What is Family?

Discovering Family

The way of Jesus is exciting.  Two years ago, my wife and I discovered that we were meant to live as an extended family.  Throughout all human history, and throughout all of scripture, the basic unit of society was the extended family.  The extended family is a network of relationships, both blood and non-blood relationships, who operate together for a common purpose or goal.

In the western context, the basic unit of operation is the nuclear family.  Two parents and two kids.  This is the American dream.  The unspoken motto of the nuclear family is “us four and no more.”  Life revolves around the nuclear family and kid’s activities.  Time as biological family tends to override time with others.

This was the way that my wife and I used to live.  We were raising children and simply knew no different, no other way of operating.  We were unaware that the concept of nuclear family is not found in the bible. 

Cultural Questions

Looking at the nuclear family, many people today are asking poignant questions.   Why get married and have a family when divorce rates are so high?  Why have a family when so many families are unhappy?  What if the nuclear family I was raised in was abusive, broken, or absent?  Where do I belong?  What if I am single?  

Western culture attempts to answer the question of family with TV shows like “Home Improvement” (a 1990’s show about the nuclear family), “Friends” (a mid 1990’s to 2000’s show about six friends who come from dysfunctional families, share life together in an apartment building, and build a sense of family), and more recently “Modern Family” (a comical show about a quirky mix of individuals and blended family who operate as an extended family).

Western culture is looking for the answer to family.  People today are looking for a true family where they belong.  People are hungry for authentic relationships and something to be part of.   Good news!  “Family” is within the very nature of God and His design for human flourishing.

The Biblical Definition of Family

We see from the very beginning that God designed us for relationship: relationship with our Creator and relationship with others.  This design was broken when we chose our own way (Gen 3). God put together his plan to save the world and began with Abraham who built an extended family (blood and non-blood relations).  God gave them a mission to bless the world (Genesis 12-25).  When Jesus came to earth, he left his Heavenly Family, came to live with a human family, and began a ministry to create a new kind of family.  Jesus is the representative from Heaven who is sent on the Heavenly Father’s business.  His mission?   To bring us back into God’s family.  Jesus life, death, and resurrection creates a new kind of humanity and new kind of family.

This biblical insight has turned my understanding of what it means to be family upside-down!  No longer is family just “nuclear family.”  Family is the people who God has put in your life to journey with and to reach out to.

Learning to live as Family on Mission

The call of scripture is to learn to live as family on mission.  Jesus sends us out to make a new kind of family.  Family is not a nuclear family but an extended family.  It is a network of blood and non-blood relationships.  These are the people that God is putting into your life (both believers and non-believers, both blood and non-blood relations).  God gives us a mission: to introduce other people to the Heavenly Father, who created them, and who is calling them back into the family of God.

Why do this?

My wife and I have been learning this way of life for the last two years.  It is a slow process as we learn to think less individually and more like an extended family.  We are learning to have people over for dinner and then invite them to play with our kids or help clean up (because this is what family does).  This way of life means living in community, serving others and receiving help.  This way of life includes everyone: singles, marrieds, nuclear families, empty-nesters, widows, etc.

Family on Mission is more life-giving than we could ever have imagined.  The way of family on mission is an adventure.  It is fruitful and rewarding. 

Curious to learn more?  Sign up for the upcoming discipleship workshop called “Family on Mission” put on by 3D Movements – at MCA Church - Friday, March 9th (evening) & Saturday, March 10th (day time).

Missed the last article?  Check it out here.

Questions? Comments?  Email Pastor Cameron