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There's the local Body of Christ that operates like a family, a church family. And then there are families of all sorts--church families--that compose that congregation. One ought to be good for the other. Neither ought to undermine the other. But is this the case? ReNEWS editor James D. Berkley talks with three church leaders to find out. Harlan Shoop is pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in a multicultural neighborhood of Tacoma, Washington. Valari Logan is a pastor's wife, seminary student, and leader in Bread of Life Christian Ministry, a PC(USA) church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kate Kotfila is associate pastor of Brunswick Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York.
Harlan Shoop: It's tough to define family today. In the Creation story, God says, "Man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." In our context today, it's not the "mother, father, two kids" model. There are a lot of blended families or struggling single parents. Perhaps we could say families are blood related, living together in a commitment, and nurturing one another within limits or guidelines.
Valari Logan: Family is the also institution by which God brings us into relationship with him, and by which God brings about moral values and life skills, encouragement, and nurturing from parents--male and female--to their children. It's a healthy environment of biblically based instruction and righteous-living guidelines that have been given to us by God.
Kate Kotfila: It is interesting that Scripture talks a lot less about the nuclear family than it does about the "family, the people of God." A lot of the biblical record shows families that are dysfunctional, and they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Naomi and Ruth weren't blood related but became family and, with Boaz, became part of the family line of Jesus. The Scriptures seem to talk more in the context of the extended family of God.
I agree that family is the first place we nurture faith, but we need to be careful to include the full life experience. We're talking about single people, who are the children of parents. We're talking about children without parents, and so forth. We're talking about a group of people who nurture, love, discipline, and admonish with a common goal that leads to maturity developed among all. In the Christian family the goal is maturity in Christ.
Jim: Isn't there an ideal that we all strive for, and then a backup for that ideal? For instance, the ideal would be two parents of different genders, each with a perspective to provide the best opportunity to raise their child in a safe environment. But sometimes, because that ideal gets broken, it's Grandma raising grandchildren, and she has to do the best job she can in the circumstances.
Kate: Before the fall, there was one man and one woman, and they were told to be fruitful and multiply. Children don't enter the story until after the fall. As sin entered into the world, then all the other problems that arose were a result of a broken relationship with God and one another. But there's another side: Since the fall, God has been working to redeem. Indeed, Grandma or other loving people can be agents of God's redeeming nurture for children, youth, and adults.
Jim: What role does morality play?
Kate: Morality is caught, not taught. We learn it as we watch it lived out in the people closest to us, the people we model ourselves after. Living in right relationship with God and with one another is something we learn in our earliest context. If we see good morals lived out, we have a much better chance of living it ourselves!
Valari: Yes, it is extremely difficult to teach it later. It has got to be modeled constantly. Not everyone today is open to moral truths. Our society has been so influenced by the sexual revolution, antiestablishment philosophies, and so on, that morality has become sidetracked, or even thrown out.
Jim: What are the stressors on the family that you witness in your ministry? What effects do these stressors have on your church families?
Harlan: Time pressure! That causes a lack of commitment both to family and the Body of Christ. Often kids set their own agendas, and parents, who work all day, get bogged down. Committing to anything outside the family adds stress, or even results in a lack of communication within the family.
Kate: Also, families move. They no longer live near their extended families. It's hard to put the entire responsibility of raising children on just two adults, or one. There needs to be a broader family to raise kids. And we need to be careful not to see family simply as that time when children are young. We are family throughout our lives, going through different ages and stages. I'm very much daughter to my mother, now in new relationship to her as she grows older, but it is difficult because she lives so far away.
Valari: I think families on the move leads to another stress: Jobs are not as secure as they once were, salaries are not as high, and high school and college grads cannot find jobs, so they return home to parents who were praying for empty nests. Divorce is overwhelming. We are finding that the church becomes "family" for children, with morning programs and after-school activities. That places a tug on the church, because we're looking for volunteers.
