While in Heaven, I asked God the requisite question that has baffled people for centuries:
“Why did you create humankind knowing that they might rebel against you?”
In the whispering voice from the Holy Spirit that struck to the core of everything, He answered:
“We created you because we wanted a family.”
The reason was that simple. God created us because He (the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) wanted a family. Could it really be that simple? The answer is clearly yes. God desired humankind, made in His image, because of God’s desire for family.
Family represents the quintessential form of relationship to God and His children. Without family, people struggle. According to several studies, including those by Science Daily and the Institute of Family Studies, a strong family represents the biggest predictor of success.
It’s true that no human being can choose their biological family, but God chose His spiritual family. As many of us who have witnessed people in Heaven can testify, each of us who are born anew through the Spirit of Christ operates as one family in Heaven, regardless of ethnicity, race, or differences. That’s because Heaven is a place of one huge, joyous, and unified family, with God as the Head.
When the Apostle Paul penned God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (see above), God gave the blueprint for how the family of Christ should operate. Our diversity of talents, personalities, and giftings differ, but we were created to operate as one body – one big functional family who operates according to our father’s loving direction using our talents, gifts, and abilities.
But that is not how the traditional church operates. After the first church in Jerusalem, created by the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection and first led by James around 44 AD, the family of God’s children started to migrate around the world. The book of Acts in the Bible serves as a model of how an interdependent Body of Christ should operate. However, in 1054 Christianity began to divide into “denominations,” commonly referred to as the Great East-West Schism. Henceforth the unified Body of Christ became disjointed. Today the common joke is that bringing churches together would be “like herding cats.” One of the most common questions amongst Christians today is to ask a fellow believer this: “What church do you belong to?” The church family tends to identify itself by who attends its services and programs rather than by a common shared faith.
Many today feel disenfranchised from the Body of Christ because they don’t feel plugged into any church body; or more commonly, they feel that they are just participants in weekly events that are more akin to a club or a meet-and-greet, rather than as a family gathering. On a larger scale, Christians feel obligated to identify as a particular form of Christian practice, such as “fundamentalists,” “charismatics,” “Catholics,” “traditionalists,” “protestants,” “evangelicals,” or “Eastern Orthodox.” Even more often they identify themselves as members of one denomination or church. Sadly, almost no one identifies themselves as being part of “One Body of Christ.”
Thankfully in Heaven that will all change. There is in Heaven only one Body of Christ, with Jesus as the Head, as designed by God. For years this contrast between the unified spiritual family in Heaven versus the disconnected believers in this world concerned me, as it does for many of you who are part of what I call the “remnant” church. The remnant church is a non-affiliated and loosely defined population of Christians who are characterized by their adherence to the Word of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, a belief in the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and a belief in the end-times gospel. The remnant church often finds itself orphaned by the shallowness of Christian gatherings, or they felt rejected.
As a church of two (or three counting Jesus; as referenced in Matthew 18:20), my wife Renee and I were praying one day, and the Holy Spirit declared something that initially made little sense. He said this: “I want you to call my children, ‘My Family,’” and I want you to help bring people together within My Family as one body. How, I thought, are we going to do that, because I have no idea what “My Family” means. And then again, to bring together the Body of Christ represented more than a herculean task. Then I remembered God’s Word in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” – even despite a vacuum of understanding.
The Holy Spirit again said in a direct manner through a silent whisper: “Just put it out there, and I will do the rest.” So, beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am going to just put this out there. We are starting “My Family.” I don’t know exactly how it will function, but the vision is to initially create an awareness that we as believers in Jesus Christ are part of God’s family, or as God would say, “My family.” Second, we are a family to each other, so each of us can reference ourselves to each other in the same way as simply, “My Family.”
I even created a logo that believers could use on their social media sites, signatures, and emails to identify themselves as being a part of “My Family.” Once someone identifies as My Family, they invite others to join in their social media community. And if someone is meeting for a prayer breakfast, let’s say, or a meeting at some location such as a church or a coffee shop, if someone is local and wants to join a My Family, then he or she is automatically invited to join them.
