Kingdom Family

I want to share my heart on this one. This is a topic that has been weighing on my heart in recent months. The Lord has been simplifying how I see Him, down to the bear bones. I know for myself I have over-complicated my walk with God. For years I was so burnt out from running myself in so many directions trying to find the right ministry or calling. My time was so consumed with doing till finally through recent events in our life God has been showing me that His greatest desire is building Kingdom Family. Below is some of what God has been sharing with me in this area.

Why is the church so anemic? Why are so many people walking away from God and the church more than ever before? A recent 2023 Wall Street Journal poll posted in Fox News on Good Friday stated that only 39% of Americans feel that religion is still important (religion is their way of labeling the Christian church). Why is that? Why are 61% of people so opposed to God and to the church?

The heartbeat of the church is out of rhythm.

When I say the church I mean both the church as an organization and also the people.

But how is the heartbeat out of rhythm?

It's because the church has a gigantic corporate identity problem. The church as a whole for decades has been run like a corporation basing its success and failure around corporate metrics. It’s become a distant cold organization with CEO Pastors and Executive Teams and has lost touch with the primary reason the church was established. The church was established to build and nurture Kingdom Family and intimate relationships through sacrificing our time doing life with the people God has placed directly in front of us. We make light of the fact that everyone we meet is a God-ordained appointment and these meetings are designed by God. Kingdom Family is NOT done through more ministries, systems, conferences, and programs which is the lane the modern church lives in. Family is not propagated by rubbing elbows with superstar pastors and worship leaders. If these were the keys then the Corporate American Church would be dominating regions. Towns and cities would be hubs of His presence and every street corner would be saturated with the manifest presence of God. However, Pastors, Leadership, and We the dedicated church member do not want to accept that The Church has become a cold corporate culture because it goes against the very fabric of how we have been falsely doing church and life for decades.

This corporate mindset has been repeated over and over and over again on every street corner in every denomination for generations. Over the past several generations, there have only ever been small pockets of Revival, for limited periods of time because the corporate church mindset and structure are not equipped to handle the influx of people with real issues because the attention and time that is required to support Kingdom Family through individual relationships is wasted on cultivating corporate events for masses. I pick on leadership because this is where it starts, people follow their leaders' example. But in all actuality, it's all of us in the church that are too busy with me and my agenda that we have no time to do life with others.

The majority of the church as a whole has been confined by the edges of the cookie cutter we have allowed the enemy to stamp it with. A structured corporate church that is just like the corporate job we go to. We put in our 90 minutes, punch our time card, and then leave with no emotional attachment. So countless people who were once an integral part just walk away and never come back, and like a corporate job, the church just moves on to the next person in line. Out of sight out of mind. That person is not even a blip on the radar, we just let them go to potentially be destroyed by the enemy and lost for eternity.

Jesus comes directly against the cold corporate mindset in Matthew 11: 28-30 when he said:

28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus' direction was for us to come to a person and get to know and learn of that person, and do life with that person. You cant learn of someone unless you're doing life with them. Jesus has always been our example of how we are to live life. So if he said to come to me, a person, and learn of me He was not just telling us to get to know Him from the spiritual aspect but he was also setting the example of how we are to interact and do life with others. What is the result of taking this time to do life with Jesus? You will find rest for your soul. What is so many people are searching for? They are searching for rest for their soul. To paraphrase when we take time to learn of Jesus and in turn do life with people they will experience the gentle and humble heart of Jesus in us which will give them rest for their weary and chaotic souls. Through us taking the time to do Life with them they will become aware of the Prince of Peace.

Then again in Luke 18: 15-17 Jesus points us to the simplicity of Kingdom Family "15 The people brought their babies and small children to Jesus so that he might lay his hands on them to bless them. When the disciples saw this, they scolded the parents and told them to stop troubling the Master. 16 Seeing what was happening, Jesus called for the parents, the children, and his disciples to come and listen to him. Then he told them, “Never hinder a child from coming to me but let them all come, for God’s kingdom belongs to them as much as it does to anyone else. These children demonstrate to you what faith is all about. 17 Learn this well: unless you receive the revelation of the kingdom the same way a little child receives it, you will never be able to enter in.” (TPT)

When Jesus said, “Never hinder a child from coming to me but let them all come,” He was reaching out to a segment of society that was thought to be insignificant. Children, in their weakness and vulnerability, have much to teach us as adults. As we grow, the hardness of the world often makes our hearts hard and callous to those around us. Children have a humble openness towards almost everyone in that they don’t care about your status, who you are, what you know, or what you do, they just wanna play, laugh, and have fun with you. A small child's entire world is "Hi! Let's play." We have become extremely too serious in life and have lost our child-like simplicity of relational living.

People are desperately searching to do life with Family, it's how our Creator set it up from the beginning. If that is false then why doesn't God just do it all himself? Why involve people at all if His desire was not to build a partnership with us so that in turn we would share the love He has poured out on us by building relationships and doing life with others? When someone who is lost and alone finds Kingdom Family they will find God on a level and depth that will be extremely difficult for them to casually walk away from. Because it’s hard to leave the support and connection of a loving active family. But it's extremely easy to walk away from something where they are made to feel like they are just another statistic. This is why 61% of people today don't see their need for "Religion". All of this gender confusion, identity issues, and figuring out whose life matters are desperate cries from people who are just trying to belong, to feel apart, and to be truly loved by someone. But to this point, the church has been so busy trying to do big things for God that its heartbeat has been out of rhythm with the heartbeat of God. God's heartbeat is Kingdom Family.

What is Kingdom Family?

