Rachel Jordan-Wolf: ‘we need to help parents smash the idol of individualism’

Rachel, tell us a bit about your family background and how that’s influenced what you’ve gone on to do? 

Family for me has always been extended rather than nuclear. When I was young my aunt and uncle had the house at the bottom of our garden and so that merged into one big, shared space where we played with our four cousins. They were close to our age; we got on great and very much grew up with them in the early years. 
 
When it came to holidays, again, we never had what other people would have called a normal nuclear family vacation, my dad started this bank holiday back to nature camping holiday. He found a friendly landowner who allowed him to bring a load of young people us up to his field and dig latrines and fire pits and we had to learn how to cook over a fire for ourselves. It was a bit like a Brethren version of the Famous Five! So, I grew up with a sense that family was much more of this wider motley crew of people rather than just mum, dad and children. We were more of a clan than a family. And yes, it was, it was wonderful.

In the same way that we learnt to clean our teeth we learnt to pray, sing and read the Bible

In that context we learnt to pray, sing and read the Bible just as we learnt to read and speak. I think there is a tape somewhere of 3-year-old me singing a worship song I’d made up, I think the theology is probably pretty awful but the sentiments are fabulous, it was very much an organic, participative upbringing in that sense, it was so engrained in everyday life that it all came to us naturally. In the same way that we learnt to clean our teeth we learnt to pray, sing and read the Bible. 

We did have an amazing youth group where the leaders all invested in us but even that didn’t feel separate it felt like part of this bigger extended family, like they were just more aunts and uncles. This is the church of God and that’s not something you do on a Sunday for one hour. 

I also grew up with a sense that this big clan of faith went back generations.  My grandmother on my dad’s side had an especially big influence. She’d been touched in the Welsh Revival she had stories of her parents that I knew and treasure now. My great grandmother died in the pulpit preaching. She actually had a stroke, and I always thought, that’s the way I want to go, still telling people about Jesus. So, I had all these tales as well, tales of faith, stories of endeavour. 

Were there any other traditions or habits that your family or clan that were significant in your faith journey? 

We did loads of eating together. People were always coming round for food. There were always great teas, which we under value in our modern world, but I have realised that the people who put on all that food on were making a church family. We would be inviting people into our meal table and then we would be eating and partying together as a wider church family. But that was part and parcel of the wider picture, church was a family that I belonged to, a group of people that I went on holiday with, I ate with, prayed and read the Bible with. 

And how has all that impacted how you live your life and work out your faith today? 

My husband, Darren, is a vicar, and we are trying to live out that wider vision of being church today. In some ways the church in the UK has been captured by a modernist individualist mindset which works against seeing church as this family of faith. When you read the Bible, you get this picture of church that is very much a corporate generation to generation cohesive family of God that people are being invited to. The New Testament letters make no sense for a secularised, lone, individual Christian, they are all about forgiveness because we’re supposed to be so close to each other that we annoy each other and need to forgive each other. You know, you can be reasonably polite and aimable with people for an hour and a half on a Sunday, but that’s obviously not what Paul is talking about. This is why one of the things we prioritise is actually living in community with others.

Gen Z are sold this dream of a one-bedroom flat, but it’s actually a curse and breeds loneliness

Now we’re very lucky here. We’ve got a huge old rectory. In the last place we had one lounge, one kitchen, 3 bedrooms and then we had these studio flats, 2 girls were sharing one of them and the worship leader had the other one, but that meant they all lived out of our lounge, and all lived out of our kitchen. It was amazing. And actually, it worked really well. And Darren had this tiny box room study. I don’t know how he survived next to the lounge and kitchen. He’s now got a much better study. But actually, sometimes we look back and we really miss it. We did all our food and life together. Then there was another guy who lived sometimes with us and then there was a couple in the basement flat who sometimes came up with their little son and there was something about it I loved. We still live in community now and a new fabulous intern has moved in and joined the youth worker and our nephew – the rectory family. There are always others in and out and it makes for a larger sense of being church every day. 

Gen Z are craving community. They want be part of something bigger, more meaningful, more purposeful. They don’t want to be entertained. They want a framework for life and a way of being. They’re sold this dream of a one-bedroom flat, but it’s actually a curse and breeds loneliness. There is no blessing in living in a one-bedroom flat. When you have your own flat and the remote control and it’s all at your convenience then all your social contact is on you it’s on your terms. You go out when you want to and go home when you want to, you’re not compromising in any way or learning how to be part of something bigger than yourself. I have tried living that way and I honestly prefer community and sharing even when it means inconvenience.

