The church in America is in the midst of a paradigm shift. A paradigm is a pattern. As human beings, we sort of get into these patterns, or we see things in patterns. Sometimes we need to see them in a different light or be willing to challenge the paradigm we’ve accepted and live in.
If you asked anyone what this picture represents, they would respond, “Christmas, of course.” However, as believers in Jesus, is that Christmas? Of course not. It’s a paradigm. The whole world can look at this picture and say, “Hey, there’s Christmas.” But as followers of Jesus, we look at that and say, “Wait a minute, that’s actually not Christmas. Christmas is the birth of God himself in human flesh, who came to this earth to live a sinless life and to die on a sinner’s cross so that we might be forgiven, to know him through faith, through his grace, through his mercy. He was raised to life in three days. That is Christmas.” Right? A paradigm shift means we change how we view the exact same thing. What we’re looking at has not changed, but we need to realign our hearts and our lives so that we see it differently, for what it truly is. In other words, we need to define it in its most true and pure identity, not one we’ve adorned with our own culture or tradition.
What Does the Bible Say About the Church as a Family?
Let’s look at a 30,000-foot view of God’s amazing plan for the church. Ephesians 3:7-11 says that the manifold wisdom of God will be made known through the church. God wants his church, the people who know Jesus as their savior, to communicate the wisdom of God to the entire universe, to every spiritual and fleshly being. It’s a huge assignment that God has given us.
Ephesians 1:22-23 says this, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” It’s easy to read these passages and not see the enormity of what’s happening here. God wants his people, his church, to fill everything in every way. That’s difficult to wrap your brain around. He wants us to fill this world with his presence, with the gospel of Jesus, with his goodness, with his love, with his kingdom, with his ways, his shalom, his peace. He does that through the church.
The church of Jesus is central to the plan of God. Too often, we begin to see it in these other ways. We say, “Maybe it’s optional. Maybe it’s a good thing if you can spare the time.” But it is central to God’s plan for the universe. How do we get the church to see it that way? Well, the good news is that God has not left us alone. We don’t have to figure this out on our own. Instead, God has given very specifically and succinctly his plan to his apostles, specifically the Apostle Paul. Ephesians 3 lists this design for the church. It says in Ephesians 3:9, “to make plain to everyone the administration of the mystery.” What is the administration of the mystery? The mystery is the church coming together as Jews and Gentiles, and Jesus set forth a plan to see the church fulfill his mission together as a beautiful mosaic of cultures and peoples.
How Did We Get Here?
Think about the navigation instruments on a plane. Often, pilots can’t see where they’re going because of the clouds. The instruments guide them. What would happen if those instruments got one degree off, and it stayed off? You may not notice at first, but the further you go down that line, the further away you’ll be from your intended destination.
God has lovingly been drawing people from the beginning of time back to himself when they drift. If we just look at our state alone, Arkansas is number one in a couple of things. According to the FBI in 2023, we’re number one in violent crime. We’re number one in divorce; however, we’re ranked 47th out of the 50 states in education. All of these issues are a result of us not being in God’s design, us not living out God’s perfect plan for the family.
Godly Families
Paul says in Ephesians 3 that he’s been given a couple of job descriptions. Number one, to preach the unsearchable riches of God’s grace to the Gentiles. Number two, to make plain the administration of the mystery of the church. God revealed it to Paul and some of the apostles. So with this new information, Paul is going to list out through his epistles what it means to be the church, what it means to be the family of families, which is then made up of godly families. So, as we look at what a godly family is, and we consider this administration, what does that mean? The Greek word for administration literally means household order. There are several passages in the New Testament that are referred to as the household texts (Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-22, and 1 Peter 3:1-7). They lay out what a godly family looks like. If you read them, especially Ephesians 5, you could ask, “Is that section of scripture about marriage and family or about the church?” The answer would be yes. We usually forget to learn what we can from those passages about the family of families. The household order for individual families and the family of families is enmeshed. It cannot be taken apart because it is God’s design for the family, as well as the family of families.
There is a system of authority established in this. Christ is the head of the church. That’s first. The husband then submits to God, laying his life down for his wife and family. The wife submits to the husband as unto the Lord and with love and respect. Children obey their parents, so it’ll go well with them. Fathers, don’t exasperate your kids. Instead, train them and disciple them. People who have jobs obey their bosses with sincerity. Work for them as if you’re working for Christ. Bosses, know that God shows no favoritism. So treat them in the same way that I said for them to treat you. This is the order of the family that God has designed. If we lived by that order, we wouldn’t have those social issues just mentioned. We have them because we’ve fallen short of God’s glory. We have missed God’s beautiful design for the family.
