Challenges the We Are Family The Changing Face of Family Ministry Report lays down for Local Preachers

A new report We Are Family: The Changing Face of Family Ministry by Gail Adcock, Karen Garry and Polly Goodwin has been recently published. It was a report commissioned by the Methodist Church and Consultative Group on Ministry Amongst Children. It is an interesting report which is strongly rooted on exploring what is happening on the ground ecumenically, and within Methodist Churches more specifically.

There are a range of directions I could take writing about this report and initially I was going to review it in detail. However, the more I read the clearer it became that this report has something really important to say to those of us who are worship leaders and local preachers and I want to flag this up, encouraging others to read and think about the challenges it lays down. A visually attractive, easy to read summary of the report is available as well as the more in depth report.

The first thing is it underlines something we already know that family types in the UK are changing. The report makes the point that we need to take this on practically as well as intellectually. The one question which respondents gave 100% affirmation the one which related to having single parents amongst those they were working with. That means every single families worker spoken to has single parents amongst those they are working with.

A sizeable number also had same sex couples within those within the contexts they were practitioners in. Although there was not the same level of certainty on this question.

Cohabiting couples are also going to be increasingly part of the two parent heterosexual couples being worked with, as the report highlighted.

A number of children were also adopted or in care.

Another aspect which was drawn out is something which is not new but needs to be recognised, many people come to church with grandparents or others who are not their parents.

The families workers spoken to were primarily working with families who had children aged under 11. This crossed over with the fact many were involved in Messy Church initiatives which as recent Church Army research has shown is likely to be lay-lay led, i.e. led by lay people who have no formal training or authorisation of role beyond being given responsibility locally for this work.

So what has all this got to do with local preachers and worship leaders?

Well I want to argue quite a lot.

1.    If you are asked to lead a children’s, all age or family service what definition of family do you have in mind?

“What do we mean by family?” is something the report indicated draws a wide range of responses from both individuals and the churches they are working in. Being asked to do a family service in the modern context needs reflection upon what do we mean by family and who is likely to be there. The answers need to be wider than those we might feel used to working with.

2.    What terms do you use within worship and particularly to children with regards to the adults who are with them?

We have now moved on to using parents or carers as terms, being sensitive to looked after children. Yet, if we know the congregations we are working with we use the more specific terms. I want to ask how often we include the grandparents who may often bring them?

3.    What impact might these findings have on our leading of Mothering Sunday or Father’s Day services?

There might be differences between what has traditionally been done and what is actually contextually appropriate. The worship leader or preacher should be able to reflect on this and work out how to incorporate tradition in a more appropriate way. This may involve looking at different cultural contexts and understandings of family as well as family types.

4.    What passages do we choose to use and how do we use them to talk about family?

Regular readers will know I get very up tight with the fact that we do not include the story of Hagar in the lectionary. Hers is the story of a single mother which I believe strongly we can use much more in white majority churches to talk into a range of situations linked to single parents.

5.    What is our understanding of intergenerational church & how does this impact our service planning, content of our preaching?

Many of our congregations may be predominantly older but they may contain a handful of young people too. Do we manage to embrace all or do we set them up against each other in terms of feeling that we cannot integrate material for all within one service? Similarly do we compartmentalise and so the first 15 mins is child friendly excluding the over 10’s and the rest is aimed at the over 70’s excluding the rest of the congregation? Or do we work so hard at incorporating new material from Singing the Faith which the 30-50 age group will probably be more familiar with that we end up excluding practically everybody? I exaggerate….but only slightly.

6.    How well do we know the contexts we are going to preach in?

The first part of this is a big problem for many preachers and goes beyond thinking about family ministry. Particularly if we have not been in the circuit long what do we know about the contexts we are going into and are we able to adapt what we are doing at short notice if we find out there are important things about the context we are not aware of already? How do we get the information which helps us to be contextually aware? I think this is where local preachers meetings can have a helpful role in where people can talk about the context of different churches to ensure people are aware.

 

7.    Do we ever talk to those engaged in families work to find how we might be able to assist them beyond the Sunday Service?

