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About the Author: Steve Ward
Steve Ward is the Owner and CEO of Master Matchmakers and a second-generation matchmaker who built the firm alongside his mother and co-founder JoAnn Ward. He hosted and executive-produced VH1's Tough Love for six seasons, co-authored Crash Course in Love (Simon & Schuster), and has been featured as a dating expert by CNN, the Today Show, Oprah, Glamour, People, and Cosmopolitan. He has spent more than 25 years personally coaching and matching relationship-minded singles nationwide.
Quick answer: Yes. Master Matchmakers treats shared faith as several distinct matching variables, denomination, observance level, church involvement, and views on raising children, not one checkbox. We are a general matchmaking firm, not a Christian or faith-based service, offering verified, background-checked introductions with fees starting at $3,500.
Ask a matchmaker to find someone who "shares your faith" and you have asked a harder question than it sounds like. Faith is not one field on an intake form. It is denomination, how often someone actually attends, how involved they are in a church community, and what they expect for raising children, and two people can agree on the first of those and disagree completely on the rest. I run Master Matchmakers, and before we go any further I want to be direct about what we are and are not.
We are a general matchmaking firm. We are not a Christian or faith-based service, we have no denomination-specific matchmakers, and we do not run any kind of doctrinal or pastoral vetting. What we do have is a process built around whatever you actually tell us matters, which means faith gets treated as a real, specific criterion rather than a label, if that is how you want your search run. If you are a marriage-minded Christian single wondering whether a matchmaker can genuinely work with that, here is an honest answer, including where the honest limits are.
What "Shared Faith" Actually Means as a Matching Criterion
Most people say "shared faith matters" as if it were one thing to match on. It is closer to four separate questions, and a firm that only asks the first one is not really matching on faith at all, it is matching on a label.
| Variable | What it actually asks | Why it gets treated as one thing |
| Denomination | Catholic, Baptist, non-denominational, Presbyterian, and so on | It is the answer to "what religion," so it gets mistaken for the whole answer |
| Observance level | How often someone actually attends and practices, not how they were raised | Two people of the same denomination can be nowhere near each other here |
| Church involvement | Whether faith shapes a weekly routine, a social circle, ministry work | Attendance and involvement sound like the same thing and often are not |
| Raising children | Baptism, Sunday school, how much say faith gets in that decision later | It rarely comes up until it is the disagreement that ends a relationship |
Two Christians can share a denomination and be a poor match if one attends weekly and organizes a ministry group and the other has not been inside a church since a wedding. Two Christians from different denominations can be a strong match if both are equally serious about weekly practice and equally clear on how they want to raise a family. Denomination alone predicts almost none of that. It is the easiest variable to ask about and the least useful one on its own, which is exactly why firms that stop there are not doing the work the client thinks they are paying for.
Openness Is What Sets the Fee, Not Just the Search
Master Matchmakers prices every search the same way, on the same fee structure regardless of the criteria involved: fees start at $3,500, and the more open you are about who and where you will be matched, the lower the fee tends to be. That is not a policy specific to faith. It is how a search actually gets priced, and faith criteria are one of the places it shows up most clearly.
A client who insists on one specific denomination, weekly attendance only, active ministry involvement, and a match in one metro area has defined a narrow pool before the search even starts. That is a legitimate thing to want, but it is a harder search, and the fee reflects that. A client who is open across denominations, and cares more that faith is genuinely practiced than which building it happens in, has widened the pool considerably while keeping the thing that actually mattered to them. That search is easier to run, and it tends to cost less. Neither client is treating faith casually. They are simply choosing how many of the four variables above are fixed and how many are open, and that choice is what a matchmaker is actually pricing.
What to Ask Any Firm About How It Handles Faith, Including Us
A firm that treats faith seriously as a criterion should be able to answer these plainly, on the phone, before you sign anything.
- Is denomination asked as its own question, or is it folded into a single yes-or-no religion field?
- Is observance level captured separately from denomination, in your own words, not inferred from the name of your church?
