Having served in two churches, including in youth group ministry, I have long had a related opinion:
What the institutionalized church has consistently, historically, failed to do is to honor those who live a chaste, single life.
If a man lives a promiscuous life, fathers children, repents, and seeks to be a good father, his repentance is often actively celebrated.
If a single man whom women do not choose as a husband lives a chaste life, and never fathers a child out of wedlock, he is not celebrated. He is ignored - or mocked. (Yes, I have witnessed it firsthand while serving in the church - including by “ordained ministers” - so do not anyone tell me it does not happen!)
Such men are often ignored as being unworthy, or they are mocked as being undersexed. (The attitude that a “real” man just cannot live without sex is alive and well in Churchianity.)
One of the truest lines I have heard in secular entertainment is: “No one celebrates what didn’t happen.”
A man who never fathers a child illicitly, never exploits a young woman sexually, never practices promiscuity is, at best, taken for granted (it is his Christian duty, blah, blah, blah).
After six years in a Christian school, working in two denominations, and attending many conferences, seminars, retreats, and teaching so many Bible Studies I lost track, yes, this is often true - and not just in one denomination or with one theology.
Celibacy and chastity among male laity - male virgins, in accord with God’s Word - are embarrassing to those who are morally or immorally active sexually.
Whether or not the organized church develops formal matchmaking - about which idea I have an ambivalent attitude - it would improve the situation just by actually, actively respecting the moral behavior it officially, passively endorses.
While I certainly believe it would be a good thing for churches to be involved more in matchmaking and marriage, the real problem with declining marriage rates in the U.S. is our divorce laws. I’ve been divorced five years and have met some nice ladies that I could potentially see myself with but I’ve shied away from it because I don’t want to run the risk of financial ruin. I dodged financial ruin with my ex-wife when I was forced to divorce her after catching her cheating, I don’t want to tempt fate again.
Men, especially older ones like me, would be much more inclined to marry if the risk of being fleeced by the legal system wasn’t so great.
I met my wife at a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at college.