I ask this because we tend to think that as worship leaders and preachers we are being trained to fill slots on the Sunday plan. What about if we could be a resource to help families workers who are leading a range of other activities. Perhaps by working with them on short, bite size, culturally appropriate worship for the contexts they are working in.

Letter to Basemath (Gen 36)

Dear Basemath,

You interest me a lot. You were one of Ishmael’s daughters. Due to the genealogy of Esau we know is involved timewise and so I am not sure if that means you were from the tribe of Ishmael rather than an actual daughter of Ishmael. I suspect the former, although he could have impregnated your mother in his old age.

I have a soft spot for Ishmael and his mother Hagar. I guess knowing your own family story may have helped you have a great deal of sympathy for Esau and the way he’d been treated.

What was your relationship with God. I ask because I suspect it was an interesting one, knowing that Hagar, Ishmael’s mother had encountered God face to face when she initially fled Sarah, but that it was not the God of her own country. I suspect that you were very culturally mixed and that there was a lot of fusion going on in the community you lived in especially with the different backgrounds of the wives.

In many ways I suspect if we knew more about your day to day living it might help us understand a lot about multi-faith relations. Although I guess we would still struggle somewhat because just as you lived in a polygamous society and we live in one where monogamy is the norm so your society was probably much more polytheistic than ours where people of belief have been much more monotheistic. However, that is an interesting one because as secularisation occurs and spirituality rises we seem to be going back to that approach.

In many ways I find that mix and match culture much more comfortable and appealing myself. Yet, it raises a problem for me because much as I want to be a universalist it raises huge questions for me about why one of Jacob’s distant descendants Jesus then had to live and die if all roads can lead to heaven and we mix and match between beliefs.

What was your son Reuel like? Did you have daughters too? Their names aren’t mentioned. How old was he when you moved?

You seem to have a much clearer idea of when land was sustainable and when it wasn’t and moved accordingly. I find that really interesting because I live in a world where we are becoming more aware of sustainability issues and the issues that is causing. I think we need to examine much more what we need to use and how to deal with it when resources run out.

One of the problems for us is we live under a system called capitalism where consumption is the key aim in order to gain profit.

You had four grandchildren. Did you live long enough to see them? I wonder what the average age expectancy was in your time.

We have issues because we live in a culture where we believe in promoting living as long as you can even if there is not a good quality of life. I think we have lost a balance and now artificially keep people alive too long rather than embracing the natural process of aging and death. That is not to say I agree with the withdrawal of all medical treatment. I just think that we have a lot of people being encouraged to live longer than they may want to. I am in many ways glad my mother died at what is considered a young age these days but at what I think is a more natural age. That is controversial to say I know but it I see posters in the doctors promoting the idea you should seek as high a life expectancy as you can get and I think but I do not want to live past the point at which I can feel my life has quality. That is not to say I will be intentionally unhealthy or that I do not greave when people die way too early but I do think we need, as a society, to allow nature to take course more. 

Letter to Rachel's Midwife (Gen 35)

Dear Midwife,

We don’t know your name but we do know your occupation. You are another of the supporting cast members who would have witnessed so much on those journeys and have been intimately involved with the family, being their assisting them at the most precious of moments. I am guessing you would also have had status amongst the servants and wider community travelling with them.

When you all had to get rid of your foreign God’s was there a bit of an uproar? Did you personally have any? What was the significance of your earrings? Were these worn by both women and men or just by one group? I am guessing that there was some kind of ritual significance which is why they needed removing.

What was it like when you passed through the towns which the terror of God had fallen on? Were they visibly scared of you all and did this manifest itself as silent hostility or were people friendly?

I guess you had to work a lot of the time but it must have been difficult because death as well as life would have been part of your life.

I imagine Rachel and had seen her grow up. She was the best link with the past I think. Did you know Deborah well too? Did her death impact you personally too?

I want to think about it from your point of view. What was it like when Jacob changed his name to Israel. Did it take time to get used to it and how did he react when people got it wrong. Were they quietly reminded or chided for not getting it right? Did more people start using time like master?

