Familywise: distinctive family life in ‘broken Britain’

You can download a pdf of this article here

Christian parents have a tough assignment: to teach their children to love the Lord in a world that strives to squeeze them into its mould. One parent, or two, how do we raise kinds in a community that is broken? We are going to take a look at the basics and how we can get them right.

My mother has been researching our family history recently and we have been surprised by the number of couples in our family tree that were not married, or waited until they had a couple of children before they got married. I had always thought that everyone was very moral in the past and that the ‘decline in standards’ is something that happened in the 1960’s. Not at all! We have an expectation that families will be ‘normal’ but for centuries this has not been the case – in the past people hid their irregular family arrangements, today they are out in the open.

The folk-memory of perfect families and the pressure of Christian teaching can leave us feeling inadequate – today we are going to talk about reality!

The life cycle of a child [1]

Stretched! (childhood) : Your child is totally dependent, and needs physical and emotional security. Parents have to set boundaries from the start and show unconditional love. You also need to model a healthy relationship between yourselves. Goal – to enjoy each new challenge. And make the most of the dependence! At this stage you are a Hero in your child’s eyes!

Strained! (teenager) : Children become increasingly independent, but a lot less mature than they think. You are an embarrassment, and they think they can get along fine without you – but they can’t: in fact, they need you just as much. As a couple you are both busy – your career is demanding and time together – time to talk – is scarce. You need to continue to show unconditional love, to meet their emotional and physical needs and to set boundaries. You need to find ways of being together even though this is challenging. It is a good time to help them to learn how to contribute and give something back to the family. Goal - build a friendship, have some fun. At this stage, your child probably thinks you are an embarrassment but remember, you are still a Hero even if they don’t think so!

Skint! (leaving home – or not, as is increasingly the case)/ : Quite independent but still need you to be there, and not just to send more money! You need to allow them to be independent, and to learn (just as you once had to learn) by your mistakes. But some children won’t leave home: they live with you, but don’t necessarily live by your rules. Goal - remember you are occasionally a Hero in their eyes, especially when you send money! Keep the lines of communication open. Try to make visits home memorable.

Severed (getting married) : Your ‘child’s’ independence must now be complete and you must resist the temptation to control or interfere. Err on the side of letting them get on with it and avoiding questions like, “When are you thinking of having children?” Goal – to enjoy the space, and your own marriage, maximise on the visits!

It is not given to you or I to control or even predict how our children will turn out: all that God asks us to do is to get the basics right, as much as we can; after that everything is up to the sovereignty of God and the freewill of the child.

So what are the basics?

It is not good to do it alone

There is a famous moment in the history of the human race when God looks at Adam and says “It is not good for man to be alone” [2] . The result was the creation of Woman and the first marriage, but think about the verse in its broadest sense and it holds true for everyone, married or not: is not good to attempt to do life all alone.

If you are married, your relationship is the biggest asset your family have got, it is the rock on which everything else rests. So the first basic is that you must nurture your marriage and give each other the time you need to be as close as you can get. Everything else flows from this. So feed your marriage:

Emotional food : quality time and thoughtful presents, treat your partner as someone special.

Spiritual food : read things together, read about marriage and freshen up your relationship, talk and pray together.

But what if you are not married or your marriage is broken? The same principle applies, but in a different way, you need to build a community around yourself that will give you the support you need in good times and bad. So encourage your family to get involved, don’t keep them at a distance (some of us have a desire to let others see how well we are doing without help from anyone – does this strike you as foolish?). If family are miles away then get as close as you can to those people in your neighbourhood who are able to support you – building a community of people around you is important. Lone parents tend to spend a lot of time with the parents of their children’s friends – this is not a bad place to start.

But Christians and their friends have a head start on others: this is how Psalm 68:4-6 describes it:

Sing to God, sing praise to his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds
his name is the LORD
and rejoice before him.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families,
he leads forth the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Where it says widows think lone parents: God’s response is to “set the lonely in families” – this is what the church is meant to do: church leaders, what are you doing for single parents to make sure they are not alone? Are there some single parents in your church capable of pulling a group together to support one-another?

Be in the world but not of the world

Christians have an uneasy relationship with the secular culture we live in and parents are often unsure how to teach their children to avoid its temptations (it is not just Christian parents who worry about this). Our instincts drive us in different directions:

Reject the culture : keep the children as isolated as possible – only socialise within approved church circles, reject state education in favour of Christian schools or home schooling, remain aloof from art and entertainment.

Embrace the culture : recognise that the dam has broken and there is no possibility of protecting children from the surrounding culture, draw few boundaries and trust that everything will work out OK.

Subvert [3] the culture : do not disengage from the culture but be involved, do something better but do not simply go along with everything our culture does – we are involved in order to subvert the culture, to transform it and teach our children to do the same.

Here is what God calls his exiled people to do:

Jeremiah 29:1-14

It is radical and subversive advice: do not isolate your family from the world (the world will get them anyway!) but be involved and active in society. But do not just accept what the world does as inevitable, undermine it, challenge it, discuss it, think of satisfying alternatives to the things they do.

