Christian Mingle ( Christianmingle ) Review

Created specifically for Christian singles looking to make new friends and find relationships online,  the Christian Mingle dating site is the ideal place to meet other singles that shares similar values, traditions and beliefs.

Non-Christians don’t know what they’re missing… especially when it comes to dating sites. Christian Mingle is perhaps the best online dating site I’ve seen so far, a site that in their words focuses on providing a “clean, safe and friendly environment” to help you “find a compatible partner with whom you can build a strong relationship founded on Christian principles”.

You can tell that Christian Mingle is quality stuff right from the first few clicks of the mouse: it’s pretty, well-organized, and quick. Your home page has four main drop menus with all the necessities: Home, Connect (where all your mail, IM’s, smiles, etc. are kept), Search, and My Profile. It also shows profiles of "Featured Members", and lists "Upcoming Events" that are happening in the real world.

What's FREE!

• Free membership
• Create a free profile with photo
• Search and browse profiles
• Send and receive smiles
• Send and receive e-cards
• View message board
• Secure anonymous mailbox

Setting up your own profile is good fun. There’s the usual basic info about body types and smoking/drinking behaviours (I love the “as much as possible” option), number of kids, and the such. Being a Christian site, there is a denominational section with some twenty options. Then there is a “fun facts” area allowing you to choose answers to questions about details in music/movies, food, looks, season, personality, and so on.

There is a section where you can indicate your ideal match, which will affect how you are matched by their system to other members. Use criteria like location, body type, denomination, ethnicity and so on, and you can even set priorities between them. Also helping in your matching is an optional color-coded personality test.

And, past this, Christian Mingle offers an extensive essay section. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do them all. But the opportunity is there to truly show your individuality: your ideal first date, what you got out of past relationships, what it means to be a Christian, your favourite bible passage, and “anything else”.

So, you’re set up with a profile and ready to search. Searching is also effective on Christian Mingle, just a matter of choosing which parts of the profiles are important to you. You can also search by distance from your (or another location). Searches bring up a list, sorted however you want, showing pictures, location, age, and a bit of their self-written description.

You can connect with prospective dates and mates in a myriad of different ways. Okay, maybe not a myriad, but a lot. The best, and the one that’s for free, is the use of “smiles”. Some sites have smiles, but Christian Mingle has so many (maybe 100?) that you could almost have a full relationship with them. Ask for a photo, say she’s cute, ask her out, and she can respond with a “send me an email”, all in a few keystrokes.

With a paid membership, you can send or receive emails, chat live with other members, start instant message conversations, and post to the message boards. Rates run from $24.99 for one month, to $79.99 for six months (an excellent price of some thirteen bucks a month).

All in all, Christian Mingle is one super dating site. When you think of the great layout, the power of “smiles” to make communicating cheap and easy, and the depth of the profiles, the low price (especially on longer plans) is remarkable.