Go Team!

Getting ready for vacation was an adventure with four kids, a boat and a dog. Groceries. Clothes. Toys. Don’t forget this. Make sure we pack that.

Once all was stowed, everything was crammed into place, all were accounted for, a prayer of thanks offered up and the car was pulling out of the driveway, a little cheer would go up. “Team Davis.”

It always seemed like a good idea to think of the family as a team. We had a stake in the same things. We needed each other’s help. We wanted to all be on the same trajectory: eyes on Jesus. Even now with kids grown and dispersed, in-laws added and grandchildren on the scene, it helps to keep in mind that we are still a team and still share the same trajectory. We need each other. “Team Davis.”

Too often family life devolves from being a team into being a launching pad by which individuals are blasted out of the home as well as the house into the world to “make a mark.” Families fall into the western trap of seeing each other as economic beings who are destined for life as mere instruments of production.

Or something like that.

One of my son-in-laws, part of the team, shared a book with me that might interest you if you want your family life to flourish. Check out Take Back Your Family (from the Tyrants of Burnout, Busyness, Individualism, and the Nuclear Ideal) by Jefferson Bethke. It will help you be more intentional about the family you build… even through the generations. Bethke breaks the myth of the idealized 1950’s family and describes a more Biblical and, by definition, healthy approach to family life.

Let me give you a hint about his conclusions: Go Team!