Family Life Practices |
Our Monthly Family Life Feature
|
Each month we will explore, experience, and practice an important family asset that can enrich your family relationships and build a stronger family.
Join us for our MONTHLY FAMILY GATHERINGS on the first Sunday of each month after Sunday worship. This will be a time to explore and experience the monthly theme and learn how to practice it at home. Use the resource that accompanies each month's theme for PRACTICE @HOME. Each resource includes stories, Biblical reflections, and family activities. |
January: The Family Meal
|
Are you eating well? I don’t mean having enough food. For most, but not all, Americans the problem is not finding enough food; it is eating well. By eating well we mean the whole experience of eating: purchasing and preparing the healthy, nutritious food, sharing the food and enjoying the relationships around the table, giving thanks for the food, and so on. We all know what eating well entails because we have memories of eating well—gatherings of family and friends at special times of the year, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or for important occasions like a wedding, a fortieth birthday party, a quinciñera, a twenty-fifth anniversary, a school graduation. Yet when we think about our daily experience of eating, most of us would not say we are “eating well.” What’s missing? What are we really hungry for?
|
February: Forgiveness
|
How could families ever teach life’s lessons to each other without the rich and powerful intimacy of forgiveness and healing? What does it mean to be family and what does it mean to live in relationship with others? So many of our life lessons are learned from how we forgive—our efforts to resolve and repair the errors we’ve made along the way. Without the opportunity for healing and a second chance (or third or thirtieth chance), we would all soon be estranged from each other and doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
|
March: Managing Household Life
|
It wasn't so long ago that the home was the center of our lives and society. A lot has changed in the past fifty or sixty years. Today, managing our household life seems to have gotten lost in the sea of other commitments and activities outside the home. Yet, each of us hungers for the stability of a home life that gives our lives order and nutures loving relationships.
|
April: Celebrating Rituals and Milestones
|
Life is meant to be celebrated in all its many forms. In the broadest sense, every moment of life is an opportunity for celebration. Certainly, the big moments—a birth, graduation, a promotion, becoming a citizen, retirement, anniversaries—are all times we are accustomed to celebrate. Even the end of life is an opportunity to celebrate, as we take time to be grateful for the life of the one who has died, recognizing how that person graced our lives with their presence and fulfilled a special purpose in the world. We celebrate life through rituals—be they simple or more involved. Some rituals occur daily—in the morning, before and after meals, or at bedtime—while others come along weekly, yearly, or once in a lifetime. Rituals celebrate special days, such as Christmas and birthdays, as well as the more routine times in life. They celebrate life as well as loss.
|
May: Participating in Community
|
Looking for a community to belong to? We all are; no one really wants to be alone. But when it comes to belonging to and participating in a community, we’re confused. Do we have time to become involved in a community? What type of community? How can we find ways to participate meaningfully in our church, our civic community, and our world?
|
