"But We're a Family!"

I am a life-long Episcopalian and have always been involved with church at some level.  I just celebrated the fourteenth anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate.  (Episcopalians ordain priests after a time of being an ordained deacon.  It's called a "transitional diaconate".)  In my fourteen years of ordained ministry, I have served three congregations and in other roles, I have worked with numerous congregations.  

One notion I have heard over and over from churches is that they're a "family".  It is almost always the first thing I hear when I ask a congregation what their identity is or what makes them who they are.  This is something I have heard across denominations and is particularly true of small congregations.  I believe the sentiment is in the right place.  The idea behind this is that people feel like in their churches, they love and support one another and that the church can be a place where they are able to feel safe and vulnerable.  That is a great thing and it is everything a church should be!  In many ways, this is reminiscent of the idea of a family you're born into versus a chosen family, which exists in many facets of society.  However, no matter how well-intentioned calling a church a "family" is, I always cringe a little when I hear it, and I want to explain why.  

Broadly Describes the Christian Faith

My first concern with the "family" language is that it is not terribly original.  This is certainly not a serious concern.  However, I find when I ask what makes your church "unique" or what sets it aside from others, this is the first thing everyone says.  The reality is that the Realm of God has some family language built into it.  St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:5-6: "He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." (NRSV) Yes, we are adopted by God through the Incarnation of Christ.  Technically, all humans, and particularly all baptized Christians are part of the same family.  While this is a wonderful and lovely notion, it does not adequately describe the mission of an individual congregation.  At best, it describes what it means to be a Christian.  

The Power of Language

My more serious concerns about the family language come from some of the other connotations of being a family.  Getting into the other connotations means we have to think about the power of language.  When people name something, they have associations with that name.  As a side example of this, when I was in college, I first encountered the idea of gender-inclusive language for God.  The way it was first presented made it very difficult for me to get on board with it, because they said that referring to God as "Father" may bring up trauma with their own human fathers.  I grew up in a household with a dad who was a generally pretty nice guy and highly respected in the community.  While I certainly never directly associated God the Father with the guy laying on the couch, watching TV, or grilling out on weekends, the idea that the word "Father" would be problematic seemed silly to me, because I never had a particular negative association with the word.  

Fortunately, I think the vast majority of male parents are actually good people who love their children and are solid role models.  Also, they are fallible human beings and all fall short of God's glory.  Plus, in years of pastoral experience, I do know that there are a number of people who do in fact have a negative association with the word "Father".  Many also have a negative association with the word "Mother" for that matter.  While I am not an advocate of scrapping "Father" for God or "Mother" for the Virgin Mary, I do understand that these human concepts may also limit or cloud our perception of the Divine.  

This all an aside, but it shows that language has power of which we are often unaware when we use it.  There is a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer which begins "Oh Lord our governor..." and all I can ever think of when I read it, is someone whose portrait is hanging in a statehouse with a flag in the background.  Concepts relayed through words are going to bring up multiple associations, whether good or bad.  This is just as true when we use the language of "family" for our churches.

Not a Growth Strategy

Particularly, when thinking in terms of church growth, this language becomes more problematic.  I have never encountered a church that did not want to grow.  And when churches say "grow", they mostly mean - at least in large part - that they want more members and potentially pledging units so that they can balance the budget.  This is not in of itself a bad thing, any more than businesses wanting new customers.  The challenge of thinking of the church as a family is that the language stifles growth.

When we think of what a family is, it is a closed system.  To actually become a part of a family, a person either has to be born into the family or the family has to go through a tedious and expensive process to adopt a person.  In either case, it is extremely rare in 21st century Western families for a member to choose to be a part of a family.  The family more likely chooses the new member.  

With this in mind, you may see why the family language is a problem for churches wanting to attract new members.  A church does not choose its new members; people choose to join a church.  While there is typically a catechetical process in which the congregation gives some verbal approval to the new member, the reality is that there is rarely much (far too little, in fact) buy-in by the congregation when a person chooses to join.

A church that is staged for growth needs to be far more malleable than a family ever possibly can be.  The doors of the church need to be proverbially open.  People need to feel welcomed in every way possible to come in.  The inverse of this (and worthy of another lengthy post) is that some people may need to feel comfortable with walking out.  Joining a church needs to be understood to be much easier than joining a family, and it is the choice of the member, not the family.

Not All Families Are Worth Joining

Getting further into the negative associations of language, like the parental terms, "family" can have negative associations.  There are people for whom being a part of a church may be healing and life changing.  Many of these people may need that healing because of damage done by their kin.  If someone was disowned by their parents for one reason or another, joining a group that called themselves a "family" could be problematic.  The same holds true if a person grew up in an abusive household or a household with an addiction.

Thinking in these terms too, when we call our church a "family",  that can give us permission to excuse bad behavior.  Every family has some level of dysfunction.  There are people with addictions.  There are abusers.  There are narcissists.  In healthy families, as in healthy churches, members can put boundaries up to manage unhealthy behaviors.  The difference is that those boundaries need to look very different in each context.  

On a certain level, even with cutoffs, where you don't speak to a family member for years, you are always a family member to a person.  In very unfortunate cases, you may not speak to an aunt, uncle, cousin or sibling because of behavioral problems, but they still have that title and relationship to you.  If a staff member of a church abuses a child or steals money, they are to be dismissed.  If a church volunteer does something this egregious, they should be asked to leave.  There is plenty of scriptural warrant for this too (Matthew 18:17; I Corinthians 5:2; I Corinthians 5:13, for example).  They may still be beloved in God's eyes and God's children, but churches should not use family language to tolerate criminal and predatory behavior.

If Not Family, Then What?

I don't want to make it sound like describing your church as a family should be completely off the table.  However, I do think we should be mindful of all the dynamics at play with the word.  The question with this, then, is what language is sufficient for a church?  I think this is where churches can challenge themselves.  My personal preferred term is "community".  However, more importantly, I would like to challenge congregations to think critically about what defines them.  What makes your church unique?  Why is your church worth joining?  These are the questions that I would challenge a congregation to ask themselves.  You may find that there is a full and robust vocabulary to describe the wonderful things that your congregation has to offer.