Do you come from a family that believes marriage is final and divorce is off the table? Then you may be more likely to be more enthusiastic about religion and relationships.
According to the Institute for Family Studies, “for nearly 50 years, people who attend church regularly marry at much higher rates and, for a majority of the population, those who attend church frequently also divorce at lower rates than the rest of the population.”
So while you’re reading this Christian Cafe Review and deciding whether you want to join, you may want to pay attention to what other users are saying in regard to being a devout Christian (going to church two to three times per month or more) versus a non-devout Christian (attending church once a month or less).
For both black and white Americans, marriage tends to fail significantly faster for people who do not attend church regularly. Why? There may be a number of reasons, but often it may come down to truly believing in the highs and lows of marriage.
If you’re on Christian Cafe, you clearly are looking for a relationship. Now let’s see if this site can help you find the kind of long-term, together-forever bond you may be looking for.
Christian Cafe Review
Website Overview
If you think the amount of time you attend church is beside the point, the information above should make you reconsider that. In fact, when signing up for Christian Cafe, one of the first questions is about your church attendance:
Attend occasionally, Attend regularly, Involved in church activities, Prayer Ministry, Group Leader, Deacon(ess), Pastor, Involved in Singles/Children’s/Music ministry, Mission Trips, etc.
Considering this is your introduction to the site, you should be honest about this. If you are uncomfortable with your church activity level, this is as good of a time as any to attend less or more.
If you’re perfectly comfortable with your answer, this is the best time to also make sure that the person you want to date on Christian Cafe’s site matches your ideal amount of time in church, too. It could make or break the longevity of your relationship, too, assuming you find that special someone.
Key Features
The site, which was started in 1999, has more than 3K testimonials about happy couples who found their partners on this site. When you sign up for the site, you can also visit other users’ sites to send a wink, add as a favorite, and/or view similar profiles.
(You may need to tweak your search to clarify that you want to see the preferred gender you want to talk to. Otherwise, the site will send you similar profiles like yours. If you’re only looking for penpals or looking for someone of the same gender, you will not need to make this tweak though.)
Or, you can choose “Males Online,” “Females Online,” “My Region Online,” “Males In My Region” or “Females In My Region.” The site will email matches to you three times per week to help you along in your search, so you don’t have to dedicate all of your time trying to find potential matches.
If you also want to use the site as a place to just discuss your spirituality, enjoy the forums to talk about various topics and/or post a prayer on the prayer page. Browse through the Christian Cafe blogs, too, to weigh in conversation starters like, “Is God with us when we are in a common-law relationship?” and “Fornicating: How do I stop intercourse outside of marriage?”
Where Are the Majority of Members Based?
In an online community of more than 25K Christian who resulted in marriage, you may find your match. The Christian-owned site is full of singles from all over the world.
Sign-Up Process
Get ready to answer quite a few drop-down menu questions, including whether you have or want children, height, body type, fashion sense (ex. trendy, classic, professional, etc.), personality type (ex. laid-back, emotional, go-getter, thinker-quiet), smoking and drinking lifestyle habits, education and denomination.
As with church attendance, you probably won’t skip over the question about your level of Christian faith: It defines who I am, It has a significant place, Still trying to figure it out, I believe in God.
Communication Options
Do you know what you’re looking for when you join the Christian Cafe: a penpal, serious relationships, marriage-minded, open to possibilities, wherever God leads. The site will automatically give you a username (a mix of words and numbers) as well as a password to log in as needed.
Pricing & Membership Options
Although the site claims it will give you the opportunity to communicate “absolutely free for the first 10 days,” after joining, the expiration date was actually eight days. A pop-up also comes up regarding a five-day promo, so the promotional trial period may differ depending on whatever deal the site has at the time.
If you decide to pay to join, the price plans are $29.95 for one month, $14.99 per month for a three-month plan ($44.95), $11.66 per month for six months ($69.95) or $7.91 per month for one year ($94.95).
Safety & Security
Christian Cafe makes it plain in no uncertain terms that if you are still married, they do not want you to join their site. Users are under the impression that they are always talking to someone who is never married, widowed, or divorced.
As with any site, you should still carefully filter who you want to talk to. Christian or not, some users will still miss their marks (ex. one guy holding a machine gun as big as he is in his main profile shot) about what kind of site they’re on.
Pros & Cons
Everybody has a level at which they self-identify themselves regarding religion. By Christian Cafe asking users about their church level and their faith, users can decide who they’re comfortable with. For some people, not going to church every week is a major deal-breaker. For others, as long as they can go to church as little or as much as they want to, it doesn’t really make much of a difference.
But pay attention to the answers to these questions ahead of time. Remember that although this is an online Christian dating site, your goal is to find a significant other, not to recruit them for your particular Christian club or to insist that they match your “idea” of the perfect Christian.
You may find yourself struggling to keep the relationship going before you can get it off the ground. Pay attention to everything on the page, not just photos, to make sure this is someone you’d be comfortable talking to in the long run.
The site is an easy, clean read. You’ll be able to see all of the initial sign-in questions on the left-hand side (from the dropdown menu) and the typed-in answers on the right-hand side. Photos are optional, but as with all online dating sites, adding an image gets 10 times as many views.
As much as you may want personality to outrank physical appearance, numbers don’t lie. Add your pic. One of the biggest downsides of the site is the blog part doesn’t always help the conversation.
Normally on a blog platform, someone can leave a comment. Other readers can then click on their profiles to contact them directly or find out more about them. On this site, the usernames aren’t clickable. Although you can leave a reply to that person talking, on a dating site, it would help if the site made the actual person’s entire profile clickable.
Bottom Line
Unlike other online dating sites that just promote one particular category, this one has far more activities to get involved in. Check, read and respond to blogs. Interact on the forums. Post a prayer. Read testimonials. And browse around.
Visit the Perfect DM homepage for more expert dating platform reviews.
