Birthdays and Deathdays

Jan. 26 was Trish's and my Mom's birthday. My Grandma happened to go to Jesus that day too. I feel so sorry for my Mom because she has never had the relationship she would have liked with her mom. In her 50's she is just coming to grips with some of the hurt she has about it. I never felt particularly close to Grandma, nor do I have any particularly good memories about her. She was just there. It's kind of sad really...

Many of us have a lot of crap to work through regarding our blood families. It reminds me how our communities function as spiritual families. I think God designed the spiritual family to be more important and powerful than our blood families in the long run. Accepting God as our Abba, Father and Jesus as our brother will take some practice for those of us that come from dysfunctional families (don't most of us in one way or another?). We may have to go to some uncomfortable places and explore our family experiences with our parents and family values.

Icenogle says, "The gathered group around God as parent begins to exist as a countermodel to the families of origin of each member of the group... The new group is gathered by Christ to be a new family system , with new values, new relational dynamics and new disciplines... [communities] must define a theology of family for their [communities] to embrace and model."

Do you have a theology of family for your community?