Live in the world but do not be defined by it. Some ideas:

  • Talk about everything with your kids from an early age, always be asking the question, “What do you think of that?”
  • Get involved in what your children are doing: be a parent governor at their school, train as a lifeguard and help run their swimming club, help run a school club or the scouts. Go on the school visit to the Mosque or the Hindu tample. Talk about it afterwards.
  • Pray with other parents and those with a genuine concern for children.
  • Pray with your children and for them as they grow.
  • Read with them and to them. Harry Potter was a controversial book that lots of church children have to read – you have a choice: make your children conspicuous by refusing to allow them to read it, or be in the world but not of it: read it with them!

Be a collector of good days

The average child spends as much as 35 hours a week watching a screen but only 35 minutes a week talking to his or her father. And we've invented a form of self deception by calling this 'quality time', as if somehow you can cram 30 minutes of love into 3. If our average life expectancy were reduced by 90 per cent would we call that quality time? [4]

Most organisations have a vision statement. Maybe the most famous one is that adopted by Bill Gates back in the late 70’s when few people had ever seen a computer: “A personal computer on every desk in every office”. Way back then, Gates could see it and he made it happen!

I am not suggesting that you have a family vision statement but I am suggesting that you see pictures – the pictures in your family album twenty years from now – and set out to make them happen.

There is a lot of routine in family life – set out to make good days happen. These can be ordinary days when you do the usual things but do them together and have a great time, or finish with something special like a meal at a cheap restaurant and a walk in the park.

But you must plan good days and make them happen:

Like the day that Jonny and I met the world champion fisherman and then went on to catch more fish than anyone else at the canal.

The day Emma and I learned to surf and the look on her face as she realised that she could do something that I could not do; something I would never be able to do!

You need good days to remember together, you need good days to put in your photograph album. You need good days in the last few weeks of your life; something to remember together when your family visit you knowing that you will not be with them for much longer.

Become a collector of good days.

Of course, my kids turned out perfectly, me being a pastor who does talks about families and all. ... er, no!  They are just the same as yours, or anyone else's.

Which brings us to the next great principle…

Let grace be the principle that steers your family

The most famous story in Jesus repertoire of parables is that of the lost son. A boy leaves home, squanders his dad’s wealth and returns home destitute and desperate. The father receives him back immediately, but the elder brother is outraged at his dad’s generosity and there is a scene outside the party that you hope the younger brother never witnessed, the older boy giving his dad a piece of his mind.

Luke 15:28-32

Why did Jesus spoil this story with the bit about the elder brother – why couldn’t he leave that part out? Clearly this son had not had as many good days in his photo album as he would have liked. But this story is not about family dynamics; it is about the grace of God. Read the older son’s words and you feel for him because he is right, he is right!

This is the point: When God forgives, it is outrageously kind and generous – offensively full of compassion for his children. This is him…

Psalm 103:8-17

Now if God shown such grace to us, that is our model for the graciousness we show to others, and especially to our children. If we get it right then we may, occasionally, get from some of our family the kind of reaction that the father in the story got from his older son. The principle of grace means that we should be outrageously compassionate.

I learned this from my mam who became a Christian recently but who has been a model of this all her life. My dad left home and moved in with another woman when I was at university. Naturally, my mother was shattered and deeply hurt – this would have been the time for her to use us kids as a weapon to get back at him. Certainly, that is what we all felt – along with my brother and sister, I wanted nothing to do with him. But it was my mother who challenged us, “He is still your father”, she said, “You have to do everything you can to have a good relationship with him”. That is graciousness; this is what Christ told us to do.

We don’t know how our kids are going to turn out. But we have made a decision together; whatever happens in their lives there will always be two Christian people who stand absolutely solidly there for them, that we will never turn them away and we will never let them down.

Grace: here’s a few ideas:

  • Always listen – especially when you don’t want to.
  • If you are wrong say you are sorry; if you are right, shut up
  • People are most in need of love when they are least lovable
  • You are not perfect: you will only ever be ‘good enough’
  • Your kids will never be perfect
  • That family you think is perfect – well they’re not perfect either.
  • Never shout at your kids unless you are on fire.
  • Every time you have a crisis, have a party soon after

Making music with what remains

The New Testament puts great store in building with the right materials: gold silver or precious stones. Of course, you could choose wood, hay and stubble – it is quick and easy but the results are flaky to say the least.

  • Build with a community
  • Be distinctively Christian without being weird
  • Show your love by giving time – collect good days
  • From their earliest moments let your kids see that you will always love them no matter what.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had perfect families? Maybe, but that is not the kind of world we live in, our world is broken. This is what we are called to do…

Yitzhak Perlman , one of the world’s greatest violinists, contracted polio at the age of 4. Ever since, he’s had to wear metal braces on his legs and walk with crutches. Once when he was giving a concert, a string on his violin broke. Instead of calling for a new violin he continued to play on three strings. When the concerto was over, the audience gave him an ovation and called on him to speak. He did. He said one sentence that everyone there knew referred not only to the broken string but to his disability and much else that is broken in this world. He said: “It’s our task to make music with what remains.” [5]

Broken family, broken hopes, broken dreams? Make music with what remains.


[1] This section is adapted from The Marriage Course by Nicky and Sila Lee

[2] Genesis 2:18

[3] Subvert – 1. To bring about the downfall or ruin of something. 2. To undermine the moral principles of a person. From the Latin, subvetere – to overturn.

[4] This is from a Thought for the Day, by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs, BBC Radio 4, 18th April 2008

[5] I heard this story in a Thought For the Day by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs, on BBC Radio 4, 15th December 2006