“All in the Family”
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In the next four or five weeks, except for the 26th, we are going to have a series on Family. Now I know when I say that, somehow when we talk about that or family ministry in our church, I know some people say “Well that’s just for the nuclear family. That’s for somebody else.” I really don’t want you to say that. It is for all of us. …Part of it, just practical, just practical; …because the nuclear family of mom and dad and two or three kids and all that are getting fewer and far between. I read something this week which surprised me, very interesting information. There is a woman named Elizabeth Tracy who is a professor at Case Western Reserve University who reported on the changing family. She said, “Only ten percent of families today are of the traditional variety with father working, mother at home and marriage of lifelong commitment. In this changing nation there are thirteen hundred step families formed each day, each day. Dr. Tracy, a teacher of social work, reported that children of step-families need at least six years to adapt to the changes that have occurred in their lives. She said, “Average married persons today because of multiple marriages have more parents than children, in many cases.” It is something new to handle. So practically speaking, when we talk about family ministry, we are talking about everybody— singles, widows, widowers, all kinds of blended families— not just the traditional family. We are going to talk about that for sure, for sure. But it is for everyone; and theologically, as well, I want to talk about the family, but I want to first introduce you to a couple of concepts in the Bible which I think help us remember what family is about. Then, at the end of that I want to talk about the obligations that we have; and then I have asked Eric and Charlotte Swanson to come forward, bravely, to answer a few questions, particularly I want to focus on the idea of baptism, not the act of baptism, but the promises that we all make in baptism.
So what are the two concepts? Very quickly, well, we are all family. We are all family. Now it is very popular today to say that all human beings are God’s children. And that is true and not true. It is true in the sense that we all share the same DNA; we all share common ancestors; we are all human beings. Please do not hear me say in anything that I will say in a minute that God doesn’t love people outside the Church. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever should believe….” God not only loves them, but we all invite them; but there is something in the Bible, we just need to remember the fact that when we become Christians, we become part of God’s family. This is right at the beginning of John. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (it happens through belief)—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13) And this is repeated throughout the Scripture. Again, John, I love this verse, I memorized it many years ago and I have quoted it to myself. As a matter of fact, there is a little song that goes with it. I won’t sing it to you but… “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) Now if you look at the Bible, it is all about families. God operates through families. Now it is kind of funny in a way. You look at the families in the Bible; they are all dysfunctional. They are all dysfunctional. Take Jacob. I wouldn’t trust Jacob as far as I could throw him. He has this whole dysfunctional family. The brothers gathered together and tried to kill one of the other guys. It’s terrible. It sounds like regular families, doesn’t it? You just go through the Bible…. But God operates through these fallen people, through families. The nation of Israel is really a big family.
So God operates through families, whatever they look like. Now remember, family is a bigger deal than just the nuclear family because what is neat about it is that when we invite people into the family of God, we are inviting them into the midst of brothers and sisters and having a real parent. You know, I had good parents. They weren’t perfect. None are. They had their issues but I basically had very good parents; but I know a lot of people haven’t. I know a lot of people who had terrible parents or inattentive parents. They feel like they have been abandoned. Maybe you are like that, I don’t know. But God is your Father, if you belong to Christ, and we are brothers and sisters to one another. You know, we need to remember that. Sometimes we look at other people and we go, “Oh they’re terrible.” “I don’t like that person. He’s too loud.” “I don’t like the way she dresses.” “She is a gossip.” “He does this.” “He does that.” That person is your brother or sister in Christ. And you know what? If you saw them in their glory in heaven you would be tempted to worship them. You see, within us all is the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one day we will all be made right and the Bible says love one another. We invite people to this family. That’s part of the problem today. We live in one of the most challenging times for families and for church. One of the biggest problems is that we have bought into what I call the Walmartization of the Church. Now I know some of you, to give equal time, would rather say the Targeting of the Church, but, in this area… but, actually that proves my point. You see because we are all very consumer oriented when I go to shop at either Walmart or Target, and I go to both, I am looking for the best deal for Chris. I am looking for what is good for Chris. It is all about Chris and my family. How can I save the most money in the best way? But that’s what we do to the Church. It has become less a community than a commodity and we need to remember it is a family. It’s a community of believers. Now I know I am not going to change it by just talking about it, but people go to a church and if they don’t like it, it doesn’t suit them, they go somewhere else; and then they don’t like that they go somewhere else; then they go somewhere else. They are searching for the commodity and less of community. If that’s what our view is we are not going to find anything in church worth having other than maybe a good word every now and then and maybe a temporary spot to hang our hat. Church is a community and we need to remember that. We are children of God through Jesus Christ and, by the way, we want to invite everybody else in. This is not an exclusive club. But, we have this special relationship. It is a community.