- Does church involvement factor into who gets introduced, or does the matching stop once denomination and observance are on file?
- Are views on raising children asked at intake, before an introduction, rather than left for you to discover four dates in?
- Does being open on any of these actually change your pool or your fee, and will the firm tell you so plainly?
- Does the firm have a religious affiliation, and if not, how does it handle faith without one?
Here is how we answer that last set of questions ourselves. Our consultation is built around the goals and background you actually state, not a fixed checklist, so if shared faith matters to you, and how specifically it matters, that is exactly the kind of criterion you tell us the same way you would tell us any other non-negotiable. We do not have a religious affiliation and we are not trying to sound like we do. What every introduction gets regardless of what you are matching on is the same identity, age, and photo verification, plus a criminal and public-record background check, and our how it works page walks through that sequence in full. This is not a new question for us, either. Singles from other faith backgrounds ask a version of it, and we have answered it before for Jewish singles the same way we are answering it here: honestly, without claiming to be something we are not.
Good Fit For A Christian Single Who Wants Faith Treated as a Real Criterion
If you want shared faith taken seriously in your search, as specifically as you define it, but you want that handled by a general firm with verified, background-checked introductions rather than a specifically religious service, that is who we built this process for. We have worked with relationship-minded singles nationwide since 2001, and we do not promise a specific outcome. What we stand behind is the reliability of the information we give you about every match.
Where a General Firm Is Not the Right Answer
Worth knowing: if what you actually need is a matchmaker embedded in a specific church or denomination, with pastoral references or doctrinal vetting built into the process, a dedicated Christian or faith-based matchmaking service will likely serve you better than a general firm like ours. We would rather tell you that upfront than have you sign up for something we do not offer.
Where we do fit well is for the Christian single, at any denomination or level of observance, who is relationship-minded, time-poor, and serious about marriage, and who wants faith handled as a real matching variable rather than a formality, without pretending we are a ministry or another year spent guessing who on an app actually takes their faith as seriously as you take yours. If that sounds like you, a conversation is the clearest way to find out whether we are the right fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Master Matchmakers match Christian singles by denomination?
Your consultation is built around the goals and background you state, not a fixed checklist, so denomination is one of the variables you can be as specific about as you want. We are a general matchmaking firm, not a faith-based service, and source against whatever criteria you actually set, faith included.
Is Christian matchmaking different from a Christian dating app?
Yes. A Christian dating app is still self-managed: you review profiles and decide who to message yourself. A matchmaking firm sources and vets on your behalf, with verified, background-checked introductions and no blind dates, so faith becomes one input a person weighs for you rather than a filter you apply alone.
Does being open across denominations actually lower the cost?
It can. Master Matchmakers' fees start at $3,500, and the more open you are about who and where you will be matched, the lower the fee tends to be. A search fixed on one denomination, one observance level, and one city is a smaller pool than a search open across denominations, and pool size is what the fee reflects.
Is Master Matchmakers a Christian or faith-based matchmaking service?
No. We are a general matchmaking firm working with singles nationwide, Christian and not, since 2001. We have no Christian division, religious staff, or denomination-specific matchmakers. If you want a service embedded in a specific faith community, a dedicated Christian or faith-based matchmaker will likely serve you better.
What should I ask a matchmaker about how they handle faith?
Ask whether denomination, observance, church involvement, and views on raising children are asked as separate questions or lumped into one. Ask whether being open on any of them changes your pool or your fee, and whether the firm has a religious affiliation. A firm that cannot answer specifically is not treating faith as a real variable.
Faith as a Criterion, Not a Formality
Shared faith is not one question, and a search that treats it as one is a search that has not really asked. Denomination, observance, church involvement, and views on raising children are four different variables, and how open you are on each of them shapes both your pool and your fee. We are not a religious service and we will not pretend to be one. What we will do is take every one of those variables as seriously as you state it, verify who you meet, and tell you plainly what a more open search actually buys you.