Kate: Churches traditionally offered programs that were "the only show in town." Now there are many options, an over-choice, so families have to choose. And some, who find it difficult to make choices, attempt do it all and burn out.
Jim: Is the church needing to be family, even more than it has in the past?
Valari: Definitely. If the church does not step in and assume the role of family, families go elsewhere. Especially when so many families have no male role models in the home, the male pastor and other men must step in to become those models. Church friends become "sister or brother" or "mentor" or just "friend." When there is no immediate family nearby, the church becomes the complete social outlet. Bread of Life has "family nights" twice a week. We offer some combination of dinner, entertainment, Bible study, homework, or basketball. Otherwise families just don't get that social time together.
Harlan: Our particular context is not to be overly programmed. We try to build supportive, one-on-one relationships. As an example, we had a family whose teen daughter ran away from home. An elder who was in relationship with the daughter through the youth program became a confidant and supporter for the mom during that difficult time. If the people in the church individually aren't willing to build relationships, then it's tough. We encourage our members to be in relationship with families who may be in crisis. Sometimes those relationships reverse when the caregiver has a crisis. It can flow both ways.
Jim: It seems there is a need to do more, and at the same time to do less. Physicians operate under the oath to "first do no harm." How do you keep your church's activities and service opportunities from being just another element of an over-packed schedule that's harming families?
Valari: We attempt to offer balance, so we don't overburden the family with an over-scheduling of worship services or meetings. We strive to serve families with the tools they need, such as skill-building and opportunities for families to come together, because people nowadays often don't have friends. We help them with economics, like how to get out of debt, how to buy a home, how to build a financial portfolio--anything that will help better their lives. Then they see that church is not worship alone; it is a place of relationships, where you find help for your life and your family.
Harlan: We encourage families to center around worship, small groups, and mission. And to follow their passions--not do things out of obligation, but do those things they really want to do. Then they are energized and filled up.
Kate: We have the "Two-and-a-half Rule" at Brunswick Church: We encourage people to be involved with no more than two-and-a-half activities within the church walls. One is primarily receiving, one is primarily serving, and one is seasonal. So a person might be in a Bible study or a small group receiving support, and find a place of ministry according to gifting. The half would be something small, like singing in the choir during Advent. We encourage people not to be involved more than that, so they have time for family life, for ministry in the marketplace, for their neighborhoods, and so on. As a church we are trying to model living out well-ordered lives.
One of the incredible gifts that Brunswick Church has given to me is a commitment that all leaders, not just pastors, will lead well-balanced lives. We are expected to take Sabbath. When my children were growing up, if they were in any program or activity, it was assumed I'd be there and not at a church meeting. We know how to say no. That means more people are involved in ministry, or ministry doesn't happen. But it is one way that we as a church live out what it means to be healthy, and that includes healthy families.
Jim: In some churches, a "good member" can become a poor neighbor or family member, due to being run ragged by church responsibilities. It sounds like your churches are doing things that tell people a good member isn't necessarily at the church every moment. So what do churches offer families that they can't get at a really well-run YMCA?
Kate: Worship! God is the center of all life. We can be in relationship with the Living God, and in doing so, order our lives in ways that are consistent with how we are created to be. No place else do you worship God. And there are not many other contexts in which you are intentionally intergenerational, are there?
Harlan: Being in community and being able to pray with and for others is incredibly important, and it doesn't happen anywhere else. I don't think you get support for marriage other than in the Body of Christ, or the opportunity to give. Usually those other groups "take."
Valari: Christ is the glue that holds us together, the common thread in this huge tapestry called the church. You just don't have that relationship with non-Christians. During a recent trip to Africa, we became reacquainted with church family members we hadn't seen for a few years. It reminded us that the common bond of Christ is so strong.
Jim: Tell me a story of a family made better by involvement in the Body of Christ.
