Sabbath (or) Holy Families, part IX
Richard M. Wright
One of the more significant (sub-)themes at the Catalyst Conference last October was the family.
Reggie Joiner is one of the founding pastors of North Point Community Church in Georgia. During his excellent presentation he discussed the purpose of the church (to show this generation who God is) and finished by listing five specific things the Christian movement can do to be intentional about impacting this generation. Number two was “re-activate the home.”
Consider – the average child/youth spends forty hours per year at/in church activities. (How much of our time and energy do staff ministers concentrate on planning and drawing people to these 40+ hours of activity at the church?) But the average child/youth spends three thousand hours at home (with parent[s]).
Joiner reported that eighty percent of children/youth who grow up in church leave the Christian faith (or least leave involvement in the church) when they become adults. Ouch. I shared this with my fellow ministers one day in staff meeting. Our minister with children and families Peggy Peek replied that a higher percentage of children/youth who attend worship with their families and discuss/practice their faith at home remain faithful as adults.
Is the Christian faith something we do only at church? or also during the rest of the week at home? George Barna in his presentation asked us as Christian leaders how much we are preparing families to be the church… rather than encouraging/allowing the church to become a surrogate family. (Even though there is considerable truth to the latter…)
Two Sundays ago was Holy Family Sunday in the Christian calendar. (Yeah yeah I know – hard to tell just from television or going to the stores.) Samuel growing up in the tabernacle in 1 Samuel 2. Jesus going to Jerusalem with his family in Luke 2 – where he stays and talks with the Jewish teachers in the home of his Father.
I suggest that one of the key ways we fulfill what Joiner and Barna and Peek talk about is this – practicing Sabbath.
In talking about Sabbath and family Tilden Edwards writes: “Mothers and fathers share a special ministerial and priestly function with the rest of the church: that of spiritual guides for their children… Helping to assure and shape Sabbath time for the family is a valuable dimension of their guidance” (Sabbath Time, 114). (I would add that family can include single people as well as couples without as well as with children. The operative idea is the home as the primary locus of spiritual formation and missions.)
When you practice Sabbath at home… as a family… you are already taking a significant step towards re-activating the home and preparing the family to be the church and discussing/practicing your faith as a family and in the home.