Adultery, homosexuality, sexual immorality, pornography, divorce, and all types of sinfulness are threats to the marriage and family. There are some elements of divorce that are allowed by God, but some aren’t. But when there’s a divorce that happens that’s not allowed in Scripture, there’s forgiveness. I want to make this statement clear as I talk about ideals and the reality of where we live in the world. The church is not made up of perfect people. It’s not made up of perfect marriages and perfect families. We’re a broken people ruined by sin and rescued by Jesus. However, we are a people seeking to go back to God’s design. We are seeking to live out of our families, out of God’s design, because we know that design can lead to wholeness and healing for our hearts, for our lives, for our families, moving us from disobedience to knowing Jesus.
With that being said, I want to emphasize that single people are not left out of this. The Apostle Paul says that single people are actually better suited for ministry and mission than married people. So, if you’re single, ask how God can use this situation in your life. That should be everyone’s prayer. My prayer for the church is that we would understand God’s design, that our families would be godly, so that our family of families would be godly. We can’t fully understand the design for the church, the family of families, unless we understand the design of the individual family.
A Family of Families
In Ephesians 5, Paul uses this phrase, which is a bit of an understatement. He says, “It’s a profound mystery.” He’s referring to the family and the church being so interconnected, so intertwined, so enmeshed. Christ’s design is for them to work with one another. There are all kinds of metaphors used in scripture in the New Testament for the church. The body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the army of God, etc. Nothing is used as a metaphor more in scripture than “the family”. Jesus in the gospels begins to use this language of brothers and sisters. Jesus even places his brothers and sisters doing the will of God above his own immediate family. Then that language is picked up by the apostles. In Ephesians 2:18, it says we are members of God’s household. It says in Corinthians that we are the temple. We are the house of God. 1 Timothy 3:14-15 says, “I’m writing you these instructions so that if I’m delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household.” Paul is trying to lay out a plan. There are instructions. There’s an order. There’s administration. Again, this family language of household, which is the church, not a building, is a people of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. It’s not a literal building. So what he’s saying is there’s a way to behave, not necessarily in a church. How many times have you heard preachers say, “We better behave in God’s house here.” And what’s he talking about? You don’t let your kid run in here. This is God’s house. But what Paul is saying is that there is a way to behave as God’s house. There is a way to live as God’s people. And as we live as God’s people, we are holding within each of us the truth of Jesus. It is the church’s responsibility to forever protect and teach our families and continue to grow in truth.
Household Order
In Titus 1:5-9, Paul says, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you – if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” The administration of God’s grand design is that the church is designed after the family. He wants godly fathers to lead the church as elders. Too often, churches choose successful businessmen to be elders. That’s not what’s described, though, is it? The list is about godly fathers who are raising godly children and leading godly homes. That’s who needs to lead the church. They need to be godly fathers, not only at home, but also a father to the church. It’s absolutely beautiful when you really understand that the church is a family. If we can wrap our brains around the implications of that, it changes so many things about how we see the church.
Titus 2:1-10 talks about how, as a family, we encourage each other’s lives, discipleship, and obedience to God’s word. It talks about older men investing in younger men and older women investing in younger women. It’s this beautiful family-like language of how we do life together. At the very end of the text in verse 10, it says we live that way so that we adorn the doctrine of God, that our lives would be attractive to the world, that they might wonder how we endure suffering, or why we’re so kind. It’s because our doctrine, what we believe, has now made its way out into how we live and the practices of our lives. We can’t separate families from the family of families. They’re interconnected.
What is a paradigm shift that needs to happen in your heart, in your life, or in the world? At South City Church, we’ve made some changes. We are trying to lead in such a way that isn’t based on tradition, but to restructure so we can lead this family of families to be authentic disciples. We started asking, what if, instead of meeting here in this space every single Sunday, what if we moved two of our meetings a month to homes? We did that intentionally to foster this biblical value as the church, as a family in a home. That’s the purpose. Our desire is that you’re a part of these little families so that you go, “Oh, let’s be in a real relationship with one another. Let’s get together more than just services. Let’s do life together.” Our desire was to equip people to lead Bible studies, lead communion, and to pray for one another. It’s a beautiful representation of the church as a family. It helps us to be incarnational. What I mean by that is when Jesus came from heaven, he came in the flesh to be among us. That’s the same thing we want you to do in your neighborhoods. Be real. Be in the flesh. Be incarnational with people you live around, people you work with, you play with, and you learn with, so that they can see the love and light of Jesus in your life. The home is the best place to see the “one anothers” in Scripture lived out. You simply cannot fulfill the one anothers looking at the back of somebody’s head in a service. You can’t do it. You have got to be in relationship. You have got to be caring for one another. You have got to be walking together.
