Monday, March 22, 2010

Biblical Family?

My title at the church is Pastor of Life Development. People ask me what that mean all the time. Usually, if I don't figure that they really care what I do specifically, I just tell them that I'm a family pastor. That is sort of true but not really.

Family is a complicated thing. What is a family? Many, or most, evangelical Christians that I know lament the loss of the the traditional family. I might agree that family as our grandparents understood a family to be is going away, but what are we really lamenting? Most people would say that we are loosing the biblical family. But is that true? What did the family look like in the Bible? Was it more like the Duggers or like the Osbounes?

Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament at North Park University, has an interesting post today about a book by the Scottish theologian Stephen Holmes. I would suggest that these men will paint a different picture of the biblical family for us.

In my role of pastor of Life Development, I want it to be more inclusive that just managing the spiritual lives of nuclear families. I hope that Life Development is about challenging all people to a great involvement in mentoring and disciplining the next generation. First, with parents taking a greater part in their children's spiritual development. But just as important is that all people all people--married or not, old or young, with children or without--see that they have an important part to play in the spiritual development of the next generation.