All in the Family?

Just what is a family? It sounds like a simple enough question, but these days the answer may not be so straightforward. Back in the 1950s and 1960s when Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best were popular TV shows, it was easy to identify the family. There was a father, who was a breadwinner, and a mother, who was a homemaker, and usually several children, all living under one roof. While the ghost of that family constellation may still linger with us, today less than 15% of American families fit that model.

Our current divorce rate is twice as high as it was in 1966, and 3 times as high as it was in 1950. The number of single mothers and their dependent children is 3 times more than it was in 1960, and 1 in 3 children is born out of wedlock. Today married couples make up barely 50% of the households in the United States, down 25% since 1970, and over half those married couples do not have children. A quarter of all American adults are single and live alone.

The family used to be viewed as a safe haven where members could experience some degree of security and protection from outside forces. Parents were generally considered wise and capable enough to resolve the minor conflicts that arose within the family. On today's TV reality shows it’s sometimes difficult to determine who are the children and who are the parents, at least by their behavior. Minor family conflicts have now escalated into adultery, incest rape, alcoholism and drug addiction.

The family experience of some children is anything but what might be considered typical. Many children, 1.5 million to be exact, have one or both parents incarcerated in prison. The average age of these children is 8 years old, and quarter of them are under the age of 5 years. Currently half a million children are placed in foster care and only 25% of those are living with a relative. One half of these children are never reunited with their parents, and 53% of them spend more than one year in foster care.

These statistics hardly represent the image God had in mind when He instituted the family. Scripture makes it clear that God's design for the family involved marital fidelity, mutually loving and respectful relationships between husband-and-wife, and a protective, encouraging environment for children. (Genesis 2:22–24; Ephesians 5:22–6:4; 1 Peter 3:1–7) in fact, God originally intended that the family would provide an accurate representation of His relationship with us as a loving Heavenly Father and His children.

What are all the situations that are included in your family? No matter what condition your family is in, God wants to heal your relationships, and restore them wherever that is possible. He wants to give you a hope about your future relationships as well. He is the God of all comfort and desires to restore peace and joy to you and all your family members.

Please join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM, as we look at all that is contained in the family as God designed it. This is our second installment in our current series, “The Christlike Family.”