Welcome to Father 2 Father - Greater Purpose

A Father 2 Father is a local ministry located in the beautiful Grants Pass Oregon. We exist because of our commitment to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we believe that its important to do follow His example and make disciples. Being a single father myself I understand the demands for our attention by our children and outside forces. We also know that it doesn't get easier having to deal with our children's mother. You don't have to do things alone and you shouldn't have to.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

We truly believe that one person can sharpen another. And that is the basis of this ministry to sharpen each other. Experiences that one has gone through might be just what another single father is going through and how you made it through it might help them out. In our meetings we do not condemn anyone for being divorced, or even unmarried and have a child. You might even be dating someone or even remarried. But the facts remain your not with your child's mother and because of this that makes you a single father.

Please let me share what makes me a qualified candidate to run A Father's Commission – a single father's Ministry. I was married on September 23, 2008 just a mere 3 months before my son Aden was born. In fact he was born December 9^th of the same year. That is when my marriage began to fail. The trust that I had in my wife began to be stretched as she would constantly accuse me of cheating on her. Which is something that I never did in the 5 years of our brief marriage. Turns out she was using that excuse of accusing me of cheating to try and cover up the fact that she was cheating on me. I knew the truth as she couldn't not lie good enough to hide it.

But I stayed as I felt that it was in our son's best interest that she was around. For 5 years we lived like that. Then we had the opportunity to move from Michigan to Oregon with family of mine and away from the guy that she was seeing on the side. I was trying everything possible to save my marriage with my son's mother. So we moved. Well that move lasted 4 months before she walked out on her son and I and moved back to Michigan a place I had no interest in going back to. That was just last year about this time. Then came April when I had been here a total of 6 months I was able to file for a divorce.

I filed and sent her the everything through the mail. You would thing that she would have responded to my petition seeing how I was going for full custody. I mean anyone would fight a divorce where they could potentially loose custody of their children am I right? I sent out the packet on May 1,2014 and she received it 4 days later and had 30 days to respond. Heck I even waited close to 40 days before submitting the paperwork for the default judgement. July 11^th of last year my divorce was finalized. And to date my son still has only talked to her roughly 40 times. I ask him daily if he wants to talk to her and maybe once a week he will. I don't force him to talk to her but once a week to keep that communication link there.

He is perfectly content with it just being dad. And now that Dad is dating again he has bonded well with my girlfriend.

But I started to realize that when I started to look at the latest census data. "Since 1990, single fathers, male householders, no spouse present, increased 33 percent. Single men, nonfamily male householders, increased 18 percent. Single mothers, female household, no spouse present, increased 17 percent. People living alone increased 10 percent.

Since 1990, unmarried couples have increased by 700 percent. In 1970, there were 523,000 compared with today's more than 4.2 million (4,236,000). In 1970, 327,000 couples had no children under age 15. Today's that number is 2,716,000. In 1970, 196,000 couples had children under age 15. Compare that to 1,520,000 today.

Implications for ministry: With this increase in single fathers, ministry to single-parent families needs to become more inclusive and sensitive to the needs of single fathers. Traditionally, these ministries catered to single mothers. Including single fathers may require more than changes in wording we may need to determine the needs of single fathers and how we can assist them in this role.

Single adults continue to be the fastest growing of all populations groups. Based on the most recent data (1998) from the Census Bureau, here is information about the marital status in the United States of persons over 18 years of age."

Growth in single fathers outpaces growth in single mothers.

The number of single mothers has remained constant over the past three years (9.8 Million) while the number of single fathers in the United States has increased dramatically. In 1997, there were 2 million single fathers, more than 50 percent more than in 1990 and triple the number in 1980. Families headed by single fathers comprised 5 percent al all parent-child families in 1997. Men account for one-sixth of the nation's 11.9 million single parents.

In 1997, nearly half of the single fathers, 46 percent, were divorced, while 32 percent were never-married, 13 percent were separated, and about 5 percent each were widowed and separated due to reasons other than martial discord. In 1997, the majority of single fathers (61 percent) were rearing one child and 10 percent were rearing three or more.

I have found that there is roughly 400,000 churches nationwide and only about 1% of the churches or 4000 churches have a single fathers Ministry at the present time. 

U.S. Adults by Marital Category

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