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One of the frustrations I’ve been having with church is the family-centric nature of it. I’ve come to realize that this plays an important part for many families but I’m wondering if this is why so many people (mainly men?) get bored in church. For example this was part of a message at our church recently:
Priorities:
1. God
2. Spouse
3. Children
4. Job
5. ChurchNow I did find it interesting that church was the last one and that may be a whole discussion in itself but this is only speaking to people in church who are married and have a family. When you think about it every church is structured around catering to families – nurseries, children’s programs, maybe a youth ministry, and so on. As this list implies this is the focus of your life but there is whole lot not in there (like serving the poor and helping your neighbour).
(BTW – I am married and I have a family)
What do you think?
AnonymousThose kinds of sermons make me want to roll my eyes and YAWN the whole time! But then, so do most sermons – ha!
Oooh, my brother, who was into Promise Keepers at one stage I believe, had that same list of priorities pinned on his wall once and I remember studying it (this is probably 15 years ago now). From memory I don’t think the order was the same though. I have emailed it to him to see if he remembers ! (intriguing)
Yeah I’d completely agree. The church I left recently was family-centric to the point at which anyone who wasn’t married and with children wasn’t quite accepted in the same way. People were expected to get married, raise children who leave for uni, come back betrothed, get married and almost immediately push one out. Some young people took this as an opportunity to just leave however, myself included.
It’s crreeeeeepppyyyy. And alienating to anyone who had other aspirations in life. We got similar sermons about the glorification of family. There’s another topic on this forum about marriage making us holy not happy, and I think that really puts the pressure on to get the family ball rolling.
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with marriage and children but when it’s enforced or at least a firm expectation like that, then I’d say it’s something that needs escaping from.
AnonymousReligious people do not see me as a legitimate woman in this society since I have not obeyed the biblical mandate to multiply. It is baffling to them why I chose to marry knowing full well I was not going to have children, as if the only reason to marry is to procreate. Having been conceived, birthed and raised in an atmosphere of extraordinary ambivalence, I’ve come to really appreciate people who are thoughtful and deliberate about their reproduction, as well as their spiritual life. I guess more on topic, I spent years in a Presbyterian church as a single person; one time I inquired about bible studies and they rattled off ten different options all of which began with Mr. and Mrs. so and so’s house.
Why the hell would I want to go to any of those? New Age religion in the form of Unity Church, the next 15 years, was better in that regard but the new age mindbend including unity consciousness is still a mindbend and comes with it’s own form of poisonous traps and guilt and fear inducing bullcrap. To hell with all of it. Except God. I choose not to let religion and humanity take God away from me. But that’s me.
I too have experienced the family-centered nature of the church and to be honest, it always grated me and alienated me. What irritated me the most was, at the last church I went to, the preacher said from the pulpit was that all young people should be planning right now, to take care of their parents when they grow into old age. He was stating it as if it was a priority, that all children should look after their parents no matter what. It baffled me to no end and to be honest, I found it incredibly disrespectful of my parents, who I believe can take care of themselves perfectly well.
But another thing he came out with, was that everyone in the church MUST love children, and if you don’t then you have to learn to apparently. I have no love for children if I am being honest, I find them irritating and I have no desire to have any of my own, nor to start a family! The church would be astonished if I said such a thing, and I would be likely be branded a heartless person, or I may venture, a person who isn’t of God. This of course isn’t true, liking children isn’t central to faith nor is it central to ones morality, people like different things. Some people like babies, I like animals! Anyway I digress…
I did not appreciate being told by the church that I HAD to appreciate those values, just as its expected that you adhere to the common church practice of finding a partner, getting (straight) married, having children, putting the women in her place as God commands apparently, and of course , NEVER getting divorced. I found the family focused nature of church largely obnoxious and imposing really, it was one of the reasons why I just never fit into the social aspect of it and ultimately, one of the reasons why I broke away from it.Thanks for all the posts. Good to hear other people feel the same way.
I think this is largely why I’ve struggled with the church. Its funny because now I’m a family man but I still feel just awkward there as before. I am enjoying my kid more but I still do find kids annoying for the most part
Why are Church programs are centred around part of the family? Someone suggested we should be prepared to look after our parents. Doesn’t it make more sense that the older people (and I’m 77) should be encouraged to spend time together and support and encourage each other? How often are the men catered for? We are all different. We all have differing talents. Some are academic while others are good with their hands. Some women have a mothering instinct, others don’t. There are so many differing skills. There are introverts and extroverts and everything in between. Then there is sexuality! Something that churches just don’t seem to understand. Maybe I should share a little of my own story.
In my early 20’s I was part of a foursome. My friend Ken decided that as one of the girls was getting serious with him , it was time to break it up. This left Barbara and I wondering what we should do. We started going out as a pair (neither of us had a previous partner). When I asked Barbara’s mother if we could get married, she said that she didn’t really approve because ‘I didn’t love her daughter’. We have been married over 50 years and have two children and seven grandchildren. About five years ago I discovered that I had lived with Aspergers Syndrome all my life. That was exciting because it helped me to understand a lot about the way my mind worked. It is said that most people with AS never marry and with hindsight I can see that Barbara’s mother had recognised something. I was never able to relate to my own children very well – I was always too busy. I’ve never really related to my grandchildren, one of whom also has AS. The other side of the coin is that Barbara and I needed each other (she had her own problems) and still do.
