Starting during COVID my wife and I had the privilege of being included in our friends’ weekly family dinner. We felt honoured to be part of their family, included in some of their most significant moments. And I think their family got a bit of an upgrade from having us there. Everyone behaves a little better 🙂

It felt so different than all the church small groups we’ve been a part of over the years. I don’t think it was being in a home (our groups usually were) having less structure (we had some) or that we ate together (we’ve tried that before). There was a momentum they had from being related to each other, and we were joining into it. The covenant of family was already there, and the gospel was transforming that base into a people covenanted with God.

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Here’s my evolving understanding of the church. In the New Testament we can find examples, or at least hints, of all of these. But what’s caught my eye this week is the centrality of families and their relatives in the New Testament story.

Building

I grew up thinking the church was the building where I got paid $5/month to mow the lawn.

Organization

Then “church” came to mean whatever events and programs the leaders were running. The building was just where they were located.

People

This came to me much later. I guess I knew it intuitively, but it helped to hear it said plainly: the church is God’s people gathered, often in a building, often doing things together.

Houses

As I visited more and more nations, I noticed it’s much more common overseas for the church to gather in people’s homes. That fits the New Testament stories.

Meals

Then I started wondering if the location is less significant than eating the Lord’s Supper together. That also fits the New Testament pattern.

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Families

I’ve always thought of the church as a spiritual family. But lately I’ve been paying attention to something more concrete: the families behind the New Testament churches. (I’m talking about a house-level gathering identified with a particular home, not the entire city-wide network of believers.)

Think about who was in those homes and around those tables. Usually it would have been a family, plus others who were welcomed in. I’m not saying everyone in the church was biologically related, but the nucleus of a typical house church was an extended family.

What changed was the center of that household. Now God was their Father. And the household was intentionally expanded, so that even Gentiles were included as full members of the covenant family.

You know how your kids call some people aunt and uncle who aren’t biologically related to you? Or how some of your friends have become so much like brothers or sisters that you’d do anything for them, including sharing possessions? That kind of addition to your family.

I think I’ve avoided seeing this in the Bible because so many things can go wrong with this model. Nepotism, excluding singles, never really “in”. I hate that stuff. The nature of family, I think for all of us, is that it’s the best thing ever and the most painful. But family is central in God’s plan from Adam and Eve’s commission to multiply, through the family of Israel to our homes today.

Now I’m increasingly reading the New Testament letters in the context of family-based covenant communities.

• To churches started in Jewish families: fully include Gentiles in the covenant.
• To churches started in Gentile families: learn covenant life, not pagan patterns.
• To churches with a mix of both: unity at the table, honour, and inheritance in Christ.

Natural families formed a stable base for those early gatherings, and in my experience, they often still do today. Around the world, when a family comes to Christ, the church feels more stable than a group of unrelated individuals. (By “stable” I mean long-lasting and committed, not necessarily mature, and not free of the dysfunction any family carries.) I think it’s because the covenant within a family can create a committed environment where covenant with God has room to grow.

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Body, Witness, Bride

Family is the latest thing I learned. Much more about the church to explore: body (different roles and gifts), witness (even to spiritual beings), and bride (union with Christ). But for now, “family” has become the most helpful lens for me to understand the covenant environment where faith and love thrive.