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The Church as a Family: Uganda
African culture is renowned for the way it cherishes and celebrates the family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and distant cousins all form part of a vast network of deeply valued family relationships. Family members are bound together by the strongest of bonds, and family loyalty is one of the most fundamental principles of African society. If a person is in trouble, it is to her family that she will always turn for material help, protection and comfort.
Such is the traditional strength of the Ugandan family. But the dizzying changes of modernity and the effects of war, poverty and the AIDS pandemic, are seriously threatening African families. Pressures like these are weakening Ugandan families to the point where many are in danger of disintegration. This current family crisis presents an enormous challenge to the Church in Uganda and all around the world. The Christian church is the family of God. As such, it is uniquely equipped both to support human families, and to provide the loving environment of a family for those whose own human families have been torn apart. The Church is called to be an inclusive family where every person can find a place of acceptance, regardless of ethnicity or social status. It is to be a place of hope and healing where people can belong and can know the unconditional love of God.
Sadly, the very Church which is called to proclaim the hope and equality
that are found in Jesus can sometimes be a place of discrimination, where
certain members of God’s family are favoured and given many opportunities,
while others, such as
children and the uneducated, are forgotten.
The challenge for the Church, in Uganda and elsewhere, is to recognise and accept its family vocation. Too often the Church is so preoccupied with maintaining its status quo and running services and committees, that it gives little attention to the fundamental question of how to function as the FAMILY of God. Churches need to be places of welcome where people can pour out their troubles and share their burdens, and then also find their own place where they can be fruitful, using their gifts and reaching out to others in their turn. The current changes in family life in Uganda do not just represent a crisis. They also represent an opportunity. They are a chance for the Church to reconsider its role, focus and responsibilities as the family of God, and to become all that it is called to be. Pray that we as God’s people will seize this opportunity!
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