When NOT to Use the F-Word
No, not that one—the other one!
There are times when you should not call your church a family. Why? Because maybe the term doesn’t describe what you’ve become.
Does it seem strange that the gospels and Acts are heavy into the word disciple while the epistles utilize terms like brother and sister to describe those very disciples? The early believers functioned quite well as families.
Brotherly, Motherly and Fatherly Love
Paul addresses his friends as brothers in the first 12 verses of 1st Thessalonians 2. He describes his team as coming to the church at Thessalonica as gently as a nursing mother and as fathers encouraging and exhorting their children—his letter reeks of family, not methodology.
Acknowledging the many teachers surrounding the saints, Paul singled himself as a father to the Corinthian believers. I’m reminded of the thousands of digital voices making themselves heard by church members today. I wonder if our programmatic approach to ministry reduces us church leaders to just another voice among many.
A Spiritualized Business Model Or a Family?
Does your church operate as a spiritualized business model or as a family? That’s a tricky question to answer. But you should try.
Do you make disciples via classes or other programs with an “end by” date?
Do you believe that packing knowledge into one’s head qualifies them as a disciple? Does regular attendance plus giving serve that purpose?
Is it enough to participate in church activities, read a few verses or a chapter each day and pray a little?
What is a disciple? How does a disciple live as a member of a spiritual household?
This Requires Intent
Small churches often accelerate past larger ones in brotherly (and sisterly) love.
Being small requires nearly everyone to participate in nearly everything just to keep the doors open. The downside is that family can become so important that they miss opportunities to engage those outside the family. Still, deep fellowship trumps the lack of it.
Bigger churches necessarily organize around structure, programs and spreadsheets. Yet all our paraphernalia can obstruct brotherly love simply by keeping people from rubbing shoulders often enough and long enough to learn brotherly love.
If they don’t know one another, they cannot love one another.
Does your calendar allow for brotherly love to grow and blossom? Or, are you in a dysfunctional family? Or perhaps not a family but a system?
Hard questions. Difficult thoughts. But necessary considerations.
Good Stuff–Go For It!
Paul was able to address the fledgling church in Thessalonica positively,
Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 ESV
The church had done well with phileo, yet he encouraged them to stoke the fire even more. Ultimately, such love and quiet living would impact outsiders—good words for all of us as we continue the mission to multiply disciples and new churches.
If we get the love thing right, the rest will follow—and that is a matter of program and structure as much as it is one of instruction, exhortation and encouragement.
Agree? Disagree? We’d like to see your comments…