Read more:

Debra Green OBE: ’Just because you’re a Christian, it doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to your children, so be ready’

Janie Oliver: ‘Parenting definitely won’t be what you expect but if you let yourself, you’ll find joy and magic in places you won’t anticipate.’

Clare Williams: ‘I thank my parents for showing me what it means to pray and pray without ceasing’

I think we need to help parents to smash the idol of individualism. That might be resisting giving children their own bedroom, now some children with additional needs or certain disabilities might need their own space but by and large what are we teaching children when we give them their own room? We’re training them in individualism. Maybe we need to press the pause button and ask, where did I get all these ideas from for my parenting? Do some of these need challenging because they’re actually from our culture, not from our faith. I totally understand I haven’t parented as we sadly don’t have our own children so I don’t want to come across as judgemental, but I think it is worth us asking some questions.  

Parents who are reading this might wonder how they balance this vision for an open, participative, communal family of faith with the needs of their own children

As I said, we don’t have our own children, but we do know people who do live in community with children and it can be really, really beneficial. Obviously, there are risks, so you need to check those out and mitigate them. But what I would say is, don’t just view your family as your nuclear family, that’s a modernist concept. Parenting isn’t just for the parents - it takes a village to raise a child. 

Now of course there is the safeguarding question. We have had issues arising from having such an open communal approach to living but they are manageable. No one is arguing that we should not be sensible and aware of the risks, but we can’t give up on the dream of church family.

your family is part of something larger, the church family, a clan or almost tribe of followers of Jesus who are always looking to encourage each other’s faith

Obviously, there are practical challenges as well. I end up doing more washing and organising that I would do otherwise and you need to ensure you think about what boundaries are needed and that you don’t overextend yourself. You can’t do everything. You’re not someone else’s saviour. For example, I wouldn’t advise people living in community with someone who has significant mental health issues without knowing the risks and evaluating if this is your one calling 

Part of that is also boundary setting so you can nurture your marriage, so Darren and I have a date night on a Friday night, and we try to get away every month for 2 days. You can’t put too much pressure on your marriage. And again, if you had children, you would have to safeguard your family time. 

It might not be living in the same house but going back to the shared way of living that I experienced growing up. A larger sense of clan. So your family is part of something larger, the church family, a clan or almost tribe of followers of Jesus who are always looking to encourage each other’s faith, nurture habits that grow the community and invite others in. Who could be in your clan? How could you nurture these wider relationships.  

You run HOPE Together, was there anything in your upbringing that maybe prepared you for that? 

Hope is a charity that helps introduce people to Jesus and my sister jokes that basically I’ve been doing that since I was a child, only now it’s all formalised into a charity and done on a much bigger scale. She’s not wrong. I was always running a club. So, at church and school, at 13 or 14, I helped run Bible clubs for younger children. We’d do dramas and prayer times - we would do this prayer time for 3-year-olds, and I’d get them to sit down and because they couldn’t read I had this big whiteboard and I would draw what it was they wanted to pray for and then they’d pray. And then I lead the Our Faith Club in an old chicken shed on a Sunday afternoon which was basically a mini church – we’d have tea and biscuits, a talk and a collection. And we did a missionary video once. We all took a country in the world and then dressed up in those clothes and talked about mission and created this film that we then showed to the whole youth group and on it goes really.

I guess if I could say one thing to parents it would be: think carefully how you’ve been influenced by the modernist secular mindset

So yes, I think my early formative years did impact me and prepare me for what I am doing now. Clearly, we spend a lot of time thinking about what jobs children might do but again the risk is we simply adopt the secular mindset on that instead of considering the wider formation of Christian character and giftings. I guess if I could say one thing to parents it would be: think carefully how you’ve been influenced by the modernist secular mindset, both in terms of individualism and in terms of jobs or vocation. The youth and children in our churches have so much to offer us if only we’d provide the spaces for them to show this through organic participation in the family of God.

Dr Rachel Jordan-Wolf is the executive director of HOPE Together. She has been passionate about people knowing Jesus for themselves all her life. She is married to Rev Darren Wolf and lives in East London where they church planted eight years ago. She loves dark chocolate, a good chat with friends and vintage second hand shopping!