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January 23 - February 2, 2022
the bottom. Families in the US are less educated, spend less time with their kids (Americans are born workaholics, are we not?), are less safe, and have less money.
We don’t like to say it, but to us, elderly people are dispensable. We don’t actually need them like cultures did in the past.
The Western family ideal operates on two universal laws, spoken or otherwise assumed: I am (or my success, feelings, and trajectory are) the most important thing, not my family. Essentially, I am more important than the family. Anything that imposes limits on me, at my expense, is inherently wrong.
What is the nuclear family? It’s a concept of family that peaked in the 1950s and ’60s that consisted of a mom, a dad, and two kids as the social unit. It generally centers itself on consumption, safety, and individual happiness. In other words, if we can get what we want, have nothing go wrong, and everyone does what he or she wants to do, then the family has done its job.
Those who most advocate for the nuclear family, Christians, don’t seem to want to return to a biblical vision in any sense of the word. They are not chasing an ancient picture of family. They are chasing 1950; they just want Leave It to Beaver.
But the 1950s family is in many ways antithetical to the Scriptures—not least in the fact that it was based on consumption, while the first-century family was based on production. The ancient picture of family was a robust, intergenerational, complex, and enormously helpful web of relationships where the most vulnerable and downtrodden were welcomed, protected, and given a safety net.
The more conservative people among us say, “Let’s bring back the power of the family!” But the vision is an actual impossibility for everyone except the rich, and not a true historical or biblical vision of family anyway. The more liberal folks among us say, “The family doesn’t matter. Do what you want. Family is anyone and everyone, right?” Both are wrong (with both also holding a sliver of truth, like usual).
One easy litmus test for God’s vision for the world is, if it’s worse for the poor, it’s most likely not his vision.
“The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care.”2
I actually find it somewhat comical that some conservatives want to return to the “good ol’ days” when moms stayed home and took care of the kids and babies—because those weren’t the good ol’ days. That change was a weird disruption of work and home that happened as recently as the Industrial Revolution.
We might say it’s necessary for both parents to work outside the home. But have we ever pushed back on our own idea of necessary? What’s necessary? To have a certain size home? To make enough money so we can spend it on entertainment and consumption? What have we actually produced with our work and life? Will we be proud in twenty years with our life’s body of work?
“The future of humanity passes by way of the family.”
“Sears looked at this idyllic scene of [multigenerational] families living in harmony and saw . . . a wasted opportunity. Why should newly-weds move into old homes filled with old things when they could move into new homes and fill them with new things from Sears?”
In the West, we plan for families to implode. We literally have mechanisms in place to make sure they fall apart. Our entire system is built on the view that family should self-destruct—if you can supersede your family and no longer “need” them, that’s a success story in America!
It is just absurd to spend decades building something and then purposely self-destruct it. Yet in families we do this all the time. It’s even considered a virtue!
In business, passing assets is seen in the opposite way. This is how you build really strong companies. Some of the strongest companies in the world have collected and built and expanded resources every generation. So why is it seen as a bad idea in families?
Here’s why: businesses still center themselves around mission, whereas modern families are built around consumption.
Do you really believe children are image bearers and conduits for blessing the world, or do you simply believe they are nice and fun yet inconsequential and actually stand in the way of the big things you want?
What gifts do you have that others are getting but your family isn’t?
They said, “Here is the rule.” He said, “Let’s look at the vision.”
In essence, God’s answer to the first problem in our story was a family.
Individuals’ freedom and proliferation and uninhabited ability to say and do and be anything they want is the ultimate value. It is, without question, the most important thing to the Western project.
Our culture falsely believes we can reach the utopia we are hoping for if only we can shake off any and all limits. Limits of lineage. Limits of team. Limits of corporate mission.
Because teams get in the way of me. Or as we’ve been saying about the nuclear family, even if we don’t think they get in our way, they most certainly should be about me. And making me happy.
