Mandalorians and the Church

Though most mandalorians were associated with love of war, bounty hunting and a lot of bloodshed, there was at least one mandalorian who chose not to kill unless she absolutely had to. In fact, she always chose bounties that required the "hard merchendise" to stay alive. Once she saved another bounty hunter's life, even though had been trying to kill her. Even more, a lot of her bounties she chose because she had lost her family in the mandalorian war - her birth family, not her adopted mandalorian family - and she wanted to help others find their families. Not that she was a saint, but Mira was probably one of the better, more honorable mandalorians.

I think that one of the things that the church is horrible at doing, that it could take a look at people like Mira - even if she's a fictional character - and learn from. Let's just face it, the Church should be in the business of restoring and creating families. I think that the current structure of a lot of churches is built for other purposes and doesn't help families at all. Sometimes, like in my father's case, it destroys families. Take for instance the current norm of separating the age classes: teens, preteens, children, toddlers, adults, seniors, college kids, you name it. Of course the target is getting families to attend, but even more important is the number of people that attend. Let's just face it, if your goal is number's that kind of structure works, but it doesn't really help the family stay closer, it doesn't nurture the family - just the individual, and it doesn't help restore families.

Of course churches with this kind of structure try to compensate by having times where families get together and fellowship. Come on people; let's come back down to reality. Anyone on a board or committee should know that just because some program was made with a specific purpose in mind doesn't mean that when put in place; it will be used for that purpose. Often times, the program will be exploited or the purpose ignored, even in so called "healthy" churches.

It's time for a new structure that is centered on the worship of God, but is done by the family and with the family instead of numbers. This is why I am a strong advocate of the house church. It takes place where the family is at, or rather where several families are at. It doesn't separate the age groups, and the whole community is involved in raising and teaching the children and can be involved because they know each other that well. When one family is hurting, (physically, financially, relationally) the other's can pitch in and help. The sad thing is that often it takes people becoming "disillusioned" about the church to become a part of a house church. Instead I think people should do it because right now, it's the best model there is.