Our current message series is looking at families…specifically our families and their relationship to our faith.
God created the family and wants our families to be places where we come to know him and learn to love and serve him.
When we refer to “family,” of course, we recognize they come in every flavor. Perhaps your current experience is:
- an immediate family with little or growing children
- empty nesters with grown children
- a single-parent family
- a multiple generation family
- blended family/a family of choice
- perhaps you live alone with family at a distance
Whatever your current experience, we all share a common experience of growing up in a family. And how God was represented to you in your family of origin plays a huge role in how you view God right now.
Chances are that if you grew up in a family where faith and a relationship with God were seen as fairly positive things you see faith and Church as fairly positive things.
On the other hand, if you have had a negative view of Christianity or faith or the Church, it might be connected in some way to your family. Maybe as a child your family went to church but it had nothing to do with faith, much less fun, and it all had to do with fear.
For some, and increasingly for many, you just didn’t go to church as a kid at all. You didn’t have a positive or negative view, you didn’t have any view at all. Your family just didn’t go and didn’t talk about why they didn’t go and the whole thing was completely irrelevant.
Whatever your experience, your family played a huge role in how you view God. And that’s why it’s important to appreciate and understand that our family includes our church family… at least it should.
We don’t always think of it in that way, but it is an important consideration. In fact, considering our church community as an extension of our family, as a support and foundation for our family, as an encouragement for our family can change everything about our attitude toward church.
- It is impossible to remain a consumer if the parish is your family.
- It is simply not reasonable to think of church as family and remain indifferent or aloof to it.
- It is absurd to suggest you could consider your parish your family and casually walk away when something wasn’t to your liking.
With church as family I am never alone and on my own. I always have support and assistance.
With church as family I have focus and direction when it comes to giving and serving.
With church as family I am probably more consistently and successfully growing in my faith.
Join us for our new message series, all weekend Masses through February 23.
