THOUGHTS ON CHURCH FAMILY

I don't know that I've experienced "church family" except in a small house church years ago. It gets pretty hard to be an organic body of believers... a family, when the group size gets much over 50 or so, but small churches don’t have much in the way of creature comforts or services... so... and thus begins the size dichotomy with churches trending ever larger. The church leadership -- pastors, ministries, administration, services, etc. -- may experience church as a family because everyone in the congregation wants to be in their inner circle and they get ample opportunity to share, care, support, and engage. For these individuals church probably is like a big extended family, but for the rest of us pew warmers, church family is a myth without reality. A quick read of Acts chapter two through four sheds light on the relational dynamic of an organic body of believers. Of course “small groups” was supposed to fix this problem... and didn’t. It is sad that so many are satisfied with so little, it's like contentedly eating crumbs off the floor, never realizing there is a banquet fit for a king on the table above.

God’s grand plan is for believers to love and relate to each other as spiritual brothers and sisters -- as sons and daughters of the living God – doing life together with Him at the center as the core that holds the spiritual family together. Individuals in church leadership are naturally drawn to other ministry members and their families as their extended family, the inner ring of most churches. The congregation, for the most part, wants to be in the inner circle with the church leadership as their extended family. But this rarely happens since the church leadership has a “full plate” with little time to engage additional “family” members beyond their inner ring of relationships. Congregants navigate the relational sea attempting to draw closer to the inner ring through relationally connecting with friends and family of leadership members, ignoring all the other “ships” in their ring.  This creates something reminiscent of C. S. Lewis’ essay “The Inner Ring” with the church leadership forming the inner ring and the congregants grouped into successive rings radiating outward reflecting increasingly less engagement with the inner ring. A rock tossed into a pond will induce circles of waves radiating outward from the innermost ring of waves with decreasing intensity. Like the wave the intensity of a congregant’s relationship with inner ring members will determine his ring location. Most people in a congregation are “outer ringers” to whom church family is a myth without reality.

The real fix is small churches that can really be an organic body of believers... an extended family, very much like the first century churches: Small groups of believers, meeting in homes, led by home grown Holy Spirit picked Elders (note the plural), sharing life, sharing God, sharing their “stuff”, demonstrating their faith through love for their brethren, worshiping God in the unity of the Spirit. 1Cor. 14:26-33 from The Message translation  paints a picture of this “participative” church family: “When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight ... Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other ... When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; He brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches—no exceptions.” Sounds good, but taking on a real extended family is costly, both literally and emotionally: *Sharing our stuff and our life. *Loving others as we love ourselves. *Rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. *Praying effectual fervent prayers for one another. *Humbling ourselves toward others. *Extending compassion and mercy. *Forgiving faults and transgressions. *Loving in deed and not in word? And this is just a partial list! Love, Sacrifice, Passion and Obedience, the things that bring a twinkle to our Father’s eyes, were the primary ingredients of first century churchs. What they lacked in luxurious facilities, creature comforts, and choreographed assemblies was dung... as Paul would say, when compared with the experience of living life as God intended, as a real family of brothers and sisters in Christ...

WE CAN’T LOVE THE BACK OF SOMEONE’S HEAD