One of the reasons I am interested is because I know a number of trans people. They change their names to but also their pronouns. People tend to find the change of name reasonably easy but the way they react to mistakes differs because it is so bound up with their identity.

Jacob’s change of name was different but it was still bound up with who he was and his relationship with God and so it is an identity thing.

Had you accompanied Rachel for long and when did you realise something awful was happening and that the mother was not going to make it? Did you have to make the difficult choice of concentrating on saving the baby or the mother? If so I am interested would you have made the same effort to save the child if it had been a girl rather than a boy? I just ask because I know in some cultures boys are valued much more than the girls and I wonder how much cultural aspects influenced your professional choices.

I can’t imagine Jacob’s distress? Did he blame you or did he understand what had happened? How did you break the news to him or did somebody else do it whilst you were looking after the baby?

Who then took responsibility for bringing the child up? Did Leah do it or did the responsibility pass to one of the concubines.

I struggle with the whole concubine thing. It seems as if these women were victims of abuse who were used as sex objects in many ways. Did Reuben rape Billhah or was it consensual? I suspect you may have known more than many because of the time you spent in close proximity to these women. How did they feel about their children as they gave birth? Was there any resentment of the circumstances in which they had been conceived?

I ask these questions because I suspect you would be able to answer them. Yet, your account of events is not recorded. I wish it were I expect it would be fascinating.

Letter to Dinah (Gen 34)

*Trigger warning - this post contains details some may find disturbing*

Dear Dinah,

You were a victim of rape, not the first in Genesis but the first where your violation is explicitly named as such rather than justified as the giving of a slave or servant to a man to act as a baby machine for him.

The language in the early part of the passage sums up the messed up way in which abusers talk on occasion. He rapes you and then says he loves you and talks tenderly to you.

This is classic abusive behaviour and has a contemporary ring to it.

You obviously felt the shame of everybody knowing what had happened and discussing it. It must have been awful for you, particularly in a culture where honour was everything.

With regard to your father’s view of the proposal given it seems that religious purity was more important than what had happened to you. I get that feeling through the circumcision.

The actions of your brothers is on one hand understandable but on the other highlights how these things spiral when revenge is taken.

The women and children who were taken were most probably abused too. This is awful too.

It seems that in different ways both your brothers and Shechem were expressing their masculinity and women suffered as a result.

I think this is a very contemporary problem which is the root of much oppression and pain in modern contemporary society too.

People talk about biblical values but the more I read of the bible it seemed that what was going on in the early chapters of Genesis is just as f*****d up as today and many of the same problems exist. This is one of the reasons why I think it is so important that we rediscover the bible and what it really says because we can use it to show how society continues to make the unacceptable mistakes of the past.

This chapter can be used to show that survivors are in the bible too & highlight the way in which abusers can use manipulative behaviour and that the response of revenge can cause more problems and suffering for women as a result.

(Another) Letter to Jacob (Gen 32 &33)

Dear Jacob,

I am writing again to you because I am interested in your wrestling with God and with your ongoing relationship with your brother who you have cheated out of your birthright.

As I write this I have in mind the description of you given by Peterson Toscano who has done work on gender variant characters in the bible and a performance he gives looking at yourself and Joseph given as in the person of Esau. That means I have a clear picture of you in my mind as a slightly effeminate but clearly virile man who has a very manly brother who would not necessarily been out of place in the American programmes such as Bonanza.

As I read through the account of you preparing to meet Esau again and your wrestling with God it strikes me you were scared and realised that if you stood a chance it had to be via strategy rather than strength. Yet your wrestling with God clearly shows that you did have strength too and were not as effeminate as descriptions of your upbringing might suggest.

Reading this and seeing the description of angels again I am getting even more convinced that angels are people.

