Being the Cultural Architect of my Home

iStock_000025551155Large hiking to sunsetWe have some really good friends who are always challenging us on how we are living out our faith. They ask questions like “How are you known in heaven?”, “Which fruit of the spirit is your child/husband needing you to display more of?” etc. Combined with connecting with these friends quite frequently lately, realising that having a daughter about to turn 13 and in seemingly no time at all will be 18 and have we implemented all we wanted to with her, I attended the Heart Revolution meeting in Melbourne last weekend and chose an elective called “Cultural architects and designer communities”. This elective run by Maria Mason from The Tribe, Byron Bay was looking at church communities but it enabled me to look more closely and put words to those thoughts going around in my head in relation to my family. Hubby and I are the ones responsible for setting the atmosphere in our home, for the values and beliefs that we teach and practice. For the fruit of those values and the proclamation to be the same. Are the values lived out in our home heaven’s values? To be honest, not always. In fact, not enough.

I realised that I needed to take on the role of being the architect or designer for our family’s values and inner culture of our hearts. What are going to be our family’s non-negotiables? The values we hold on to dearly when all hell breaks loose. The values that guide us in our decision making. Every family has a set of non negotiable values – but you may not have implemented them intentionally or with thought. Our family is currently pondering and starting to verbally recognise what these are and what we want them to be.

Maria challenged us to answer 3 questions about our value system and culture of our church (I put family here):

  1. Does it look like heaven?
  2. Does it leave a legacy?
  3. Is it sustainable and does it adapt to the culture around it but not take on that culture?

Here are a few more questions that I have been pondering:

  1. How am I tending to the culture I want to see created within our family?
  2. How can I regularly set aside time to think about & examine the inner culture of my heart and the culture of my relationships?
  3. How can I help my children in this regard?

How about you and your family? Are the values you and your family exhibit kingdom values? Are they the values you always sought years ago to implement into your family life? What is one thing you could start to do this week to effectively commence to change that?

I would love to hear how your family is tracking in this regard and what you have found works well for your family. Please comment below or drop me a line. Thanks.

One thought on “Being the Cultural Architect of my Home

  1. God is Good

    Thank you for this post. This is a call up a level! I have in the past identified these, but I confess we have been waylaid with the business of life … I am sending this onto my husband so we can intentionally ponder and perhaps put in place our family values with greater intentionality.
    Blessings

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