Harlan: Earlier I mentioned that teen on the run. Her mother, a single parent, had never experienced Christian community before, but here a group of people rallied around her and cared about her. Only a few people knew her situation, but every Sunday morning lots of people greeted her by name and hugged her. It was a powerful experience for a woman whose life has not been stable. She has struggled with drug addiction and the difficulties of being a single mom; she has been in and out of relationships. Just being in a group of people who love Jesus and love her has made a huge difference in her life and continues to do so. She has found a sense of belonging here.
Valari: We see so many single moms who are just devastated and inundated with difficulties. My husband and other men in the church have become surrogate "father" to many children, and these single moms seek other women here who have made it through the trenches, who help give them backbone, strength, encouragement, and a chance just to go out for fun. I'm thinking of one woman in particular who has found a sense of family here--people who listen to her. She has become more stable after a rocky marriage and divorce. Her family was on sandy soil, but now they are on cement. She's different now: She stands straighter, and her four girls are beginning to set higher goals for themselves.
Kate: A single woman in our congregation adopted Chris, a two-year-old with Down Syndrome. Single parenting is difficult enough, but with a child who has profound limitations, it is an extraordinary task. Chris became a part of the life of our congregation. He grew up here with friends who would hang out with him; adults became his role models. Today, Chris is an adult. Church members provide needed care during the hours his mom is at work, plus he works part-time in our church building. He loves to vacuum--in fact, he is a vacuuming machine! His mom has been able to keep Chris at home in part because of our church community.
Jim: What particularly have you done to strengthen families within your church?
Harlan: I would hope that everything we do strengthens families--small groups that include children, Bible studies for men and women, marriage retreats. Couples need time away to reflect, to think about issues they are facing, and in the retreat setting they find it helpful to learn that others face the same problems.
Kate: We have had so many folks coming from broken families. We provided skill-development courses for adults: parenting in the pew, how to help your child worship effectively, small groups for couples, parents at different stages of their children's development, and so forth. Then, when the children become adults and begin to switch roles with their parents, we have offered courses and forums on "stages of life" issues.
Valari: We've gotten to the place where leaders in the church are trained to teach some of the classes, and our weekly classes are offered at various times to accommodate people's schedules. We teach success building: financial symposiums, health and well-being, anything that creates a sense of empowerment. We don't want the world to think it has a better handle on anything. We've had doctors in the neighborhood set up in the parking lot for a health day--blood drives, blood pressure screening, all kinds of checkups. We use whatever we have at our disposal.
Sometimes the simplest things are the most helpful. At our women's Bible study, we take a few minutes to talk about how to restructure our lives to have more time for children, or how to keep our homes clean to have more time for family. We just had a lesson on how to clean a closet. I'm serious! Years ago I learned the CAYG method (Clean As You Go). I can clean my five-bedroom home in two hours. By demonstrating to others that it can be done despite a hectic schedule, they believe they can do it, too. We show our nine- or ten-year-olds how to manage a check book, so when they are teens with jobs, they don't splurge with their earnings.
Jim: Is there anything you've tried that at first blush ought to work but doesn't, or that might actually harm families?
Harlan: In an effort to reach out to the neighborhood, we've invited family groups in for a dialog about raising children and discussion about issues that impact their families. We brought in a resident expert, and our youth leader was involved. What we found was that the families who came were fairly dysfunctional, and they made the group dysfunctional. People came, but was a tough go.
Valari: Some friends thought we came across "too holy" in our attitudes about how we lived. And early on, we had moved too quickly, not listened carefully enough for God's timing. It took Moses 40 years to move the Israelites to the Promised Land. People really need to be slowly convinced that they must change for Christ, or shown why it can be better to do things for God. We've had to learn to move inch by inch, rather than by leaps and bounds. It gives people time to digest what we teach and discover for themselves what God is encouraging them to do.