Did you send some of the gifts initially just to buy safe passage or was it because you felt some guilt of the way you had cheated him out of safe passage. As I read it I cannot help but think of the way that people are condemned for paying traffickers for safe passage when they are desperate to get to freedom. In that situation if that is your only way to safety would you not take it? Whilst I do not support traffickers in any way I do not find what our government are doing in judging whether to allow migrants (who they do not regard as refugees) in on the basis partly of their income. I read your story and you are clearly not a refugee, but you are a migrant, one of many in this book of the Hebrew bible.

Did you worry that some big mistake in your strategy had occurred when you heard Esau was coming along with what was effectively an army? It made me think what strategies are the families who are currently seeking refuge in Europe taken when faced with military force against them?

The second set of gifts you send ahead of you to try and ensure peace were obviously not initially planned. I think it is interesting that via these gifts you are effectively put in the position of giving Esau something of what you stole from him back.

When you send your wives and female servants ahead of you it is interesting because it appears that at that stage you are not differentiating between any of the mothers of your children.

I wonder what it must have been like for you after you had sent everything on ahead of you. When you wrestled with God were you using the skills you had gained growing up with Esau as kids? I suspect you may have learnt how to wrestle reasonably for your own survival.

I find it interesting that God was trying to overpower you and in the end it was your hip which went, yet you still carried on and the man had to ask you to let him go.

How did you feel you when God told you your name would change? You were obviously scared having come face to face with God. I find that interesting that whilst it was you at the end of the fight who had the winning position you say God spared you. Was it the recognition that anything could have happened to you, yet you survived?

The limp is interesting because you are left disabled and in your society disability seems to be really negatively viewed. Yet, your disability and imperfection came to be celebrated. Is this the sign that disability can sometimes be part of a blessing from God? If so that confuddles my head somewhat on one level because we view disability so negatively, as your society did in many ways.

You must have been exhausted when you saw Esau coming. I find it interesting the way you ordered your children and their mothers. It seems there was a clear order of dispensability as far as you were concerned and it was to do with the mother of the child rather than their age.

You must have been surprised by Esau’s reaction. It seemed that Esau wanted to be positive and protect you but you did not want to accept anything from Esau as you did not trust him.

I am not sure how I would have reacted in your situation. I would probably have been wary too.

Letter to Laban (Gen 32)

Dear Laban,

We have a soap called Emmerdale it is about farming families and has for many years catalogued the disputes between them. Your story would not seem entirely out of place there, even if it would need updating a bit.

I can imagine you and the boys discussing round the dinner table or somewhere what was going on and how you were doing compared to Jacob. They were obviously worried about their inheritance. Then I can imagine the brothers moaning to their friends as well as each other in whatever their equivalent of the Woolpack was. It’s not surprising it got back to you.

Murder does not seem uncommon in your society and so were you scared for your life and for that of your family too? You also seem to have been getting a bit homesick wanting to go home aswell.

You changed Jacob’s wages ten times and were reluctant to let him go. Was that because you wanted him to give you wealth or was it you wanted your daughters to remain near you so that you could see your grandchildren grow and so on?

I do feel for you because whilst Jacob did have a dream for God explaining something of the genetics involved I think he was astute to know what he was doing when he divided the flock and you and your sons may have suffered as a result of his breeding programme.

I find it fascinating that your daughters say they had been sold by you and were regarded as foreigners. It seems they were happy enough to be married off by you at the time, but then their feminist sentiments broke out when they realised how it impacted their relationship with you and inheritance. It’s almost like they figured the dowry system was a good thing when they thought they would benefit them in the end but when they realised you had spent the dowry, possibly out of necessity, they realised what an oppressive system it was.

It also seems that as the girls came to some kind of reconciliation with each other they realised they had been forced into this marriage whether they had wanted it or not and resented you for that.

I wonder what you thought when you realised Jacob and the household gods had gone. Were the gods, which I am guessing were made from gold or some such your investment system?

Did you have a violent temper, was that why you were originally not told Jacob had fled or was it that nobody had realised before then? I suspect the latter, but surely with such a large family somebody must have known earlier. Maybe it was they had sympathy with this family and wanted to give them a head start on you but bearing in mind the views of your sons I doubt it.

