Examine the Role of the Family

In Think Orange (pg. 47, 48), Reggie gives three statements that I have been mulling on the last few weeks. Here are the statements:

1. What would happen if parents began to see the family in the same way believers should view the church, as a human part of God's design to demonstrate who He is to the world.

2. It is important to help parents understand that their role is not to impress their children or anyone else with their ability to parent. Their role is to impress on their children the love and charachter of God.

3. God is at work telling a stroy of restoration and redemption through your family. Never buy into the myth that you need to become the "right" kind of parent before God can use you in your children's lives. Instead, learn to cooperate with whatever God desires to do in your heart today so your children will have a front-row seat to the grace and goodness of God.

To me, these are some very powerful statements and it comes to me at two levels. One, it comes to me as a parent. How is this playing out in our familiy ? The second one is the church. How are we as a church guiding parents and letting them be the spiritual leaders ?

One of the things that has occurred over the last 40-50 years ( I think ) is that we have become a very "professional" society. We, as parents, turn everything over to the professionals and let them guide and lead them. Parents find coaches for everything in their lives; thus why not in church and religious/spiritual life.

We, as the church, in return; have bought into this full-line and sinker and have begun to offer everything and we have tried to take it under the guise of we know what is best and then at the other angle the consumerism mindset. Let us provide a service for you that you cannot die and we will "help" your family.

The question is the following: Are we helping our families or hurting our families ?

My initial gut reaction is that most of us (churches) are hurting families. Now, here me out, I do not think that we are intentionally doing so; but I think that "in the name of the church", we are hurting them.

I wish that I had the answers. I am struggling with these issues and how this can truly be played out in the church and specifically in my context. For so long, I have done ministry in a "yellow" setting ......

I will finish with a Reggie quote:

The heart of God was communicated primarily through the heart of the family