I really appreciate your thoughtfulness in considering whether or not you are abusing your opportunity as caregiver to meet a girl.

I think the main things to consider here are:

a) are you in a leadership position at your church? --because if you are, she may respond to you as "Don the church leader" while you're thinking "Don the potential date". Some women unintentionaly "gush" over the preacher, for example, not realizing how the preacher may interpret it (preachers being human, after all, and some will take advantage of it). I don't know what your other roles may be there but stand-in-caretaker for one week probably
doesn't qualify you for this kind of potential abuse situation. So, no abuse so far.

b) are you going to church soley (or should that be soul-y, heh) to pick up dates? Cruising the meeting room every week to see what's fresh? That would be abuse. Nooo, you don't sound like you're doing that either. Still doing okay. And,

c) on a related but somewhat more personal note, are you feigning an interest in spiritual things just to get close to this particular spiritually-minded girl? That would be deceit and abuse. For this reason most churches, if they have any kind of prayer partners or discipleship partners, relegate it to same gender pairings to help folks stay focused on God, not on each other. So just don't volunteer to be her one-on-one spiritual mentor, and you should be okay.

Hmmm, and by the way, what's her angle, how important is her relationship to Christ really, or does the church just seem to her like a nice way for meeting guys?...obviously not the sort of thing you can find out in a ten minute conversation. BUT, you CAN decide whether you'd like to get to know her better or not that quickly--there is nothing wrong with that so don't beat yourself up for it. People DO decide that sort of thing quickly, otherwise why did your mother tell you that "first impressions are important" ?

Just remember, put Christ first in your life and don't sweat the rest.

koala"nice to meet you"mom