Monday, August 4, 2008

A Time to Leave?

As a parent, my goal is to prepare my children for the day that they will leave my household and establish their own household. If they are 40 yrs old and still living with me, something is wrong. My household would be very dysfunctional at that point.

I wonder if there is a spiritual parallel here. Do we have churches full of adult children who need to launch out and create their own spiritual households?

One common reason why adult children continue living with their parents is the high cost of home ownership and associated living expenses. It is more cost effective to stay with Mom and Dad than it is to move out. They have become accustomed to the luxuries (read: non-essential, but nice to have stuff) that Mom and Dad have but that they could not afford on their own.

Is the same true of spiritual adult children? Starting a traditional church (spiritual household) is very expensive... it requires facilities, audio/visual equipment, staff, expensive and time consuming seminary training, etc. The barriers to entry are intimidating. Could this partially explain why many Adult Children prefer to stay at home and help mom and dad do an extension to the house rather than move out and start their own household?

It is interesting to note that new church plants grow at much faster rates than established churches. In the same way, Adult Children don't usually produce a lot of children while they living with their parents. It is not until they get out on their own and get their own place that their own family starts growing.

Many of the "conventional" churches that do grow seem to be those that find a way for people to start their own spiritual households. One way of doing this is through small groups (cell groups, home groups, etc).  These might be compared to living on the family estate, but having your own house there apart from Mom and Dad. There can be numerous advantages to this type of situation, but there is also a great temptation to only half-way grow up. The pattern is that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. 

Could it be that God's pattern is for us to stay at home (or church) for a season of preparation and then to launch out on our own and start our own households (both natural and spiritual)?

If this were the pattern, wouldn't it make sense for people to leave the church at some point?

The question then becomes, What SHOULD happen to people when they leave home or church?

  1. They should feed and sustain themselves. They should have learned this at home during their preparation phase. This is the most basic measure of maturity... to be able to take care of yourself.
  2. They should maintain mutually supportive contact with their extended family.  The relationship evolves to more of a peer to peer relationship than a provider/beneficiary relationship. There should be give and take, not just take. No man is an island and we all need other people in our lives.
  3. They should establish their own households and families. They should then begin the process of preparing a new generation to one day leave and start their own households. Reproduction is another measure of  maturity. Without it, the cycle ends.

Once upon a time, people tended to stay close to their family and place of origin. They might live out their whole lives and never travel more than a few miles from their birthplace. Some might have lived in the same house or on the same property with multiple generations of extended family. Households were large.

As time went on, these customs changed. People moved away and settled in cities. Houses were replaced with apartments. Households became more numerous while at the same time becoming more compact.

As the nature of households has changed in response to a changing culture, should we now be open to redefining the nature of the spiritual household? (See Barna Update: Americans Embrace Various Alternatives to a Conventional Church Experience as Being Fully Biblical)

The data indicates that more and more people are in fact leaving the traditional church. It also indicates that almost 1/4th of Americans now get their primary spiritual nourishment from a small group of 20 or less each week and that 6 million are meeting is these small groups but rarely going to traditional church.

Rather than attempting to change the trend, it there a way to take advantage of it? Could this be God's way of pushing us out of our church nests?

In the first century, the disciples were comfortable in Jerusalem and neglected the great commission. So God allowed persecution to drive them from their comfort zones and they took the gospel with them, creating new spiritual households all along the way.

If the current trends hold true, the spiritual landscape will be radically different in a few years.  If we focus our efforts on preparing people to start their own spiritual households while remaining connected to their extended spiritual family, this could be a very fruitful season.

No comments: