Gene Burrus

For many of us, the holidays are a chance to reconnect with family and experience nostalgic joys in the comfort of our childhood homes. Still, for others, the vices, prickly personalities, and unhealthy dynamics of family lead us to dread Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year.

Whether visiting family is idyllic or infernal, our union with Christ can comfort us through the holidays. It reminds us that we truly belong to the body of Christ—both local and universal. 

While Families are Good, They Are Not Everything

Families are powerful social units that God designed for the good of our society. When they are healthy and holy, they are safe, nurturing places for us to develop physically, spiritually, emotionally, and morally. 

For some of us, though, the safety and security of our family present the temptation to idolize it. When any good, created thing gets elevated to the status of our ultimate joy and delight, it becomes a bad thing. It will cause us or others to suffer because we weren’t designed to function that way. 

As we look forward to enjoying the holidays with our family, we can recognize our celebrations and our families as good gifts from God to be enjoyed (see Eccl 9:7-11; 1 Tim 4:3-5).

Even the word holiday reminds us that these days are holy and set apart. These holy days beckon us to worship God with praise and thanksgiving. 

How can we focus praise on God while delighting in the season? Part of our worship might include praying before a meal, sharing the gospel with a family member, or delighting inwardly in the God who has given us all things. 

When Families are Bad, They Are Not Everything

As a pastoral counselor, I hear stories of the dysfunction that some families experience: the effects of unrepentant sin, manipulation, abuse, neglect, enmeshment, trauma, substance abuse, unmanaged mental disorders, and other vices. God warned the Israelites that their unrepentant sin would affect their children (Exod 34:7). 

How can you navigate families that have not yet encountered the transformative power of the gospel or lack the wholeness of a healthy family system during the holidays? Here are some tips:

1. Communicate assertively in Christlike ways. Good communication starts with “I,” avoids generalizations, uses all the fruits of the Spirit, acknowledges others’ dilemmas, and clearly and directly asks for what you want.

For example, you might say, “Dad, I know you want to take an extra trip to see uncle Joe this year, but I would appreciate it if we kept our visit simple this year for the benefit of our 1-year-old.” 

2. Decide your boundaries ahead of time. How long can you stay for things to remain healthy? What behaviors or interactions are signs that it’s time to get a break, go for a walk, or leave early? Do you need to stay in a hotel or Airbnb?

3. Plan ahead. As you think through good boundaries, make specific plans for when you’ll set them up. If your sister and mom get into it after too many evening cocktails, plan to leave the house by the second drink. If your son tends to have hypomanic episodes over the holidays, plan how you can cope. 

4. If you experienced trauma in this family, understand your triggers, and set thicker boundaries. If you tend to feel hypervigilant, fearful, angry, or checked out around family because of traumatic experiences, discuss with a Christian counselor how you can set firm boundaries and make a plan to cope with family experiences. 

5. Pray for peace, and commit to live in it. Pray ahead for peace, and aim for peace on your side of the relationship (cf. Rom 12:18).

6. Read and pray Psalms that channel your negative emotions during the holidays. Scriptures like Psalms 18, 22, 43, 46, and 130 can help you take feelings of sadness, anger, shame, or fear to God in the midst of distress.

The Church is Our Truest Family

New Testament scholar and pastor Joseph Hellerman argues that Scripture’s use of familial imagery suggests that family is an important lens for how we understand and practice church today. As Christians, we are sons and daughters of a heavenly Father. Christ has made us related spiritually.

Perhaps the evangelical church’s overemphasis on the nuclear family has limited the potential community and familial belonging the church can offer as “an alternative family.”

The gospel should draw those who have complicated biological families (i.e., orphans, widows, and singles) toward the church, not isolate them from it. If we reclaimed this understanding of church as family, we could minister more fruitfully among these populations. 

A healthy church offers an opportunity for those with unhealthy families to experience a new family and develop holier ways of relating. A healthy church also offers a chance for unhealthy families to learn, experience, and then recreate a healthier culture within their home life.

The church, however, is not our salvation. Unfortunately, many of us bring unresolved baggage from the families we came from into the church, leading to conflict. Pastors, leaders, and fellow church members will disappoint us eventually. Nevertheless, even these conflicts are opportunities for us to trust in Christ, our true salvation, and experience more of God’s grace, healing, and reconciling power. 

As this Christmas season approaches, remember that it’s only a season. If you dread it coming, it’s a time for you to trust God for the grace and strength to get through it. If you delight in this season and wish it would never end, take its end as a reminder that we are still sojourners in this world, waiting for our final home (cf. 1 Pet 2:11).

Value your church during this season and consider how you can encourage those who struggle with their biological families. Ultimately, remember that Christ became man to deliver us from darkness and form us into a new family.

Gene Burrus is the Counseling Minister at the Sienna Campus of Houston's First Baptist Church. Gene has served as a church pianist, a youth minister, a group facilitator, a seminary counselor, and served as a biblical counselor.

Gene enjoys reading, writing, making spreadsheets, playing piano and violin, working out, and spending time with his wife and two young children.

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Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash