The church and the family (Part 6)

This post marks another in a series of posts in response to the following statement at a church's website:

"We believe that the family is the first and most important institution that the Lord created. Moreover, following God the family should hold the highest priority."

In my first post of this series, I asked a series of questions regarding this statement. Since then, I have replied to one or two of those questions per post as I considered the relationship between the church and the family. In this post, I am responding to another question I asked regarding the statement above. The question is:

-- Does this mean the church is subservient to the family?

That seems to be the message from a particular segment of evangelicalism today. It may be an unintended message, but it appears to have that practical effect nonetheless. Ministries and churches identified with this movement seem to have concluded: The local church should be structured around the nuclear family with a focus on the perceived needs of families. At least some of them define the church as a "family of families."

This is another version of the consumer-oriented approach to church life, Michael Lawrence observed a few years ago. The Portland, Ore., pastor wrote about this approach: "To systematically and holistically define and organize the church around biological families is to put the church at the service of yet another customer and to insist that it provide what that customer needs. We've simply traded the individual religious consumer for a collective."

This is not, of course, how the New Testament portrays the church. We see no evidence in the gospels, Acts or the letters of the church existing for the family.

The church and the family are not foes. They are -- or can be -- partners. The church is not subservient to the family. The church is the one true family, one that will last forever by the unbreakable bond established by the cross-work of Jesus. The nuclear family has no such cord of everlasting existence. Death will break up the nuclear family. Neither death nor anything else will break up the family of God.

To elevate the nuclear family above the family of God is a disservice to both, especially to the only family created by the life, death and resurrection of God the Son. The nuclear family -- especially marriage -- is a picture of the ultimate marriage and family established by Christ. The nuclear family is not the ultimate institution before which the church of Jesus is to bow in subservience.