Skip to main content

The Church as Family

One of the most frequent comparisons I hear is that church is like a family. That is often the goal of many churches, to create a family environment where people feel welcome and included. This is a sentiment I agree with, but I also think that we often don't realize what we are asking for.

Families, by their very nature, bear responsibility.

When we say family, what we mean is a place of warmth and caring. What we usually don't mean is vulnerability. We want the picturesque TV family, where all the problems are solved by supper and there is no lasting stakes. This isn't the kind of family church is meant to be.

Church is a real family. Real families don't always get along. Real families see the ugly side of each member. Real families have to work through their problems over the course of years. Real families are vulnerable.

Warmth and care are easy when everyone pretends to have it all together. How much more impactful would it be if in our churches we showed that same love to the vulnerable and the hurting? What if we treated our church family as a real family?

What if we came to the aid of our brothers and sisters in Christ the way we do for our blood family? What if we were as honest with one another as we often are with our siblings or parents? What if we never gave up on each other, no matter how dark and horrid the sin may be?

I believe that the church is a family, a real family. As we strive towards the goal let us be honest with one another, confessing our sins  as James instructs us to do. Let us trust in one another, be there for one another, and just love one another the way a family does.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Need More Images

What is your favorite way to describe God? Is there a particular name of God in scripture that you are drawn to? What images and pictures come to mind when you think of God? These are questions I don't think we ask often enough. We all have an image of God in our heads that we work with. It may not be a literal picture, though it might be, but ideas and concepts we tend to associate with who God is. Some of those images and associations may come from the Bible, but some may not. These things are influenced by our upbringing, Bible reading habits, personalities, relationships, culture, and more. The way we picture God has a dramatic impact on the way we live our lives. For example, if the primary idea you have of God is "Healer," when you hear or read that you are made in God's image you will likely feel called to heal, be it physical ailments or spiritual wounds. But, if your primary image of God is "Judge," that changes things. You very likely might tend to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

The Early Middle Ages: Historical Friday

The next segment of history that we are going to overview is the Early Middle Ages. This dates roughly from AD 450 to AD 1100. This is intended to be a very general overview. There are probably historians that would classify some other time period as the "Early Middle Ages" or a more specific time period. For our purposes this will cover the aforementioned time period. This was a very influential period in the history of Christianity. It saw the formation of what we now call the Roman Catholic Church and its separation from what we would now call the Eastern Orthodox Church. Before this time there was only ONE church. There weren't different denominations or groups. It is hard for us to think about in our modern context, but there was a time when Christianity was visibly unified. Brief History The first major thing to happen during this time period is the remaining three ecumenical councils. We discussed the first four several weeks ago. These councils discussed va...
Post a Comment
Read more