Kate: I'm of two minds at the way we separate families into age groups in church--children to Sunday school classes, youth to the youth room, adults to adult classes or worship. On one level I appreciate the need for age-appropriate development for faith. On the other side, I know that multigenerational contexts are where people are exposed to models in both directions: Old folks need to be around children, to be reminded that we came into the Kingdom of God as children, and children need to see adults growing in the Lord--making mistakes, receiving forgiveness, studying, praying, leaning on God--so they will see modeled how to grow. We've tried to offer multigenerational small groups. Sometimes they work, but most of the time it's difficult to keep the both adults and children engaged. We haven't quite worked out how to be multigenerational, but we keep trying.
Jim: The culture we live within is not helping us at all. We Christians value marriage and hold up high standards, while the culture around us diminishes that. We would be honest, and others think we're fools to be that way. We evangelicals can't support homosexual unions, and the media calls us evil, intolerant, or unjust. When a church takes a moral stand, we are no longer seen by many as a group with an idea worth listening to. How do we keep from being considered irrelevant or written off as an anachronism?
Kate: The only way we can take a stand is pastorally--and I don't mean just pastors have to do it. That stand must be taken with tears in our eyes, with a deep sense of the brokenness in our own lives and the world around it. Any other way, we deserve to be considered irrelevant. We come off as having a simple answer to a simple question, not reflecting an understanding of the complexity of the brokenness that is part of our world. There has to be a willingness to roll up our sleeves and be involved in people's lives.
Valari: If the church is going to be more relevant, we've got to stop addressing things that are politically correct, or those notions that make people "feel better." I cringe when I see that our denomination is doing everything it can to make people feel good about who they are. We allow extreme-left groups to influence those who are immature or not yet nurtured in the faith. Our churches need to counsel people. Why do we send our people out to psychiatrists who are not Christian? If we are to be the image of Christ, we have to start casting light on the darkness of the world. Otherwise we will become less relevant on every issue, and finally we can forget relevance altogether. We must stand on Scripture, and stand on the covenantal sphere of the family. Our relationship is with Christ: We are in covenant with him.
Harlan: The word relevant is troublesome to me. Was Jesus relevant? He certainly was right. The way Jesus approached things was to be continually in dialog with people on the margins. He squared off with the religious people. If we are going to be relevant, we must be relevant in the places where Jesus was relevant. He went after the broken-hearted, the lame, the poor--and they were the ones attracted to him. Relevancy is doing what Jesus called us to do. God can worry about our reputations.
Jim: Okay, but how do we bring the ageless truth to a world where truth itself is out of fashion, where everything is seen as relative--there is "your truth" and "my truth"?
Harlan: Preach it brother! Try to live the Gospel in the heart of this culture. Speak to God's love amidst the pain and struggles. Raise the question, "Is what you are doing working?" If the addict says no, then you have the opportunity to suggest what other options might be. Continue to encourage families to hang on to each other, respect one another, speak tenderly, honor each other. It may seem weird to some, but it is redemptive.
Jim: What's the best thing the church has done for your family?
Valari: Throughout the years of raising our three children, one family in particular has supported us generously by buying our children's winter coats. Our children are now 21, 16, and 10, and this family still provides their coats! During the years I didn't work or was in school or was ill, these people cared for us as family members. It's not just the coats--it's that this family covers us, so to speak, with their warmth and love.
Harlan: I appreciate that the church has provided an intergenerational community around us, friendships with other families in the context of the Body of Christ. I feel blessed that all four of our kids, now grown, are still hanging in with the Body of Christ where they are. It was not just because Sue was an incredible mom or that I was a super dad (tongue in cheek), it was the worshiping community's involvement in their lives over all those formative years.
Kate: A great gift was that my kids were not put on a pedestal, not treated as "pastor's kids." I'm thankful that my kids got to be themselves, in trouble sometimes just like everyone else, and a part of the community of faith. Like Harlan's children, they still love the church and are active in it.
Valari: I still get excited when I see my children interact with the church community. While we're sitting in front, they are being parented by everyone who has watched them grow up. I'm thankful, too, that they hold on fast to the Word of God.