My wife and I started watching “The Morning Show” on Apple TV. (Lots of swearing; you might not like it.) Like many other shows, it’s based on the premise that your job is everything:

• One actor gets fired and calls that “the worst day of my life” in front of his wife, who’s in the midst of divorcing him and taking the children.
• The company faces a crisis and the employees are called to stick together because they’re a family.
• Another actor talks about her job as everything she’s worked for her whole life, in front of her husband and daughter.

This perspective has become very popular, seemingly unquestioned, in our society. But it’s very dangerous:

• No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. – Matthew 6:24

Do you work for a company that calls itself a family? In my experience that sometimes means they expect you to put in more hours than you agreed to, but it doesn’t at all constrain them from letting you go if they see fit. It’s not a family, it’s an organization.

Are you employed by a Christian ministry that calls itself a family? It can create that warm fuzzy sense of belonging. But the term often gets used when the money is running low and everyone needs to sacrifice, because “we’re a family”. That is, unless the money doesn’t come in, and then you could be the one on the outside. It’s not a family, it’s an organization.

Do you work for a local church that calls itself a family? This sounds somewhat biblical. Except, who are the parents? The pastors? Only God is our Father. What if you lost your job? Does that mean you were kicked out of the family? While the family of God is represented at your church, the local church structure is not a family, it’s an organization.

Do you have a job with a denomination that calls itself a family? This is a very compelling identity for churches in the body of Christ. But again, what about the other denominations? Are they also families? Who are the parents of your denomination? It’s not a family, it’s an organization.

The bottom line is, if you’re getting paid to work somewhere, no matter how Christian the organization is, it can’t be primarily defined as a family. The authority structure changes the definition. We are all part of the family of God, and we sometimes have jobs in Christian organizations.