In the middle of all of this when my children were teenagers I got into a serious argument with an elder who started advising my daughter about what she should do with her life – because he felt that I was the most selfish man he had ever met.
On a lighter note – has it ever occurred to you that God has children, but never has grandchildren?
My thoughts exactly. As I said above, I found it rather disrespectful of my parents to assume that they will eventually need looking after, maybe they don’t want looking after or simply don’t NEED looking after? It was just such a baseless assumption. You are quite right, we are all different with different skills and the church need to stop basing one’s abilities off their gender etc. They are just so detached from the world and well… reality! haha. And wow! Living with AS for that long without realizing? Bet that was a shock
I am curious as to why its assumed that AS people will never marry? I’ll assume its the assumption that they cannot get emotionally attached enough? And haha, the last line amused me. Mormons believe that even God has a father above him, and a father above that God and so on! Old-Pete, I’m really fascinated. Please don’t answer if you don’t want to or aren’t free to, but how did you know you had a ‘fit’ with the aspergers diagnosis? Did you feel denial or rejection of the diagnosis, or did it confirm what others had been saying to you (friends, family etc) over time? And/or did you feel that it made sense to how you were feeling all along? Interesting comment about non-marriage for aspies but I think most do marry. As to how many marry other aspies I don’t know. btw, I think we all have some aspie, just some have more than others. That’s my take, it’s part of the human condition.
@shift @old-pete Its a tough balance there to strike on children looking after their parents and parents expecting to be looked after. I know that if parents don’t plan for old age its really unfair for a child to be expected to take them on. In cultures where there is no government safety net or concept of saving money for the future the “retirement plan” is having many children to take care of you. This isn’t really a negative thing unless its taken advantage of.
@old-pete I think we are getting somewhere on the whole problem of the family-centric church structure. There are so many ways a church could function but its so dominated by this mindset that its hard to get anyone to think beyond it. One example I can think of is of someone who just loves getting things done would be far better to be out helping people (home repairs, running errands, etc.) than sitting for 1-2 hours a week listening to the latest musings of the pastor and the latest songs. But this is not to say the sermon and the worship team should be pushed aside – the academic might love to have something to ponder and for many music does something they can’t do on their own and need someone else to do it. And again I’m not against families (I have a family) – for some just coming to sit for an hour while someone talks and someone sings while someone else watches the kids can be a huge blessing.
What we found as young parents was that “family-centered” was mostly talk/programs but nothing else practical. There were constantly church meetings or events we were “encouraged” (read: required, if we wanted to be part of a ministry) to attend, but no child care. One time when our daughter was about 2 we had an all-day meeting both of us were supposed to attend. We had to pay a babysitter ourselves and bring her with us to the church because our daughter was not comfortable being away from us for that long. As leaders in the church, we were expected to attend small groups, but it was hard to find a small group that met on a night we were available and also offered child care. Our other option was to leave the kids at home, but that was discouraged because being with other kids at the Bible study was supposed to be good for them. During the church service, they kept all kids birth through high school senior sequestered from the rest of the church–neither seen nor heard–so that they would not “distract” anyone during the service. (This is a particularly sore point for me not because of my kids, but because they also did the same thing to the disabled women who came to the service from their group home. They were labeled as “noisy” and forced to remain outside the auditorium, listening/watching on the closed-circuit television.) There was a mid-week church service from 7-8:30. We found this difficult because it ended so late and our early riser son was exhausted the next day. We finally quit going when his dance class conflicted with the first half hour of the service, because it wasn’t worth going. We were reprimanded for putting our kids before God.
The whole time the church was imposing impossible restrictions on families, they were constantly preaching about how important it is to have a (heterosexual) marriage and children. We sat through sermon after sermon on parenting and families. They reminded us constantly what mothers and fathers are “supposed” to do. In one sermon, the pastor even gave his very uneducated opinion on how long a woman should breastfeed! (I was an extended nurser–I breastfed both kids for 2 years, because that was what I believed was right and their doctor agreed. The pastor felt that beyond a year it was “sexualized.” Yes, wtf is right.) The church had strict guidelines for what they considered “biblical” parenting.
I do not believe that churches that claim to be “family-centered” really are. If they were, that would include creating loving, healthy space for people who are not straight-married, not married at all, and/or don’t have children. It would also create a safe place for single parents where they don’t hear conflicting messages (“You’re welcome here, but we’ll remind you weekly that you had Bad, Dirty Sex or a Bad, Dirty Divorce). Families consisting of straight-married parents and children would also feel safe, since we’d be free from rules about how to parent or how awesome it is (when truthfully, it’s not awesome all the time).
Sorry that got so long.
@Amy that sounds like quite an extreme situation. I’ve never encountered anything like that. There is a friend of mine that is now working at setting up simple churches that are networked and a lot of what he wrote up explaining his plan gave similar examples as you have given. Basically, by the time you do all the church expects you to do there is no room to do what Jesus expects you do. I would love to be a part of a small, simple church but right now it just doesn’t seem to be. I’ve been in and out of churches for a while but I do find that the small ones don’t last long. And the problem is that if you are not surrounded by people that have the same vision its hard to make it go.
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