Not only that, another idea that maybe we haven’t talked about too much: we are priests, every one of us here in this room. Now, maybe that is a new concept for you. The Protestant Reformation had what I call a family argument with our Catholic brothers and sisters. That family argument was the role of the clergy. We know the Roman Catholic Church has retained the idea of priests, and what does a priest do? Well, a priest is meant to be a representative of God to a person and for them, as in the Old Testament, they offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. The Protestants believe, we believe, that Jesus was the one and only sacrifice, we don’t need to do that again. So the role of the clergy is, yes to pray for you, to be a representative of God for you, has a large educational factor, way to preach and to teach; but the wonder of it all is that you as just a normal average human being church member, you are a priest. If I was to ask Rick, call him up one day and say, “Would you pray for me about such and such?” Would you do that? (Rick said yes.) He has become my priest. “Would you do that for me?” If I had a huge problem and I needed something, would anyone here come and help me? Sure you would. Then you became my priest. You are a representative of God, for me. It isn’t just about me being your priest. I am your priest. I have a priestly role. I am a pastor. I am a prophet, have a prophetic role, I am not necessarily a prophet, but I have a prophetic role. I preach. But you are priests. You know what? You are priests to those folks outside in your neighborhood who don’t know the Lord, because you represent Jesus Christ to them. It is your calling, not just mine. That is especially true in our families. God works through families, so you parents out there are the priests to your children. You are. I know this is getting pretty heavy, but it is our responsibility as parents and grandparents. Grandparents have a role, it is kind of removed a little bit, but God primarily works through the parents. You know how practically that works out? Parents tend to think when they make the vow, you know we stand up here on some Sundays and baptize children – it is one of the most wonderful things!! And we ask parents, do you promise to teach your children faith? Do you promise to bring them up in the Church? They say yes and many parents assume that means I am going to let the staff and the Pastor teach my child religion, about Jesus. You know what? The pastor and the Church have a huge role in that but do you know that you are primarily responsible?
There is something I want to talk about very honestly. There is something I would love to change and I know I can’t. I would love to change the fact that parents follow their children around to different churches all the time. In other words, junior goes over to church A, loves it, and the parents decide that I am just going over there because junior loves it. I know I am stepping on toes, big time. Some of you are here because of that and I am glad you are here, by the way; I don’t want to run you off. But you know what I would wish? I would wish parents were more concerned about their own spiritual nurture than they are their children’s; because you are saying, and God bless you, you are so concerned about juniors knowing about Jesus or getting in contact with God, you would do anything to have that happen. But if junior sees you just following him around and if junior doesn’t see you praying and reading the Bible, and solving the problems by reading the Bible, and discovering the answers in your own discipleship, if you aren’t doing that, as soon as junior leaves at eighteen, he is not coming back. You know what the odds are? Forty years ago eight out of ten kids stayed in church. You know what it is today? …One out of ten. …One out of ten. Why is that so? Because parents,… it is not all because of parents. I am sorry I shouldn’t say that. The culture is exceptionally secular and the influences out there are amazingly hard but sometimes as parents we are not being the examples we need to be, and grandparents. I am just saying I wish that would be true, and I am not being critical, but I am encouraging you, grow in Christ yourself. When junior looks at you he is not going to see a perfect person, a perfect father or mother or grandparent or whatever it is; but let them see that you are trying and you are growing. You should be as concerned with your relationship with Jesus Christ as anyone else. We are all priests. This is all over the Bible, but look what it says at the end. “To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to Him be glory and power forever and ever!” (Revelation 1:5-6) That is in Revelation. That’s at the end. But even Peter says it and then James says you need to be an example. “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” (James 2:18) We need to be examples to our kids. Not perfect ones, by any stretch. Part of the example that we give our children is our imperfection and our need of grace; that we too need forgiveness; that we too need to go and get cleaned up, if you will. That is part of it all. We need to be an example to our kids, because we make those promises.
In the baptismal service of course we do make those kinds of promises. We say one, we are going to raise our kids in the church; two, we are going to be examples to them. And then, what’s the next promise? It has to do with you. We stand up and say, do you promise to help these parents, because we are a community, not a commodity. We are a community—imperfect in so many ways and yet, redeemed by Jesus Christ. So you are spiritual Godparents and grandparents to the parents. We are all family here, because we make these incredible holy promises. That is what I want to encourage you. You are going to hear more about that because Buck is preaching a sermon on it and Denny is and we are talking a little bit more about what this means. But please don’t say “Oh! That has to do with somebody else. That’s not me.” It is all us because we are God’s family.
