The issue of family integrated churches (FICs) comes up for my wife and/or I every 2-3 months, it seems. Someone mentions a resource, or a common practice, or a conference, or a book, and asks our opinion. Having published a bit on singleness and marriage, and having taking the position that marriage is normative apart from a special gifting for celibacy, many have associated my thinking as being consistent with that of FICs.
At the outset, one must acknowledge that FICs are by no means monolithic. But there are a few over-arching similarities, sufficient to warrant respectful use of the label FIC where those over-arching themes are present. In this lengthy post, Dr. Sam Waldron (Professor of Systematic Theology at Midwest Center for Theological Studies) seeks to describe the “Family-based” Church Movement, list its praiseworthy features, and give a critical appraisal. Here are the five praiseworthy features he lists:
1. Their emphasis on the church supporting the nuclear family.
2. Their concern that some churches are so program-driven that little time remains for family life and personal piety.
3. An expressed desire to maintain unity within local churches and not leave a church for small reasons.
4. A rejection of the abandonment of the church by some home-schooling families.
5. The rejection of both the idea and practice of “children’s church.”
To which I would add one more: Some are wholeheartedly committed to the Solas of the Reformation, TULIP, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession, all of which I embrace and find precious.
OK, so where does Dr. Waldron differ with the FIC approach? It is hard to summarize his post, so I’ll refer you back to it, as well as this open letter from Dr. Waldron that Pastor Voddie Baucham graciously allowed to be published on his site. The letter contains links to a two-part series in which Baucham clarifies what is meant, and what is not meant, by the church being “a family of families”.
In these posts, Baucham explains that he does not mean for “a family of families” to refer to the nature of the church, or to the membership of the church, but rather to the preferred structure of the church (as opposed to age-segregated ministry programs), for the mediation of Christian discipleship and world evangelization. That’s helpful. Nevertheless, I would agree with Brian Borgman that the following practical concerns remain:
1. FIC seems to exalt the nuclear family to an unbiblical place.
2. FIC inadvertently excludes or marginalizes singles and others, which is contrary to the principles of Christ’s Kingdom (Matt. 19:11-12; 1 Cor. 7:7). [For my view, see A Balanced View of Singleness.]
3. FIC elevates certain principles of liberty or personal conviction to the standard of holiness and/or church polity (homeschooling, no women working outside the home, full quiver, no daughters in college, courtship only).
As Borgman explains, “in such a church culture it is very easy for the Gospel not to be the main thing and to communicate to the next generation that being a Christian means you do these things” (Mk. 7:13).