Building the best relationship with your spouse and kids…

If you want to have the very best relationship with your family, how do you go about it?
Well, first of all, don’t live with them. Go somewhere else, to a community with an events center.
Go to the community building once a week, and a mature neighbor will tell you all about your family. You will want to arrive early, though, because they have a coffee shop at the events center. Some communities offer free drinks, and some charge for the drinks, so choose wisely where you will live.
You can spend a bit of time saying hello to other neighbors who also came to hear about their families. You should smile quite a bit while doing this, regardless of how you are feeling.  At the appropriate time, you should go and sit down. There will be songs, which is kind of fun and gets you in the mood to hear about your spouse and kids.
When the songs are finished, your most mature neighbor will get up and tell you all about your family, if he feels like it. Sometimes he will talk more about himself than your family, but that is ok, because he is mature and very smart, and he might even have a degree. He will know what you need to hear.
At the end of hearing about your family (or about other things he decides to tell you), you will be expected to give him 10% of your income (pre-tax income, of course). Now, that might sound a bit demanding, but it IS for your family. If you don’t give at least 10% of your income, you are STEALING from your family, and your kids will suffer. None of us want that…
The very mature neighbor will take your money, and the money of others, and he will pay the mortgage for the community center. He can’t tell you about your family without a building to sit in, right? And he’ll take some of that money and keep it for himself. He needs to feed his family and pay his own mortgage, right? He will also take some of your money and purchase a sound system, and a grand piano (maybe, depends on how many people come to hear about their families each week), and pay the utilities, and maybe he’ll share some of your money with the people who sing songs. And if there is money left over the very mature neighbor will take some of the money and send neighborhood children to summer camp (but not your kids, you probably have to pay for them to go).
Now, if you REALLY want to have a great relationship with your family, you’ll come to hear about them on Wednesday night too. And if you REALLY, REALLY want to have the best relationship with your family, you’ll volunteer to work in the coffee shop, or come in the evenings and clean the community center, or you’ll volunteer to stand near the coffee shop and say hi to other people coming to hear about their families…
Keep in mind, you will not actually get to speak with your spouse or children, but you get to hear about them pretty frequently, depending on how dedicated you are. And maybe your very mature neighbor will tell you the truth about your family, and maybe sometimes he will make stuff up. Or he might be making stuff up, even though he believes he has accurate facts…

Is this how you want to establish a relationship with the most important people in your life? Absolutely not; this is absurd. So why would you want to use this model to define your relationship with God?
The mainstream church has developed a model where we come each week (typically on the wrong day), maybe more than once a week for the go-getters, and one man will tell us all about God. This one man will know exactly what we need to hear, and he will use his education and special skills to make sure we hear exactly what God wants us to hear. Songs will be sung, pot-lucks will be had, and many of the kids will get to go to camp for free. The building will get paid for, but in times of trouble, there will be special-giving opportunities to make ends meet. If you truly love God, you’ll do your part…

Now don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying you won’t find nice people doing some nice things at church. You absolutely will. If this ‘system’ works for you, then I’m guessing my words above are irritating, or even offensive.

But if you are thinking there must be more to knowing God, there is another way. Break free of the spoon-fed baby food, and open your bible. Go to James 1:5-8 and read that.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Remember what you learned in James 1:5-8 each time you study your bible. God will open your eyes and your ears, and you will learn and understand much. As you draw close to God through study and prayer, He will draw close to you. You will find in a short time that you actually know who God is, and what it feels like to be in relationship with Him. Give it a try. What can it hurt?
Can you still donate money to God? Of course you can. But instead of paying for the church to own a commercial property, or to buy new carpet and padded chairs, look around you. Every single day of your life, you will have opportunities to serve God. Not by donating to a church business, but by loving the people around you. Do you see that single mom at the grocery store putting some things back, trying to get her total bill down to how much money she has? Feel free to intervene and help her with her groceries that week. Do you notice your elderly neighbor who doesn’t get out much? Stop and see if they need something. Do you see a friend of a friend who had an unexpected tragedy in their life? Pop open their go-fund-me page and make an anonymous donation. God will cross your path every single day with people you can love on. Sometimes they are total strangers and sometimes they are friends, family, and neighbors. But trust me, they are everywhere. You can’t miss them if you are watching for them.

If you are struggling with church, thinking “there must be more to this”, try what I’ve suggested. Try it for one day, one week, one month. Whatever you choose… I think it will change your life.
If you love your church and the people in it, and you are having a great experience in church, please don’t take my comments here as an offense.
There are many people who are not having a great experience in church, and this is for them.