I have asked Eric and Charlotte to be interviewed this morning and bravely they have said they would do that. Matter of fact, Eric said “Yes!! Yes!!” and Charlotte said, “Well, maybe.” No, I’m teasing… They have said they would do that and I have a series of questions I’ve asked them and they are going to answer as best they can. What I want you to see is a family who does take their vows quite seriously. So, just grab a microphone.
Eric: Good Morning.
Chris:
Thank you for doing this, guys. They have been members of our Church for a long, long time. Eric has been here since he was born. His parents had joined the church in the ‘50s and early ‘60s’, brother and sister married here. Charlotte’s been a member since 1996 after their engagement and they have their beautiful children.
The first question I have is: Parents do make vows at their children’s baptism, to raise their children in the church, provide an example for them in the faith. How have you sought to do these things over the years and what do you hope to do in the future?
Eric:
Well the vows that we made as how to raise our children in the family were actually started when we were married here. Charlotte and I got up here and had God in our life at that point and it kind of dawned on us that we were going to be a family someday and so we had to take away that self-centeredness of just the two of us and start thinking of what was going to happen with our children once they get old enough to be baptized here. So we really turned the corner there and really became a member of the church. We felt at that time, as Chris was talking earlier, everybody makes a pledge when you come up here to baptize your children and we really were making an attempt every day to do that pledge, to bring our children to church, raise them in a Christian manner and things like that. So it takes a lot of energy to do that but we are starting to reap the benefits a little bit of it right here.
Chris:
The second question is: How have you seen the church’s role in partnering with you and your family to help your family grow in their faith and their relationship with Christ?
Charlotte:
Well, the Church provides a place for us to worship and to grow in our faith and we participate in the activities here. We have the kids go to Sunday school. They are a part of Adventure Quest, vacation bible school in the summer. So Faith is a part of our life. The church provides Bibles, learning materials, games, resources, a lot of things for kids to learn and grow.
Chris:
Thank you. I will put these two questions together, number three and four: what is your role in this partnership with the church and what are your children’s roles?
Eric:
Well with our roles as parents we tried to be active in the church. Our thought process is if you don’t put anything in, you really don’t get anything out. So we have had the opportunity to be in a variety of committees here that have given us the opportunity to meet a lot of you out there that we would never have met before. It is really surprising that I have been going to church here forty-three years and I still don’t know people in the church. I look around here every Sunday and I see new faces, which is good, because maybe there are people here that are new members and things like that, but still there are a lot of people I have not met. So with the committees it does a great job. We also have had the opportunity to teach in Sunday school and learn the parents with kids the same age. Also Charlotte is in choir and they were just in the Bye, Bye, Birdie play, so they got to meet a lot more people that way. Being active in the church is how we are getting our energy back from the church, by being part of the church, more or less.
Charlotte:
I also just wanted to say, too, that even though I don’t maybe think about it every day, we want to participate in the church and help raise other kids too by being good examples and teaching Sunday school, etc.
Chris:
Number five is: In your view, what are some of the current challenges you and your children face in helping your family grow spiritually?
Eric:
Out of all the questions that was probably the easiest one to answer and the reason is it’s, unfortunately, time. Everything boils down to time these days. Don’t seem to have enough time to do what we want with the family or friends, and in some cases, church. It is hard sometimes to come to church, you know when it’s let’s say thirty below out there and to make that commitment you have to think what we did at the baptism. We made that pledge at that time to bring them to here. But I think the other good thing that we have here too, and this is for the kids, is that we have the donuts here too. So sometimes that gets you enough over the edge to have the ability to bring them here, and coffee for my wife, at that point. But those are some of the challenges we have. It is a time aspect but it boils down to how do you manage your time and church is an important part of it, so we try to manage it into our overall time.
Chris:
Thank you very much for coming up.
Thank them very much for coming up. I think it is great to have a real family who has real struggles and we all have struggles— time, influences, lots of things in our mind and hearts, but we are a family. Part of being a family is we take care of one another. We watch each others’ back. We help each other when we are down and rejoice when we are up. It isn’t a commodity. I know you have heard that before but let us remember that. This is not just about choosing what is great just for us because we are entering into a ministry with one another. It all works together. But we are indeed a family that God has brought together in this place. Each individual here is part of that family.
Let’s pray.
Lord God, thank you for the Swanson’s. I ask your blessing upon them and every family here whether they are part of a nuclear family of mom and dad and children or grandparents, and singles and widows and widowers and folks who are just searching, those who have had good families and others who have not. We thank you that you have brought us together and we are yours first and foremost; but we are also one another’s. We ask you to help us remember these things. In Jesus’ name. Amen.