CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 2.

We are re-imagining church as the living reality of being the family of God. I am sharing Biblical paradigms for the Church as a Family. Last week we considered that in the Family Members take care of one another.
Today we look at the second characteristic: Family Spend Time Together. Family members spend time together getting to know each other. How well do you know your brothers and sisters in the church? How much time do you spend together outside of scheduled meetings?
In a dysfunctional family children barely know the parents. Parents buy gifts to busy their kids. Siblings may grow under same roof, living separate lives. The only time they get together is when they have a scheduled meeting – someone’s wedding, birthday, graduation, or other “significant” events. Outside of that – everyone is in his/her room, doing their own things, having separate bank accounts.
Do members in our church see each other outside of scheduled meetings? Is there someone that you care to visit with, and spend time together if not for the “scheduled” meeting? Just for fun of spending time together, cooking, gardening, baking, painting, playing, listening music, golfing? Do you like the people you call “brothers” and “sisters”?
When you consider the early Christian Church their innate DNA was pulling them to meet together. Holy Spirit in a believer is a magnet that organically draws one Christian to another Christian. Holy Spirit puts in our hearts a genuine desire for authentic community. Just read Acts 2:42,46 “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” Hebrews 3:13 says “encourage one another daily!”
In most churches the only fellowship people get is two minutes when worship leader says “turn around and greet people behind you.” Could it be that we are so afraid of intimacy, that devil so twisted our society that we are afraid to risk relationships? Many people are not interested in a “house church” because it is safer to hang out in a pew, inspect the back of someone’s head for a couple of hours and then retreat home. But the church is not a theatre, it is a Family!
Spend time with each other!