Bodies, Cells and Dis-Ease

If the family is the fabric of society, some say our fabric is wearing thin. If families are the cells in the body of a culture, some say that our body is under attack; or at least, in a state of social and ethical dis-ease.

It doesn’t take an expert to see why. Parents are over-stressed, over-committed and under-communicating when it comes to transmitting faith and values. They have little or no regularly scheduled time set aside to talk about things that really matter with their children. An entire generation is being raised by electronic baby-sitters. Children are bombarded by a myriad of messages, many of them violent and negative. They know millions of stories, but they do not know their own parents’ stories. 

At this same moment when our children need the gifts of time, attention, and wisdom the most, the elders of our society are increasingly segregated from them. The Builders who weathered the Great Depression and WWII are soon gone. Mainline churches are withering. Social programs are constantly being down-sized even as our cultural problems are being super-sized. The vehicles that have provided the foundation of faith and values in America since the Pilgrims landed are losing their social significance, membership and cultural clout.

If the body (society) can be no healthier than its cells, we must find new and effective ways to bring health directly to the cells.

Comments

[Rich Melheim]

You are clearly on to something. Scary. Scarry. Challenging to the status quo. And then one must ask - "What has to be refigured and reconfigured in the other "church" in order to build the scaffolding to build and support the home as church? Who has to be fired? Who and what has to be retired? Who needs to be changed? What needs to be rearranged? What structures might the local congregation need to put in place to nurture and sustain the home as a church?

[Matt Musteric]

In addition to your wonderful work on families as "cells," I am intrigued by Niel Cole's work in his book _Organic Church_, in which he describes small groups of 2 or 3 (no more, no less) as the basic building blocks of the church. What would happen if every Christian family was a church _and_ every Christian was involved in a discipleship and accountability group of 2 or 3?