Animate Faith #7 “Church: An Imperfect Family” by Bruce Reyes-Chow

Join us in the lounge this Sunday, Nov 25, to hear Bruce Reyes-Chow talk about the Church. From 2000-2011 he was the founding pastor of a 20/30-something church in SF and in 2008 was elected Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He now makes his way as an adjunct seminary instructor, writer, speaker and social media consultant.

Bruce Reyes-Chow knows he’s not inventing the metaphor of the church as family. So he suggests we take our changing notions about what it means to be a family and let them seep into our understanding of the church. For Bruce, it’s the messiness, the dysfunction, and the joy that comes from complex relationships that make church worth hanging on to. So how do we stay connected to this sometimes-broken family system? What does it mean to commit ourselves to the church family, for better or for worse?

Bruce confesses that there are plenty of morning when he simply doesn’t want to go to church, and yet, he goes. For Bruce, the church, like any family, is a place to grow and become who he was meant to be. Increasingly, Christians are asking what makes the church relevant. We want to know why it’s worth the time and effort to be part of something that is often dysfunctional and even harmful. Yet Bruce suggests that by reclaiming the idea of church as a family, we can find ways to embrace both the painful and the beautiful ways that church changes us.

See you Sunday at 10:00am! Preview the Seventh Session on YouTube.