My expectation is that God will grow this “God idea” organically, just as He did when directing me to start Randy Kay Ministries without a plan, almost four years ago. Since then, we have served over 20 million people with a staff of only four people. And if My Family fizzles, like in the case of the fig tree that bore no fruit (Matthew 21:19), we will end it.
I used to never venture into something without research and a plan, until I met Jesus. When Jesus said, “Trust Me,” just after our encounter in Heaven, He meant in everything. And when God says “go,” we need to go. And when He says “stop,” we need to stop. It really is that simple – maybe too simple for a world that teaches self-reliance apart from listening to the ever-present voice of the Holy Spirit.
So, let’s begin My (God’s and our) Family. We are enclosing a logo you can tag onto your social media, or anywhere you would like people to join you. Invite nonbelievers as well as believers. As a believer you are the leader in your My Family tribe, which should include discipleship and evangelism. Pray for each other, give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, study the Bible, and join in some form of worship.
Tell people where you intend to have a My Family meeting, in your home or other place. Do you have a word from the Lord? Perhaps a favorite worship song? A prayer? Please let us know on our contact page or share amongst each other. Let’s start a conversation with each other, as we do during our YouTube premiers. The goal would be to meet in person wherever and whenever possible, as we are intending to do during our Heaven Encounters Conference in San Diego, CA from September 12-14, 2024. Next year we are also launching an app that will plug into multiple social media channels, with the hope of fostering greater communication and interaction.
Beloved, it’s time to bring Heaven to earth. It’s time for the Body of Christ to become one with each other. Time is oh so short. We have work to do, and it begins with fellowship. No longer should we consider ourselves as anything other than members of the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as the Head. My Church is non-denominational and not affiliated with any organization other than the Body of Christ. Below you will find a Statement of Belief for My Family that defines our common faith. If you agree with this statement, then welcome to My Family.
We are one body, one faith, and one family, under God. And each member of My Family is called to consider the needs of others as greater than their own needs. With Jesus Christ as our Head, no single leader should consider themselves as greater or more noble than another.
Our prayer is that the Body of Jesus Christ will truly be one spiritual body, as a single family, formed by God to serve others with the Love of Jesus Christ. Praise Jesus! (Randy Kay, 2022; https://randykay.org/my-family/)
We believe in one God eternally existing as one essence and three distinct persons: God the Father, God Jesus Christ (Yeshua) and God the Holy Spirit, each of whom is fully God.
We believe in one God forever existent as one essence and three distinct persons as described in the Bible, which is the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God. Each person is fully, equally and eternally God, yet there is one God. Each person is worthy of the same worship, devotion and praise. The entire Body of Christ is bound together with the confession of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior (Matt. 28:18-20).
We believe in the Messiah, God from God, eternally begotten but not made, who in history assumed to Himself a human nature for the sake of our salvation (John 1:14; Heb. 1:3). He is fully God and was made fully human. Through God, all things came into being and were created. He was before all things, and in Him, all things hold together by the word of His power (Col.1:15-20). God the Son (Jesus Christ) suffered, died, was buried, resurrected, ascended to Heaven and will one day return for the final judgment and consummation of God’s Kingdom.
We believe in the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from God and was sent by God to give new life (John 15:26-27). The Holy Spirit unites believers through Jesus Christ as one body, brings about a new spiritual birth and dwells within the reborn (Eph. 1:13-14). The Holy Spirit has come to glorify the Son (Jesus Christ/Yeshua) who, in turn, came to glorify the Father. He will lead Christ’s Body into a truthful understanding and inspired application of the truth of God’s Word. He is to be respected, honored and worshiped as God, the third person of the Triune God.
The Triune God, Father, Son (Jesus Christ/Yeshua) and Spirit, is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible. As the immortal and eternal Creator, He sovereignly rules over all His creation (Ps. 24:1) in Love. (Randy Kay, 2022; https://randykay.org/my-family/)
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