God's Family? Hardly.

For the last few months, I've been fascinated with the idea of taking our youth ministry into a new direction. I feel like too often times, our ministries become too closely associated with who is in charge, who is involved, or what is going on, instead of focusing on God.

This is not a slam on any parents here in Guntersville. I have some of the best parents to work with that a minister could ask for. The problem is, just like with the rest of America, that time is a precious commodity that not too many families possess.

When I was a child, my father, my mother, my brother, and my sister and I always ate breakfast together during the school year, and on Sundays. We ate dinner together probably 99% of the time. It was important. Even if nothing was said, we were there together.

A recent Cornell University study revealed that fathers in America, on average, only spend 37 seconds a day with their children. I know part of that takes into consideration the deadbeat dads that want nothing to do with a family, but a lot of that is because of how much we work in our society.

A typical family of four now a days all wake up at a different time. They may or may not even eat breakfast. Dad goes to work, mom usually goes to work, kids may catch two different school buses or two different car pools to school, or they may drive separately. The family is separated for at least 7 hours during the school day.

After that, kids may come home, or have extra curricular activities at school to practice for, and may not make it home till 5 or so. Regardless, parents may not make it home till 5, so that's another 2 hours they are apart. Son goes to his room, daughter goes to her room to work on homework or play on the internet. Dinner may be together, but most often it is grab what you can before an evening activity, such as a ball game or practice for something. Parents are home just enough to sit down and get right back up.

They come home from an event, practice, etc, and separate at the door to go to their rooms to get ready for bed, or finish (or start) on their homework. Mom and dad are exhausted from work and other things during the day, and one may go to bed while the other goes to watch some tv and relax for a bit. They all may go to bed, before the whole process starts again. In this model, the families are together for about one, maybe 2 hours a day.

So enter Wednesday nights, what can we do to make our families more involved together on Wednesday nights? I fully believe if we offer a family based ministry instead of the typical youth group model, that it will fundamentally change our families and how they interact with each other. The sad thing is that most families don't have family devotionals, pray together, open up the Bible and read together, or other spiritual activities.

Maybe its time when we come to church as God's family, to have an opportunity for our families to get together every now and then. Maybe have a class where families can meet together, and gain strength and support from each other.

More thoughts on this to follow.