What is Church Really Supposed to Be?

The New Testament writers regularly used the metaphor and example of the family when teaching about the church.  Here are a few examples:

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.–1 Timothy 5:1-2

We were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you… For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.–1 Thessalonians 2:6-8, 11-12

Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.–Titus 2:2-5

These passages show that the family structure of high-commitment caring, loving, teaching, and exhorting was all part of the way the church was supposed to function.My church, CityChurch Lawrence, takes this idea very seriously.  We all should.The church is not a business.  It’s not a social club.  It’s not a hierarchy or even a seminary.It’s a family.More specifically, a family of families....READ FULL STORY https://www.theboroughonline.com/church-family-families/