Family in community

At the McCallister house we have been struggling to balance two lives. These have both been regular on this web log: Family life and Community life. Recently, we have been exploring our contribution to Reba Place as a young family (and quite in need of support, we would add). Contributing as a needy little family.

This is both an explanation and a praise. I am happy to find clarity of the meaning to our struggles with family life in a community. We have to lay out the situation a bit, so you’ll understand what has been going on.

It’s not that Reba has never had children before – many people raised families within the fellowship. But that was a long time ago. And there were lessons learned then that need to be dusted off and shown to us who are now trying to raise small children in community. The current make-up of our community is largely two age categories: seniors who’ve spent a large part of their life here, and post-college young single adults.

I (Josh) am excited to find a little purpose in all of the struggles we have with balancing these lives. The purpose might just be that we, through our presenting pain, are exposing a need this community hasn’t been addressing too well over the last ten years: the need to come along side of families. If we are willing to stand here, not run to a more hospitable environment, then we can add to the sustainability of this way of life.

So here is the next part:

Without proper access to a real dictionary, I will use the services of Microsoft to define culture as: [3.shared beliefs and values of group ~the beliefs, customs, practices and social behavior of a particular nation or people 4. people with shared beliefs and practices ~ a group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the particular place, class, or time to which they belong]

As a married couple there is a very small, but extremely intense version of community – not all the properties are transitive, I should say. But then there is a nuclear family, and that is certainly a community of serious implications and repercussions. Functional or not, family life is intense community where you cannot consider your possessions to be your own, many decisions are made as a group, values are expressed, negative behaviors affect others – on and on like that. Perhaps your family wasn’t as good at reconciliation as you would have liked, or maybe you didn’t share meals that often. It was still a major community for your formation.

We want to put thought into the work of developing practices that identify and agree with our beliefs; practices that breathe meaning into our particular place and time. My household is my clan, my people. Further out is this fellowship we are keeping. These people we worship and share life with are a part of us. We belong to one another. So our customs and social behaviors are an indication of our tribe.

How will we help the greater tribe to evaluate its inclusion, development, considerations, challenges, and so forth of families in community? What sorts of new things will come as we seek deeper structure for families with young children? We have baths and bedtimes, so we cannot attend every evening meeting. Our parenting and marriage are influencing the ways we follow Jesus, and we want encouragement and challenge for the journey.

The people of God have been continuing to raise families from the beginning. It is a good work. It is hard. We love our kids, and we mess up. We are inviting the community to join in our discussion about the characteristics and disciplines that allow for a counter-culture to form in each family. There are currently several young families around that want to study the issue of family within Christian community. We’re going to have them all over for breakfast.