A Mothering Community

Growing up I was a part of a community of women that make up parts of who I am today; my mother, aunts, cousins, step relatives, and different community members.  Most of the women were not Christian, yet they loved me, protected me, and shared in various responsibilities like discipline (not punishment), teaching me skills or techniques, or took me for a few days. I have seen many Christian communities with far less fellowship. Currently, I am blessed by a group of women I can rely on, in my immediate surroundings all the way to my home country.  But I know with growing individualism in families, it has brought a division between being an active or a passive member of the church community.  To be clear I am not talking about roles like punishment and teaching, but being a role model, loving, being helpful in ways that relieve the mother when she needs two hands (holding a child, or playing with a child), redirecting the child from potentially dangerous or harmful situations.  Sadly, there is this attitude in some women today of each mother for herself, almost an “I don’t need help or to give help to others to survive” approach.  How have we allowed this to become acceptable and ingrained in how we interact within the church and at church activities?  I am not saying that people should help to the point of neglecting their children.  Jesus told us, not just the parents, to take care of the ‘little ones’ (Matthew 18:5-6).  This is one of the reasons why we have baby dedications.  Baby dedications remind us about our call to fulfill this “active” role in the upbringing of all the children in the church family.  We must not forget we are the body (Romans 12: 4-5) called to work together, each with their own function but helping one another in those functions.  We need to remember that we are not Christians by birth but by the blood of Jesus.  We’ve been adopted into God’s family, bought at a price.  We are His family called to share and grow together.  The early church knew God’s will for His family and obeyed (Acts 2:42-47).  Let’s come together and be that church, family, community again.

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters] live together in unity.”  ~Psalm 133:1