Family is all

This is a republish of an old blog post…

Like many recently, I’ve been watching Breaking Bad. It is a brilliantly produced show, yet I still can’t work out if I really like it or not, but I keep coming back for more. I am currently on season 4, so please no spoilers.

There have been several scenes from Breaking Bad that have struck me so far and I want to share about one (minor-storyline related for spoiler concerns).

For those of you who haven’t seen Breaking Bad, it is about a chemistry teacher, Walter White, who is diagnosed with cancer, and wanting to provide for his family after he has gone he goes into “cooking” meth-amphetamine (crystal meth) and selling the drug to make money.

Along the way Mr White makes several enemies, including twin brothers Leonel and Marco Salamanca. These hit-men are fiercely loyal to each other and their family. When they feel that their family is wronged by Mr White they look to make amends. In one of the opening scenes of an episode in season 3 we learn how they come to understand the importance of family through a rather unconventional teaching method of their uncle.

Click here to watch the clip (warning: the scene contains images that some may find distressing).

Family is all

That’s powerful

And it got me thinking

Church is more than an event, church is more than meetings. Church is even more than a group of people who believe the same stuff meeting together in one place.

Church is family.

This is why I love the church. This is why I do what I do.

I don’t love meetings. I don’t love putting chairs out. I don’t love sending emails.

I love my family. I love my brothers and sisters with whom I share the highs and the lows of life. I love my brothers and sisters with whom we stick with each other through thick and thin.

And loving them may look like being at church an hour or two earlier to make sure things are set up. It may look like listening to challenges that someone is going through and that I, honestly, have no idea what to say. These things are part of loving them.

Paul instructs this lifestyle “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus”

May we reject the notion of iChurch; where I come to get something from God for me. God has a bigger plan than that. In fact, it’s a much better plan where each of us loves and serves one another sacrificially, putting others ahead of ourselves.

God has made everyone unique, with their individual style of humour, their personality, and for some reason God has adopted us, by paying such a high price through the cross of Christ, into this crazy worldwide family that we call the church.

My brothers and sisters may let me down or break my stuff, like in the scene from Breaking Bad, but at the end of the day I love them and they love me and therefore when tough times come we’ll come through standing side by side. There is something deeper than friendship going on there.

The challenge remains is this – How far are you willing to go for others? Are you willing to lay your life down for them, as Jesus did for us?