Back to Basics: A Home for Your Family

Did you know that Fellowship Coffee is one of the Great Ends of the Church? And, I would argue, so is Potluck and Wednesday Night Dinner, receptions and parties,…the Farmington family is known for its fellowship. And as much as is made of the food, which is good, we love our fellowship times because of the relationships that are developed here, the ways our lives are knit together and we care about one another. The hugs we give and get! Did you know that a person needs 4 hugs a day for survival? 8 for general maintenance, and 12 hugs a day for growth! That is why this time in the life of our church is so difficult!

We must reimagine how we continue the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God. As tempting as it is to start throwing out ideas and to ask you to share ideas in the chat, it is first important that we know why this is one of our purposes.

The church is the household of God; we are the home for God’s family. Often when talking about Farmington, we use the phrase, “A home for your family with a heart for God’s world.” And if you notice, sometimes I say “A home for God’s family with a heart for God’s world.” That “your” has a double meaning. The Farmington family is a home for your family, for you and your children and your grandchildren, and for several families of Farmington your great-grandchildren. And the Farmington family is also a home for God’s family – Christ adopted us all as brothers and sisters. I love the way William Barclay described the church, it “is not a collection of acquaintances; it is not even a gathering of friends; it is a family in God.”

We are living as brothers and sisters as a community at the point in history between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gathering of the great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. This point in history has been longer than Paul ever imagined when he told the church Philippi that they were “a colony of heaven.”

In this time, we are an outpost of the Kingdom of God. We are to live together in the way that God Wills, and that way, Paul wrote to the church at Rome is to love each other well, to really know each other, no façade, no pretense, we are to just be real with each other. Loving each other well means putting others before ourselves, sharing what we have, all working hard and living faithfully. It means celebrating together, mourning together. Blessing one another and not cursing, forgiving and not seeking revenge. It means working toward unity, and living in harmony with one another.

In other letters, Paul says we are the body of Christ in the world. Not we are to be like the body of Christ in the world, not we are to act like Christ in the world…we are the Body of Christ in the world. We, united. No one of us is the whole body; we each are members of the body; we are only the body together. Jesus prayed for all believers to be one, so that the world would know that God sent him and understand that God loves them as much as God loves Jesus.

And yet, we are different. We have different gifts, different experiences, different insights to share, and we are called to share them and be real, and value unity in diversity as we value the members of a body. Your eye isn’t expected to hear and your ear isn’t expected to see. And yet, they work together. So it is in the church. We are called to be a diverse unity. Rev. Rick Kirchoff, with whom I worked for many years, used to say we are called to “Unity without Uniformity.”

A community that lives like this is a colony of heaven, an outpost of the Kingdom of God, a home for God’s family. Our purpose is the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God because God’s children need a home.

I was reading the book, “Loving My Actual Neighbor” this week, and at one point it seemed to be so relevant to all we are experiencing as we live through this pandemic that I turned back to find the date it was published. It was actually published in April of 2019, but as we know, major events like pandemics speed the cultural shifts that were already taking place. The book observed that “We find ourselves in unique times characterized by words like polarization, isolation, and conflict…Though we are more connected to the world through information than ever before, the need for increased face-to-face interaction is evident….According to the Pew Research Center, about half of Americans have weekly interactions with their neighbors, which means half of us don’t. A survey by AARP found about 1/3 of respondents over the age of 45 are lonely.”

We were made for relationship. We are created with a hunger for connection. Nurture is critical for babies’ brain development. Babies who are not held and hugged can stop growing and, if it lasts long enough, they will die. We do not grow out of that need.

Anne Lamott tells about a little girl who got lost one day. She was 7 years old, at first she was calm, she walked up and down street after street, looking for landmarks, but nothing looked familiar. The longer she looked, the more desperate she got; finally, a policeman noticed her and pulled over. He invited her to sit “in the passenger seat of his car and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to [him], and then she told him firmly, ‘You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”
Our purpose is the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God because God’s children need a home.

So, one of my prayers during this pandemic has been, “How will we continue to be a home for your family, God?” How will you continue to be connected? Just because we are living through a pandemic, just because we are socially distancing and wearing masks, we haven’t been rewired. Online worship is safer for now, and it some of the benefits long-term are that it is available anytime and anywhere, and it is easy to share with friends and family. We have folks who are worshiping with us regularly from all over the country. How will we be family to one another?

I believe we are going to have to be intentional. To reach out and be known. To log into the Zoom Fellowship Coffee. To set up Zoom gatherings and just socialize over Zoom – some folks in the church have already started doing this! If you haven’t learned to Zoom yet and you have internet access, we are going to teach you.

But all the Zoom in the world will not make up for being together in person whenever we are able to gather outside. When we are able to reach out personally to one another, and certainly we all look forward to the day we are able to hug once again. In the meantime, cross your arms across your body and squeeze…it actually releases oxytocin, which can lower your blood pressure, slow your heart rate and improve your mood .

Why? Why would I tell you to do this? Because you are God’s child, and you are loved, and you have a home with shelter and nurture and spiritual fellowship in the Farmington family. Amen.