At dinner with some friends this weekend, one of them described the guy she’d just started dating. He was raised in a Christian home but no longer attends church or “practices” any faith. My friend likes him and plans to see him again but she’s also approaching it casually; she realizes his lack of faith is a major issue.

Whether or not she should date a non-Christian at all is a whole other discussion. In his book How to Find a Date Worth Keeping, Henry Cloud asserts that dating unbelievers is fine if you approach it as a way to make new friends, have fun, and grow as a person. As someone who dated and subsequently did the love and loss routine with an atheist, I would argue the opposite point of view.

But wherever you land on that, the point is she’s dating this guy (let’s call him Jack) because even though she knows dozens of Christian men her age at our church, not one has ever asked her out. And before you ask—yes, she is smart, attractive, outgoing, and generally “together.” So are my other single friends, many of whom struggle with the same situation. Why the dating drought when it comes to Christian men?

I obviously can’t speak for the men, but based on the statistics I’ve read it doesn’t seem they lack interest in marriage and family. The majority of single men—believers and otherwise—say they hope to marry and raise children.

Yet many Christian guys don’t date—they lead Bible studies and singles events, they pray for a wife, they attend group activities for years on end, but they rarely exert a little energy or spend a little money to know any woman individually.

Nothing’s wrong with groups, but Jack didn’t wait for verification from five buddies as to whether my friend might be interested in him. He initiated conversation with her, expressed his interest, and took a risk.

God created men to be initiators, so this kind of assertiveness gets our attention. My friends and I are strong women, but we refuse to usurp that role and act as the pursuer. If our Christian brothers won’t, either, what’s the new strategy? My friend summed it up well as we finished our coffee. “I don’t know what will happen with Jack, but it’s frustrating to have few alternatives. I guess we’re just supposed to be ‘waiting on the Lord.’ Okay. We’re waiting……”

I’m really not trying to be down on men here. I know it’s hard to take those kinds of risks, and I know women can be confusing and contradictory. But I do believe that, despite the difficulties, God created men to step up and take action in every area of their lives—which includes “finding a wife” (Proverbs 18:22).

Guys, we don’t expect you to quote poetry or be able to benchpress your car. We just wish you’d spend a little less time reading Wild at Heart and a little more time living it.