Letter from Christian Education and Nurture

	Elsie Rempel

Dear Families in Mennonite Church Canada,

In the process of becoming familiar with the terrain of my new position here at Mennonite Church Canada, I have been reading books, from our Resource Centre, about what it means to be a Christian family. Thinking about this topic has sent me on guilt trips in the past, feeling that my family life is surely not Christian or perfect enough, and that as its mother, much of this must be my fault.

What a relief it was to read Marjorie J. Thompson's book, Family - the Forming Center, by Upper Room books, Nashville, Tennessee, 1996. Her stories showed me that my guilt feelings are not unique; that many of us feel we need to 'dress up our families' for church. At the same time, it reassured me that God has been present in my family in many ways as we 'expressed respect and care for each other in the mundane, repetitious routines, and daily stresses of our life together'. She shows that family life is a sacred place where we learn to reflect God's love and forgiveness and to challenge each other to faithful growth. It also put the present situation, where many of us feel unqualified to nurture the faith of our children explicitly, into a helpful historical context.

Thompson's book encouraged me to look for God's presence in the smiles and tears of family members, as well as in the breakthroughs of understanding that come as its members quarrel. She also suggests ways of becoming more deliberate about the Christian Formation that happens in our families. She recommends simple structures, symbols and rituals as important means of growth. She includes practical suggestions of how to reintroduce prayer, Bible study and domestic celebrations that can change holidays back into Holy days. These suggestions need to be adapted to fit the unique and changing natures of our families and homes. She recognizes that we do not all have two children, drive a station wagon, and live in the suburbs with a pet.

The book works with this common sense definition of family, attributed to Craig Dykstra: "Family is that group of persons with whom we are linked as parents or children or siblings or spouses or kin, by birth, by adoption, or by marriage." Households or homes are seen as the places where we live, alone, or together with family or friends.

Our homes and families are subject to many stresses. That is part of being human. Our family's dysfunction in both big and small ways, while unique to us, is acceptable to God. God has chosen what is weak to accomplish a mission many times before, and wants to do so with our families today. Only as we learn to stop hiding our needs from the church and our wounds from God, can our congregations become places of healing and hope for all the families who gather to worship.

The church can help us in this process. It can encourage families as places of blessed and significant identity. Even a weakened family, says Thompson, is a "living cell in the body of Christ with a mission and purpose only it has the gifts to fulfill." Families who cherish faith are imperfect, broken vessels. "Their members become frail instruments to one another and to those beyond the family circle, for such growth in wisdom and grace as God ordains."

As your family faces the joys and stresses of life, and as you respect and care for each other this fall, may you embrace the sacredness of your family as a sacred place where God is present to and through you to each other, to your congregation, across your street and around the world.

Find and develop ways of expressing that sacred reality. Celebrate your own unique family this fall and be prepared for God's surprises in your midst.

Cordially,
Elsie Rempel
Director, Christian Education and Nurture
Mennonite Church Canada Formation