a dating app. I'm just saying it's very slim pickings for a lot of Christians. So if you're going to go into that space where, okay, I'm going to get on a dating app, you got to know there's not a lot of people there. And along with that, it is a time waster. Man, I've spent so much time on those apps, even for the couple weeks that I had them, they just consume my time where usually I would be either reading or writing or working on things. I'm just scrolling, scrolling, you know, typing, do all this stuff, right? And I'm not saying that isn't necessary at some point, like, okay, there's going to be a talking phase for anything. So that is going to be kind of the, you got to get through that. And even though it's not the funnest thing to do, you got to make through the small talk to get to the important stuff. But man, it's just such a time waster from swiping to texting to going to do, you know, it's just, it's a lot. One of the biggest problems that I haven't highlighted yet is its over emphasis on physical appearance and just like those couple pictures, people put so much weight in like those couple pictures and like nitpicking them and like, oh, this person's not cute enough, or maybe there's somebody cuter. I just think it's not a healthy way. You're not really treating them like a human. It's disconnecting who they are from how they look. And I just don't think that's a good way to go about it on a consistent basis. If you're constantly seeing picture, picture, picture, and you're constantly evaluating, am I attracted to them? Am I attracted to them? Am I attracted to them? It's not a healthy way to think I could say more about that. But first, what I want to say is that, yes, I have seen and heard of people that have gotten together based on being on dating apps, and that's their happily ever after and it worked out for them. Great. And for you, if you're using a dating app, I don't want to shame you. I use them. I'm making this video about how I went on all of them. So you know what, I'm definitely no better than you. I found myself, it's so easily swayed towards, yeah, either just like totally fixating on their physical appearance or just wasting so much time or just having a bad heart attitude towards the whole thing. I would get frustrated and angry. It was definitely not good for me. Some people might ask, Isaac, why did you even get on a dating app in the first place? Don't you trust God enough to bring somebody to you? And the honest answer to that is, well, you know what? In my immediate life, there was nobody that I was interested in. So I thought, well, let me take a look at some dating apps and see if I might meet somebody. I do believe that God can use the means of a dating app or Facebook or Instagram or any of these things to bring us into contact with potential spouse. I do have to say at some point it became less of, well, let me get on these dating apps so I can find a potential spouse to, wow, I'm already on a lot of dating apps. I wonder if I got on even more and then I'm able to make a video about this telling people my experience and some of the things I learned. That definitely did cross my mind and maybe that was kind of an ending motivation. By the end, I definitely knew that I wanted to get off of all of them just because, as I said, it wasn't good for me. Now without further ado, I'm going to rank the best to worst dating apps, at least in my opinion. And I have to say, I did not go on all dating apps. And some of you may be disappointed to know that I did not go on Christian mingle. So yeah, so I can't speak for that one. No interest whatsoever to me, especially after the years of joking about it. I couldn't admit defeat like that. The worst one by far is Tinder. I had this app for all of 45 minutes. After I made a profile, I began swiping and I noticed that it really gave you no information about the person whatsoever. This obviously is a big problem for me being a Christian because I don't want to waste my time on somebody that's not a Christian. If we're in the context where I can share the gospel with them, then that's great, wonderful. But I'm not in the mode to do any kind of missionary dating. I want to be serious about this and I want to find somebody that's already passionate about their faith. Although I've heard Christian couples meeting on Tinder, to me, it's just like a wasteland till you get there, I guess. There's so many people dressed inappropriately and you're just swiping and swiping and swiping. Maybe it's where I live and they're living in more Christian conservative places where you're more likely to find a Christian on Tinder. I don't know. To me, it was not good. Next, I grouped a couple here in sixth and fifth place. Plenty of fish and e-harmony. Go on those if you're a little bit older, I guess, like 30, 40, but for a 20 something year old guy. It was just a lot of older people, so it's just not a lot of people on their my age. Okay, in fourth place is Facebook dating. I found out about this as I just downloaded the Facebook app again. So I was like, well, let me see who Mark Zuckerberg wants me to date. It was not good. Do not recommend. I don't recommend. Honestly, yeah, I don't recommend any of these. Yeah, so. In third place is an app that I actually haven't tried yet, but I've heard some good things. It's called Upward. I don't think I'm going to make an account, but it seems relatively positive. Maybe like a little bit better Christian mingle. So check it out if you're interested. In second place is Bumble. I actually really enjoyed this app. It had good information about the person's spiritual beliefs and political leanings and just different info. It was a little bit more thorough, so give you a little bit more insight into who the person actually was. The only problem, though, was that girls have to make the first move in texting the guy, which I'm not a huge fan of just because often the messages that they would leave are just kind of high and hey, and it started the conversation off real rocky. And I've heard this from other guys too. But otherwise it was a pretty good app. The best dating app to me is hinge. And the reason being is it's not a swiping dating app. So you're not constantly swiping swiping swiping to find, you know, the most attractive person that you can or whatever else. It's more like a Facebook profile, at least how I see it or maybe an Instagram profile. And then you can comment on different of their pictures or prompts. And that's how you begin the conversation. It feels much more organic than just kind of matching with the person because you liked how they look. And then all of a sudden you're put in this like chat room to force to have a conversation. That feels weird to me. But this way it seems a little bit more natural. I would love to know you guys perspectives on dating apps and maybe some of your experience with them. If you know people who have gotten together because of them and maybe what which ones that are more beneficial for the Christian community and which ones are not so much. Thank you so much to everyone on Patreon. It is a blessing to be able to get to know you guys and thank you for supporting what I'm doing and helping people follow Jesus daily. It is only through your support that I can continue to do that. If you want to help support my ministry, head down to the link in my bio patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple. Thanks again for watching and I'll see you next time.