Family???

I've been cruising through churches, looking for a temporary home for some level of fellowship while I also look at building redemptive community, something that anyone I've come across who's attempted it says is very hard and it takes a fight to achieve.

The one I went to this morning on a trial basis would have been funny if it weren't sad.

They sang for 45 minutes (!) before the sermon, which was mercifully short. It was about fellowship. The guy's talking about the need for it, and that we all desire family. That we are family. When he talked of this church as being a family, I almost fell out of my chair. At the same time, it was like a revelation.

You see, we just spent 45 minutes staring at the back of the heads of people in front of us. Then these envelopes were passed out as he made announcements, and then buckets went around for collecting the envelopes -- the offering. And then we listen to him speak, a monologue, for a few minutes, otherwise staring at the back of heads of those in front of us.

Does that sound like a typical family Sunday get together to you? While I grew up far from extended family, the exception was until I was about five. Until I was about five or six, my maternal grandparents and three of their adult kids lived nearby. So pretty much every Sunday at lunch we went to the grandparents house with the eight adults (all kids married) and by the time I was five there were six of us grandkids. Sometimes the bachelor uncle from Baton Rouge drove up for the weekend and joined us. Even though one of my uncles was a preacher, we never sat in the position of staring at each other heads, doing something besides talking to and with each other.

Church "family"? Most are not like even disfunctional families I know.