A little while ago, a blog post did the rounds insisting that we should stop saying church is a family and that this is unbiblical. A fair few people responded with an upturned eyebrow and a, ‘huh?’ Amongst them, I did here. I am pretty sure church is meant to be family and the Bible very much refers to the church in familial terms.
One of the many ways church is like a family is that you don’t get to choose who belongs to it. I never asked to have the particular brother and sister that I do. I just arrived and found one of them there already and the other one joined us later. I had no say in the matter. Nor, it turns out, do you get to choose the kind of people in your family either. We have some shared traits, but we’re also quite different people too. It’s entirely possible we might never have become friends had we met some other way but we weren’t related (obviously, both my siblings are privileged to know me…)
The church, a bit like that, is called to be a family. We aren’t supposed to have any specific say in who joins us; we ultimately get the people God has decided to make show up. Nor are we called to only reach one particular kind of people. I am on record on this blog – I don’t think homogenous unit principle churches are a great expression of the manifold wisdom of God in the gospel which specifically removes such barriers and distinctions. I do not think it is legitimate for churches to insist that they are only for or will only reach one kind of person. The church is a family, created by God, that doesn’t get to choose who belongs. Only Jesus gets to do that and only he gets to set what criteria exists to join.
One of the beauties of the church is when we are drawn from many different tribes, tongues and nations, and express our differing cultures in the life of the church and yet all belong together as one people. It is manifestly a manifestation of the gospel when we see such different people welcomed into the same family, all belonging together on the same terms and all in community together that is not centred on personalities or preferences or culture or anything other than the saving gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t get together because we have some shared affinity; we get together because we belong to the same family even though we are drawn from as varied a range of backgrounds as you can imagine.
So, yes, the church is a family. And one of the ways it is a family is that we don’t get to pick who belongs. Just as we get the family we are given, so we get the the church family we are given also. Just as our family may be very different in personality, temperament and interest to us and yet they are always our family, so the same goes in the church. Just as our families may irritate, irk and even deeply upset us at times, but they are still our family, so the church may irritate, irk and deeply upset us at times but it is still the family God has given to us. Just as (most of us) don’t quit our families and pretend they’re not our family when such things happen, more of us would do well to reckon the same towards our church family.
If our church is really just an extension of all the people I like and functions as a bounded set of people I meet with because of shared affinity and mutual interest, the church has ceased to be a church. It has really become a social club or a special interest group. But the Bible never presents church that way. Nor does it allow us in its instructions to treat the church that way. If a social club isn’t very social, I find another one or just leave and don’t bother. If my special interest group no longer interests me, or starts operating in ways I don’t like, I leave. If I don’t get on with the mix of people, or I can’t control the mix of people, I go. But the church is called to be different. It is called to be a family, bounded together by something better and strong – the gospel of Jesus Christ – and not something we can simply take up, drop and leave when it stops functioning in the way I like most.
Indeed, it is the Lord himself who determines who belongs. It is he who sets people in families and it is he who adopts into his family. That means we don’t get to choose who belongs, we don’t get to decide who we are and aren’t going to love and we don’t get to determine who can belong and how it will function. These things belong to Jesus. I didn’t choose who my mum and dad, brother or sister would be. I just got them and they are my family, whether I like it or not. I can do all sorts of things and act in all sorts of ways and make every effort to get them to disown me, but nothing stops them being my family. If Jesus says we’re part of his family the same is true for us. And if he says others are part of his family, it is equally true for them. We ultimately don’t get to decide; he does. And if he says they’re family, then they belong to us whether we like it or not and we are obligated to them in love regardless of whether they are the people we wouldn’t have picked ourselves.
The other thing to bear in mind, of course, is simply this: as many people as you wouldn’t have picked no doubt wouldn’t have picked you to belong either. But lucky for you, Jesus doesn’t let them pick who belongs to his family; he does. And he doesn’t give them any choice over whether they must love and care for you or not, if he has chosen you they are obligated to you in love. Such as they wouldn’t have picked you but Jesus insists they must love you regardless, so he says the same to you. Whoever you might have picked is irrelevant. You’ve got the family he has placed you in and you are obligated to love them because he loves them. You don’t get to pick your family and you do have to love them. We would all do well to crack onto that in the church.