Essentials for a Functional Family on Mission
All of these are essential to making a functional family “function.” Each needs to be present if we want to see the level of fruitfulness we hope to gain by working together. The reality is, when they are absent, dysfunction lurks around the corner waiting for the next slip-up to make everything spin out of control.
When in place, these three factors flow together in inseparable ways, moving back and forth, shifting us from the barrenness we are accustomed to experiencing into the reproductive life of healthy disciple making. These character traits are at work even when they are not the focus. Such traits produce simply because they build the type of people that can be depended upon in moments of crisis and times of success.
Let’s explore the missionary value in creating a healthy reproducing household. The most productive (fruitful) cultures are the ones who put the pieces in place to reproduce again and again those things which are important to them. It is an extended Missionary Family On Mission carrying out the legacy built from generations of accountability + mutual-submission + vulnerable trust at work among them.
If we are going to build a family that functions together in healthy life-giving ways, we need to change how we think about being accountable, submitting one to another, and opening ourselves to trust each other. We need to rewire our brain from the more punitive forms we have known to the love-based relational approach God intended.
So, here is the thing about accountability … you cannot force it for it to be realized, at least not in a healthy life-giving way, where love is the root of the behavior.
One can require certain components, as in reports that provide basic information or reporting facts and figures in a meeting. It is a start, but far from what is at the heart of Jesus’ way of being accountable. What you can’t do is force one person to submit themselves to another, at least not in the context of love.
Accountability is a relational activity that comes about as the result of trust. Actually, it is two or more individuals willing to make themselves vulnerable to one another through the trust they share together.
Thus, we have to build the depth of relationship which produces the trust needed for mutual-submission (an Ephesians 5 principle) to work and produce fruit. Here, Paul admonishes us to submit one to another, which requires trust and accountability. Think about this for a moment…
We are talking about a depth of relationship that produces what is required for us to function as a healthy, life-giving extended family of people on mission together.
It happens most naturally out of an apprenticing (disciple-making) relationship, such as having spiritual parents show you the way. In this relationship, we are able to have the smaller experiences of mutual-submission that can grow into the deeper/broader aspects of functional accountability. It works!
When we have the heart of mutual submission born out of disciple making, the accountability we are looking for flows fairly organically. It is given rather than being forced. There is a healthy desire to share in the responsibility. It is a vulnerability- based trust which means it’s not based on behavioral predictability. Rather, it’s relationally generated and freely shared with one another.
We trust each other because we know each other (even though we may not know exactly how we will always respond). It’s based on the character of the person rather than the ability to guess how they will act or react. The result from this vulnerable trust is mutually submitting to one another as we walk out this life together.
This means that we look at accountability in a different way.
No longer is missing the mark (sin) the focus. Gone is the subsequent behavioral modifications birthed out of a sense of shame and guilt. Absent is the punitive feel often associated with accountability.
Instead, being accountable becomes an act of unconditional love, opening the way for people to seek the better life of the Gospel. We remove the shame culture in being held accountable and replace it with mutual-submission which is born from love. We willingly make ourselves accountable because we care deeply enough to be vulnerable in our trust. You start from a different place which allows you to end in a different space.
Of course, we get to have the fun of growing and developing such an idea. Ha! Working with real people in real situations will test and sharpen this in our lives. Still … it is the way of Jesus, so the pursuit is always worth the effort for those who desire to follow in His way.