Family

A number of things have been going on for me lately. First of all, a colleague of mine just had a baby - a little girl. Second of all, I just sorted through and watched a bunch of video footage of my son, who is now 14 months old. He gets cuter every time I see him. Thirdly, we have been planning the holiday season out, trying to squeeze in as much time with our entire family as possible. Indeed, family is priceless.

I find it a bit saddening that church has lost a lot of the "family" feel it had years ago. While we have made some awesome advancements in terms of technology, creativity, and mission, I think we have lost something along the way as well. Actually, I think we have lost two things. The first is the familial feel of a church, the feeling that the people that are gathering together on Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday are committed to each other like family. Knowing that when you walked the halls of church, you were among people that loved you, KNEW your story, and were committed to you. While our culture has continued to find innovative ways to cultivate deep relationships of commitment, even between people who are miles apart, our churches have failed at emphasizing the committed community that makes us the body of Christ.

Secondly, and more importantly, I think churches have lost contact with the everyday lives of people. The stories and moments that make up peoples' lives are largely lost on the church. We do our best to come up with themes for worship and write sermons that are catchy and neat, but at some point we forgot that the church needs to embrace the narrative lives of people. Of the saints long ago and the real-life people here today. And a narrative story is far different, far deeper than a theme for worship.

Take this video I just posted as an example. It is a nice commemoration of the importance of family. In reality, it is some modern footage of families I know with some video effects on top. As I watch it again, I wonder: what if a church could gather footage or photos from every member of their congregation, put together a 10 minute video montage of all the footage, and play it before every service, or on the website? And the larger question: What if, every week, we started with the stories and situations people find themselves in, rather than trying to think of a catchy topic?

It is my firm belief that one of the core reasons we are called to be creative in worship is to bring our local, familial stories together and weave them into the larger story God is telling. Videos like this can do that, and there are many other ways. How has your community become a family?