It seems that you had gone with a fight in mind but then you had that dream warning you. Were you scared of God? Had you had dreams before or was this something new which freaked you out and meant you did as you were told?

It seems in phrasing everything as a carefully worded question you found a good strategy. Yet, you were able to talk about your feelings. It sounds as if you loved your grandchildren and felt something for your daughters. They seem like they had both been a handful in their own ways for you over the years.

When you searched through and Rachel said she was on her period did you believe her or did you at that point know exactly what was going on and decide to save her life and not put Jacob and yourself in an impossible position. I suspect it was the latter, she must have lied to you 101 times in the past and you probably had a good idea when she was telling the truth and when she wasn’t. You must also have had a fair idea that she was possibly the only person who had the front to steal this. If she had been in a soap I am sure she would have been the beautiful and successful bitch character that people loved to hate.

Did you take it when Jacob got angry with you because you knew he was innocent in the theft or because you were scared of what God had said in the dream. It must have been some show down it seems that years of resentment had been building up and I am sure from what we know of his and Rachel’s relationship that he could verbally joust well.

You are obviously a caring man and understood the dangers your daughters faced if you were not there to protect them, especially with the temper Jacob appears to have.

It is good as part of the covenant you got protection for them both physically and as wives, ensuring that no other wives would be taken who might mean they ended up in worse positions emotionally and financially.

I like that you were able to bless your grandchildren and daughters before they went. That must have been an extremely moving time. It is clear that family was important to you and this parting was going to be difficult for you. It would have made a tear jerking episode if you had been in a soap and I felt quite moved reading this.

Letter to Rachel (Gen 30)

Dear Rachel,

You and Jacob seem to have been a genuine love story, he was willing to work for you initially and again when he was given your sister rather than you.

I wonder what the relationship between Leah and yourself was. One gets the feeling that you had been the bright pretty one growing up and because of her poor eyesight Leah was viewed as the more unfortunate of the two of you.

It seems the tables turned when Leah started having children and you were unable to. I am not sure you were used to being jealous of her but when it occurred it was an intense and violent emotion.

Whilst your words to Jacob on the matter seem to be a bit of a drama queen moment I understand that in your culture, even as in ours today childlessness can be extremely painful.

Was your jealousy caused by a mixture of pain and fear and partly by Leah’s insensitivity?

I know in the culture I live there is a focus on the language of “family” which excludes the childless and indeed through some policies disadvantages those without.

One thing which I have found difficult with the language used in the “what is marriage?” debates going on at the moment is the focus which is once again being given to procreation. I worry that the debate excludes and ignore heterosexual couples who can’t have children and use language which must be extremely difficult for them.

In terms of the fear were you worried about what would happen when Jacob died? There was no welfare system and Leah had a security you didn’t.

When you and Jacob argue it seems to have been a really passionate argument.

In terms of a solution you, like Sarah, use a concubine as a surrogate mother. Was this a common situation in your culture? It seems that because of how Leah did the same that it would have been common.

 On one hand, living in a very different culture, I find it repugnant you could make your servant have sex to bear you a child. Looking through modern eyes I would say that you forced your servant to be raped in order to provide you with a child.

On the other hand in a society where the social arrangements were different I can see that it may have made sense and indeed the servants who were chosen to fulfil this role could have benefitted through it. They would have nursed their children because you didn’t have artificial milk and would probably have had a key role in bringing them up.

The rivalry between yourself and Leah seems fierce and illustrates to me why polygamy is an unhealthy approach and why it is good we now generally have monogamy. The episode with Reuben and the mandrakes seems to sum it up. You were clearly the dominant partner and you used that for your own benefit.

The attitudes you have to sex confuse me. I can’t get my head around of saying your sister could have your husband for sex one night if she gave you some food.

It seems quite comical when Leah goes and tells Jacob he is having sex with her that night. God seems to have had a compassion for her which suggests your treatment of her was not great.

The fact you say God has taken your disgrace when you get pregnant shows that you had a difficult time being childless in your culture.