Friends, the church is not a group of individual believers. It’s a family. This was so important to Jesus that when the disciples asked how to pray, he didn’t give some great independent prayer. Even the way he told us to pray involved the family. He said, “Our father, give us this day our daily bread, deliver us from evil.” Even as we pray, we’re not just praying about ourselves. We pray for our family. Christianity is not meant to be lived as an individual faith. We are saved out of the world and into a spiritual family. And if you’re a spiritual orphan without a family, it’s time for a paradigm shift. If all you’ve seen in the church is an event that you go to whenever you want to, then it’s time for a paradigm shift for you to see the church differently, not just as people also attending a service or event, but as a group of imperfect people, your family, living out their faith intentionally together.
If You’re Planning to Leave…
When you’re a family, when you’re a family of families, we have to be careful with how we care and love and live and leave the family. If a father were just to not come home to his children one day, that would be abandonment. And if somebody who was a part of a church family just one day never came back, it’s abandonment of a family. That doesn’t mean that God might not lead you to another church. God’s doing amazing things through wonderful churches all over our city. We do things differently, but we just feel led to do things in this way to foster a family representation of the church. But God’s using the church all over the city and all over the world. With that being said, how we leave ought to be done in a way that honors Jesus and one another and is also connected to family. It ought to be done in a way that we ask questions, and we wrestle. We should never just walk out the door. Let’s have a conversation. Let us pray with you. Help us learn what we need to learn or hear. We want to send you if God’s leading you. We want to love you out of those doors, or we want to challenge you to reconsider based on your reasoning. Is the Lord truly leading you, or is this a spiritually immature decision? Believers leaving or abandoning the family of God is an epidemic of gargantuan proportions in the body of Christ. We must address it and disciple the people of God to learn to “endure and bear” with one another. Too many are ejecting for selfish and sinful reasons.
As the body of Christ, as the family of families, may we dig deep in what it means to live out the “one anothers.” What does it look like to forgive one another? What does it look like to bear with one another? What does it look like to endure with one another? To confess sin to one another? Sometimes people just “eject” to not have to deal with forgiveness. The reason bearing is in scripture is that sometimes you can’t bear to be with certain people. Paul says to bear, love, and forgive. Believers, when you check out of the church, or “eject,” you are causing your discipleship to be stunted. You will take your discontent to the next church. You’ll take your discontent to the next relationship. If you have trouble now opening up and sharing life, you’re going to have trouble later. Walk through the difficult walk, through the hard aspects of relationship, to get to a greater understanding of Jesus. We can’t get there without suffering. We can’t get there without difficulty, and we need to forgive and bear and love and confess and forgive.
The danger is that our culture wants to reinforce every individual desire, your individual happiness, your individual preferences. When we buy into that instead of God’s heart for his church, we forfeit a deeper discipleship. When the Church was a Family, by Joe Helerman, is a wonderful book. In it, Joe says, “Our culture has powerfully socialized us to believe that our individual happiness and fulfillment must take precedence over our relationships with others in our families and in our churches. And it is precisely the influence that this radically individualist worldview exerts upon American evangelical Christians which best explains our struggle to keep relationships together in the body of Christ. The tune of radical individualism has been playing in our ears at full volume for decades. We are dancing to the music with gusto, and it is costing us dearly.” What if instead the church of Jesus looked more like this? This is from Frank Viola’s book, Reimagining the Church. “What if it looked more like interdependence instead of independence? What if it looked more like wholeness instead of fragmentation? Or participation instead of spectatorship? Connectedness instead of isolation, solidarity instead of individualism, spontaneity instead of institutionalization, relationship instead of programs, servitude instead of dominance, enrichment instead of insecurity, freedom instead of bondage, community instead of corporation, and bonding instead of detachment.” What if the church looked more like that? What if we could be those people?
What does it mean for us to have a shift of paradigm in our hearts, to understand that sometimes we have patterns that we’ve gotten into, and maybe God wants to realign those patterns to his Word. What does it mean for you as you think about marriage and family to realign to the godly design of family? Some of you are living in a relationship where you’re not married. Maybe you need to be married. Some of you don’t worry about your kids. You’re not really raising or discipling them. Maybe you need to change an understanding, a paradigm, so that you can follow God’s design. Some of us have our understandings, our traditions, our thoughts about church. Maybe God wants to just tweak that alignment, not just to yourself, but to his Word, to his truth, to the expectation of what the church truly is to be. Maybe God wants you to move from attender to family member. Maybe he wants you just to tweak a little bit of your connection to real engagement and participation. We must build our identity as individuals, as believers, and as a church on the truths of Scripture, not the traditions of the American church. Not on our traditions, not on our opinions, only on God’s word. That’s what we have to build upon. The beautiful church of Jesus, a family of families.
Drew Cline
Lead Pastor – South City Church