It's building and maintaining intimacy with God and people. When you have an intimate relationship with someone you are willing to give up everything for them. Your desire is to do whatever it takes to know everything about them. There is a bond, a connection, a trust, and a knowing. When you are in an intimate relationship it fortifies your resilience and fearlessness, empowering success in all aspects of your life. No matter what happens, you know you’re not alone. You know someone’s got your back… You are valued, loved, and adored. The world can hate you but you know that you have that person in your corner supporting you unconditionally. The unconditional support of that person gives you the confidence to make bold decisions. An intimate relationship is what God desires from us so in turn he can give us that boldness to speak truth and walk in His love. Because we have nurtured intimacy with Him we know who He is and because we know who He is we know He has our back. When we know God has our back we can walk in confidence that the direction we are going in is right. When we are going in the right direction we have peace in our lives, even when the world around us is imploding in on itself. In the midst of turmoil, because we have cultivated a relationship with Him we hear his voice above the noise. From our intimacy with God, there comes a desire to do life with people, and not just the people in our inner circle or the ones we are comfortable around. His presence stretches us outside our comfort zone and creates in us an intense passion to do life with people from all walks of life. Kingdom Family simply put is our passion to create and maintain intimacy with God and with people.

When we study the life of Jesus the concept of doing life with people is what Jesus was all about, his whole ministry was about Kingdom Family. So much so that He died a horrible death and rose victorious to restore our direct line of access to Himself. In just about every biblical recording Jesus was always in the middle of people doing life with them. He was not off in corporate meetings with his disciples, planning conventions, or promoting the feeding of the 5000 conferences. The majority of His time was spent building relationships and getting to know and love people. Through His example, He taught the 12 and countless extended followers the importance of building meaningful relationships with people. He changed the region He was a part of by taking time to build relationships. We like to talk about power, but true power comes from the simplicity of intimacy and compassion. If Jesus is our example of how we are to live then why do we think it's okay to consume our time with anything else? This is God’s whole desire from before Genesis 1 that His blueprint of Kingdom Family would be repeated over and over and over again through each of us. This is how you change your community, how you win regions, and how you foster sustainable Revival. By living Kingdom Family.

This might be abrasive to the corporate church ideology you're used to, but what the church needs is less preaching, fewer prophecies, fewer conferences, and fewer mass events that consume and occupy our attention when we get together. The church needs to be deliberate about cultivating and building family relationships, not occupying our attention with performances, speaking, and rushing us in and out of a room like a herd of cows. The Church needs to create many more opportunities to get to know one another, build family bonds, break bread together, and share life. Because when an intimate family culture is established within the church it will trickle down and become part of our daily lives. Look at how we live our lives today. We are constantly running from thing to thing. "I'm too busy." is the common thread that has been woven throughout our society, where the corrosion of busyness has become an accepted way of life.

I am NOT saying that we get rid of preaching, worship, and teaching, and Sundays become a big BBQ. But what I am saying is that preaching, worship sets, and teaching should not be the only and main focus of the church. God desires family, not a room full of passing acquaintances. We can clearly see from 61% who don’t see a need for Religion the negative fruit of the corporate mindset that has saturated the church. Kingdom Family is not a secondary thought or a cute slogan to God it is His great pleasure.

The Bible says in Ephesians 1:5 “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (NLT).

In Matthew 22:35-39 Jesus is confronted with a powerful question. 35. A religious leader asks him, 36.“What is the most important commandment in the law?”37.Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself." This is not a suggestion but a commandment from Jesus.

In order to love your neighbor as you love yourself it requires that we take time to get to know them. Doing life and building relationships will lead us to more of Jesus but also and equally importantly it will also create a sense of loyalty and belonging among people. Each moment of time spent with an individual is a building block used to build the solid foundation of intimacy. An intimate relationship is hard to turn away from. Why? Because cultivating an intimate relationship shifts my perspective so that it's less about me and what I need and more about how I can stand in the gap for the members of my Kingdom Family. How can I provide for my Kingdom Family, and how can I pray and intercede for those I call my close brothers and sisters? It starts with the church setting the example of what family looks and operates like but eventually, it will trickle down to our individual relationships outside of our church family.

When you have a Kingdom Family established whose center is God within the church we will see sustained Revival and regional transformation because there will be an integrated network of people in place doing life together and loving each other that is able to effectively support the influx of people that Revival brings. Blaming the enemy is saying the enemy is more powerful than God, but on the other hand, saying we need more of God is telling God what He has already done is not enough and we are waiting on Him to do more. God has already done all He needs to do. It is now up to us to kill the corporate culture within the church and establish Kingdom Family operating with a people-first focus. Until we do we will only ever see pockets of marginal Revival because no matter How much or hard we pray God is not willing to give us something we are not able to take care of and properly cultivate.

It’s time we start to challenge our pastors, leaders, and each other and let them know we need our Pastors to be Pastors, not CEOs and Executive Teams. To challenge each other to make more time to build relationships with each other and truly love and care for each other outside the 90 minutes on a Sunday or during the 2 hours of a home group. It is so important we learn but also teach by our actions the importance of creating intimacy with God and with each other. It’s time to kill the corporate mindset and focus our time on building and maintaining Kingdom Family. Being consumed by the Presence of God and doing life with people is the sound of a heartbeat that is beating in rhythm circulating life-giving blood to the whole body. When the church becomes an intimate family unit instead of a room full of acquaintances, the desire to be part of a family will draw those who are hurting, lost, and lonely to the Kingdom Family of God. God’s presence will be felt everywhere we go because of time spent with Him and like Him, we will have a deep compassion and love for the people we walk amongst. Our greatest desire will not be to attend yet another conference or start another ministry but it will be to connect with people and bring them into Kingdom Family so that they will have the same love and passion for Jesus that we have.