All in the Family?

Last night at my course David Court, the vicar of Cromer, was with us. He observed that CPAS and the Church Army, the two prime home mission organisations in the Church of England,have quite different strategies. CPAS favours all-age worship ("The CPAS body beautiful? Conference challenges the local church to become the all-age community that God has always intended it to be.") while CA is leaning towards segmentation. Having recently moved from 'one size fits all' to segmentation myself this was interesting to hear.

Behind this is, I think, a sense of imperative. Church should be a family and so we should all meet together. The first part may well be true; certainly if we are all sons of God we must be related and part of his family. But the second part? Modern families spend much of their time apart. Dad in his shed, Mum watching Eastenders or Corrie, Sam upstairs with her best friend Julie, while Jo is on his PS2. They may come together for meals from time to time but their sense of family does not necessarily depend on them doing everything together.

So why do some want to impose another model of family on the church? Is it more 'Biblical'? I'm not convinced. "In my Father's house there are many mansions" - does this imply that we're all supposed to be together all the time? Poor exegesis, I know but nothing to support what seems to me to be a rather romantic ideal of family leaps out of the Bible either.

Certainly, if we are to be where the people are then the segmented model of worship and congregation would seem to be closer to most people's experience of family than the 'all together now' approach.