Why family?

Richard Hardy suggests how the church can once again be in the centre of the community.

I stood outside Lincoln Cathedral. Built on the edge of an escarpment, it looks out over the fens. It was a clear day and you could see for miles across the flatlands. As far as the eye could see there were little towns and villages dotted over the plain. In the centre of each was a tower or a spire.

As I looked, it struck me that there was a time when the church lay at the very heart of the community. It was the centre of social life; the place you went to for help; social services and the NHS rolled into one.

Wouldn’t it be great if, once again, we could be seen as good news? As the first port of call rather than the place of last resort? If only our communities could see us once again not as ‘the church’, but ‘our church’.

If we are to engage with our community, we’d do well to note the finding of a 2006 Sun newspaper survey. To the question ‘What is the most important thing in your life?”, 85% of those who responded said ‘family’.

A few years ago, a young man who had a problem with gambling started attending the church where I was minister. The gambling proved to be a symptom of a deeper problem. He had no family background to speak of; he had left home because he couldn’t get on with his stepfather, who was violent and abusive towards both him and his mum.

After attending the church for some time he said to one of the older women who had taken him under her wing: “At last I’ve found a family where I feel I belong. And a mum that I feel loves me.”

It’s my conviction that family gives us the best possible chance of putting the church back into the very centre of our communities. Not as the largest spire or tower in town, but as the hub of strong family life.

It’s one of the easiest ways for us to engage.

Why?

• Because we are concerned about the state of family life generally and the well-being of our families in particular; as such it acts as a common bond between us.
• Because we like to think of our church as an extended family, where everybody feels they belong.
• There are a great many resources available to assist us in making the most of the opportunity that family affords. Many of them are mentioned in the resources area of the website.

The sense of family that we share in church is a real asset that we can build upon. It is the very thing that many people long for.

Last Updated 30 November 2010