The Best Way to Have a Family Friendly Church is to Stop Having a Biblically Comitted One

The Bible is not G-rated.  Think about it.  Even the “kids stories” of Adam & Eve, Noah & The Flood, David & Goliath, or Jesus & the apostles get into some R-rated material if they are accurately and fully told; including things like nakedness, jealously, killing, drowning, and beheading.  If you want your children to learn the 10 Commandments, then you’re going to have to talk about swearing, murder, and sex.

Then there's Sodom & Gomorrah, Lot and his two daughters in the cave, King Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and that guy in the New Testament who was committing incest while actively attending church. 

And let's not forget, the Bible contains some of the most graphic stories of violence of any book in the wold.   Did you know there’s a story of a young woman being murdered, cut into pieces, and her body parts sent to different regions throughout the nation resulting in a bloody civil war?

If truth be told, the entire narrative of the Bible is dealing with sin, rebellion, wickedness, and how God solves those issues through Jesus Christ, the Cross, and His Word.

From all of this, the only way to be family friendly in a Sunday service is to EDIT and SANITIZE much of what the Bible actually says in order to make more acceptable for a G-Rated expectation.  Or skip it altogether.

And to do that would do violence to what God has revealed.

Not to mention creating flannel graph church members of genteel refinement who are more versed in bumper sticker Christian slogans than actual Biblical knowledge.  

Our job is to proclaim the full council of God.  We are not free to be editors, but proclaimers.  We don’t  possess the authority to write or erase the Word; we merely proclaim it as it is.

Major portions of the Bible make us squirm because the content is offensive.  But sin is what makes the Truth, (even the ugly truth), necessary.

And the Truth is what makes us free.