But God himself is a team—have you ever realized that? That’s the mind-blowing, incredible, uniquely Christian truth that God is three persons in one.
The promise that started in the beginning and echoes all throughout Scripture is the promise to Abraham that through his family all the nations of the world will be blessed. Then through Israel (a big family), which apexes on Jesus (the ultimate Son) as he unleashes the church (the family of God).
Notice how not even once were we told to just bow down and worship God via song for our entire lives.
Worship at the beginning of the Bible primarily was centered around the job God gave us. Our job was to make, cultivate, create, build, steward, and tame.
God absolutely wants to heal all the trauma and brokenness and pain and shards of metaphorical glass stuck in your soul when you think about the word family. But it won’t be instant—it is more like planting an acorn that we are called to water and faithfully tend to, knowing our children’s children might be the first ones to stand under its shade—and that it is worth the work.
“Growth should look on the screen as hard as it feels.”
clubs are primarily about the individual, but teams are primarily about the group.
Clubs are about shared belonging and shared activity, but teams are about shared identity and shared mission.
“Jeff, this is baseball. It’s a game. But how you respond to a bad game is all of life. I believe in you and want to see you make adjustments for this next game. Bad games happen, but your choice is how you will adjust and respond.”
We are inherently built and wired for teams, and yet the West and our modern society inherently and systematically bake it out of us the older we get. The goal of the West is to never need each other.
Because of my personality, I started researching like crazy. That’s just how I work. When presented with a challenge, information is security for me. I want to know all the research, all the data, all the tips.
We are not meant to survive alone but to thrive—to flourish and serve and depend on one another in a beautiful dance of mutuality.
It’s almost as if the toxic underlying belief in American families is that we want to not need each other. We actually train our kids to live with no dependency. How on earth is that honorable or commendable?
Can I just say I hate the “my job is to provide” train of thought? I don’t think there’s been a more destructive lie to Christian fatherhood than the idea of “my job is to provide.” Because at least anecdotally, what I’ve noticed is that this phrase is essentially code for “I make sure the kids are fed and there is a roof over everyone’s head and the bills are paid, so I don’t need to do anything else.”
“Providing” has become more often than not an excuse to not be present, coach your kids, be close to their hearts, mentor them, or play with them.
Provide in Western culture means to provide money. But what we really need to provide is presence, grace, gentleness, compassion, leadership, and more.
Do you study your players? Are you actively taking your family somewhere? Do you have a plan and a vision for your family’s future? Do you come alongside them?
What’s their role on the team? How are they wired or gifted? How or where do they need the most support? What activities do we need to prioritize for them to flourish? What is the best way to spend one-on-one time with them? When do they come most alive?
Pentland meticulously laid out five distinct traits that top performing teams all have in common. Everyone on the team talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short and sweet. Members face one another, and their conversations and gestures are energetic. Members connect directly with one another—not just with the team leader. Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team. Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back.6
“You two are siblings, not enemies. God gave you each other to be a constant friend, provider, and teammate for life that will outlast even the relationship you have with us parents!”
Sibling relationships are the one relationship that statistically will be the longest relationship you have!
What is our mission? What is important to us? Why are we here? Why do we exist? What differentiates us from others?
What is different about our marriage? What other marriages do you really respect? Why? What is important to our marriage? What kind of marriage do we want to have? If others talk about our marriage, what do we want to be known for?
You see this a lot in homeschool and church communities, where, sadly, making a cute, nice, perfect moral family becomes the goal instead of reigning and ruling and building and bringing God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven through your family’s talents and wirings and giftings.
We were created for grandeur and adventure and mission and huge vision, not making sure our kids say please and thank you and are liked by everyone in the church.
Now, one caveat I’d add: in the early years (think toddler and elementary years) it can look like the family is the mission, when instead it’s just what we call a “training season.” Meaning, during the first five to seven years, it is really helpful to not be running “on mission.” The team needs to be built and trained and cohesive and powerful relationally first.
