The Family Circles – Arenas of Fellowship and Service
The Family Way is a philosophy of living, a vital way of life. It can never be reduced simply to a doctrine or creed. It is made real in the relationships and activities of daily life. There are five family circles within which a participant in the Family of God Fellowship can live out his or her ideals. Each of these circles is a broad arena of service opportunities, as well as an actual family of loving relationships.
First Circle: The Inner Family. We experience inner family love and devotion primarily in relationship with our Father’s Indwelling Spirit, as well as with Jesus, our angelic helpers, and other spiritual influences. First Circle activities center on the regular practice of inner communion — prayer, worship, and other personal devotions. First Circle sharing groups provide a nourishing context for spiritual study, the sharing of insights and experiences, and small group prayer and worship.
The Family Way flows from the wellspring of the inner life. The quality of all outer family relations depends upon the constancy of our Inner Family sharing.
Second Circle: The Home Family. The home is where we form our earliest and most lasting impressions of family relationships, our own self-worth, and the nature of reality. Good family life and spirituality are mutually beneficial. For these reasons, parents should be especially concerned with improving the spiritual life and stability of the home.
However, whether or not there are children in the home, one of the highest priorities in the practice of The Family Way is the cultivation of spiritual home culture. Participants in Second Circle sharing groups support each other’s efforts to incorporate spiritual practices into the everyday events of their home lives.
Third Circle: The Faith Family. Throughout history, like-minded believers have gathered together in Faith Families to pursue their common spiritual purposes. Similarly, believers in The Family Way can establish local fellowships to share their spiritual ideals and work toward the realization of common service goals.
The Family of God Fellowship supports association among all believers worldwide who aspire to live The Family Way. Local fellowships may be led by ministers, teachers, and administrative leaders who coordinate a variety of services, including gatherings for worship, spiritual education, celebration of significant events, orientation for new participants, and evangelistic sharing of a way of life in the Family of God. Participation in Third Circle fellowship deepens and broadens our journey into spiritual family.
Fourth Circle: The Interfaith Family. All people who have discovered a living relationship with God, whether or not they are members of organized religious groups, are participants in the Interfaith Family, the family of all believers. It is important that all such believers strive for relations based on mutual respect and affection, as befits our common status as God’s beloved sons and daughters.
Fellowship participants engage in many activities aimed at furthering good relations between believers of different faiths. The study of various religions, visiting the services of other traditions, and the promotion of interfaith dialogue and events are vital to a full realization of The Family Way.
Fifth Circle: The Global Family. All people everywhere are sons and daughters of our heavenly Parent. God, the original Person, created each human being as a person — one who can know and be known, and can love and be loved by other persons. Even if we are not yet aware of being God’s child, even if we question or reject the very existence of God, each of us is still God’s child by virtue of his having made us. The universal Global Family of God is an ever-enlarging set of relationships, a living spiritual organism that includes all human beings and transcends all human institutions. It may well utilize such institutions, but it must never be supplanted by them.
The main service activity in this Fifth Circle family is helping those who have not yet realized that they are beloved sons and daughters of God, to make this life-transforming discovery. Evangelistic sharing of a way of life in the Family of God, on levels ranging from personal ministry through local outreach to worldwide mission, is the primary goal of Fifth Circle service.