Becoming Family

What is the church to you? Is it a building? Is it an organisation? An institution? A Sunday service? Before the church is any of these things the church is a family. The problem is, that we don't treat it that way. I've often found it curious the way people justify not attending church on a Sunday because they'll, "catch up on the sermon later".

I don't think we treat our family time in the same way. Imagine if your parents had arranged to get the whole family together but you end up accidentally double-booking yourself. "No biggy," you think, "the main part is the conversation." So, you ask them to record the conversation and you'll catch up later. How do you think your parents would respond? I don't imagine it would go down very well.

In 1 Timothy, Paul encourages Timothy to treat the other people in his church as though they were family. In our individualised Western thinking, we can read this and think it's just about how we treat people when we happen to end up chatting to them on a Sunday. But this is not how Timothy would have read it. In his lifetime, family was everything; you were devoted to your family. When someone in the family was in need, the rest of the family did whatever it took to look after that person.

Paul is not just instructing Timothy on how to interact with people in the church, he's saying the church should be the second family, the extra support network, the people we go to when we're in need. Imagine if every one of us had that second family within our church community. Imagine if each one of us had those people with whom we could be fully open, who knew our needs, and on whom we could rely to be there when we needed them.

Yes, if we miss a Sunday, it's good to keep up with the teaching, but this is not a replacement for participating in the church family. As much as it's about teaching and coming together for praise and worship, it's also about building deep relationships. Relationships take time, effort, and commitment. How can we be caring for the needs of our community if we don't give the time to get to know them?

Thought Point

Do you have deep relationships with people in your church community? How much time are you giving to those relationships?

Prayer Point

If you don't have people you're close with at church, ask God to put those people into your life. If you do have people you're close with, ask God to help you give those relationships the time and commitment they need.