Dr. Lawson Murray, President of S
cripture Union-Canada, understands the importance of not only having strong families in the home, but having a deep commitment to the other vital family of which we are a part—the family of God. Dr. Murray has graciously given permission to share the following article he recently wrote.
TWO FAMILIES OF FAITH
God places Christians in two families, and each family needs the other. His ideal for Christian families is dependence, not independence. Every family should be one-another-oriented, part of a family of families (a local church), and community-minded.
This is easy to write about but more challenging to put into practice. In a society that relies on technology over community, it’s countercultural for families not to live for themselves. So why shouldn’t families be self-sufficient? And why is the Christian community essential? Because Christian families can’t go it alone.
Families shouldn’t live for themselves because community isn’t an ideal we must realize; it is a created reality in which every family should participate. In other words, we should care about community because it’s important to God. It’s important to God because He crafted us to be relational (Genesis 2:18). Families don’t do well in isolation. They need a faith community, and they need deep, meaningful relationships. The English poet John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Families need families.
One definition of community is a group with a shared identity-forming narrative. Christians have the greatest identity-forming narrative of all: God’s Word. The Bible is, first and foremost, a communal word. While individuals can engage with the Scriptures, they are best read, taught, preached, and sung with a congregation. A community of faith informed and inspired by God’s Word is, therefore, integral to the health and growth of Christian families.
BUILDING STRONG COMMUNITIES
Being in community also enables families to bring hope and healing to the world. Sinners and sufferers need their relationships redeemed and restored. Families on mission with other families display what an albeit flawed but Christ-centered community looks like. In so doing, families help others see the heart of Jesus, who wired and created all people for a relationship with Him.
Another reason the Christian community is essential is that it’s how we serve together. Families should be conduits of God’s love to others (Hebrews 10:24). But we can’t serve others if we don’t have people in our lives. Families need the church because it’s where they can give and receive help. Families in a faith community get to know other people’s needs and help when they’re in need. Similarly, when families are in a faith community, other people can help them when they’re in need (Galatians 6:10).
Furthermore, in community, we’re around people who can encourage us. Families need all the help they can get. Parents and children need people who will listen and help them learn. Who will call you out when you’re enticed by sin? Who will model the way of Christ to you? In the faith community, people carry each other’s burdens through doubt and challenging times. They also rejoice and celebrate life together. This encouragement includes prayer, counsel, edification, exhortation, and fostering family faith formation.
A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP
To conclude, we’ll return to where we started. Each family needs the other. We should view
community as a symbiotic relationship. Reciprocity and mutuality should characterize family life. Churches need families because families show the church how to be a family. In other words, for local churches to function well, they need to know and see Bible-believing, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled families in action. When this happens, it gives the faith community a relational model to emulate.
In the words of the English theologian Alastair Roberts: “The church should be a place where the alien and the stranger are welcomed, and those who lack families. But for it to operate as a site of welcome, it needs to be a place where there is a deep familial, communal structure. And that requires natural families … What really gives the church the backbone of community is often the families that are opened up to the Kingdom of God, to this wider household. That’s what really gives the church so much of its capacity to function as an extended family: the fact that it has actual natural families within it.”
The question that needs to be answered is this: what are we doing as the family of God to actually function as that extended family? And what are we doing as families to intentionally teach our children to love the larger family of God? We’ll address these questions in our next post.
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