Doing Family

When Opening Your Life Feels Risky

Have you ever felt like your family doesn't quite match the polished versions you see on social media? Or wondered if you're the only one struggling to figure out this whole family thing?

At Crowd Church, we recently gathered around the table with Anna Kettle, Dave Connolly, and Matt Edmundson for an honest conversation about family. Not the Instagram-perfect version, but the real, messy, challenging, beautiful reality of doing life together. What emerged wasn't a how-to manual for perfect families—because none of us have that sorted—but rather some refreshing perspective on what family can be when we stop trying to have it all together and start opening our lives to others.

The Pressure to Perform

Let's be honest: discussing family can feel loaded. Everyone's experience is different. Some grew up in stable, loving homes. Others, like Dave, experienced a "very dysfunctional family" and "couch surfing from about the age of eight." Matt's parents divorced when he was nine, leaving him in a predominantly single-parent household. Anna grew up with Christian parents who were church leaders, whilst her husband came from a blended family with half-siblings from previous marriages.

The point isn't that there's one "right" way to experience family. The fact is that family—in all its varied forms—matters deeply. And when we look at society today, we see the impact of family breakdown everywhere. The statistics are sobering: the vast majority of prisoners come from fatherless families, and men commit most violent crimes without fathers in their lives.

However, what's interesting is that the Bible doesn't shy away from messy family stories. In fact, it's full of them—dysfunctional relationships, sibling rivalries, broken marriages, prodigal children. Yet through it all, God keeps working, keeps redeeming, and keeps showing up in the midst of the mess.

God's Design: Family as Gift

Anna put it beautifully: "The whole idea of family is God's idea, isn't it? God puts the lonely in a family... from the beginning Adam and Eve, it was about creating family and it's not good for the first man to be alone."

At the core of the Trinity is a relationship—three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We're made in God's image, which means we're wired for connection. Family, at its best, is where we experience the things every human needs: unconditional love, acceptance, and a sense of belonging.

Anna continued: "I feel like I learned lots about what it is to be secure and nurtured... but also being a parent myself now I think being a mum has taught me more about selfless love than anything else... it's the best way to learn to be selfless and to love someone like yourself."

This isn't about earning value through family performance. As Dave explained in a previous talk, it's the opposite: "You are of infinite value. That price on you is infinite. Therefore, we should look after our body." The same applies to family—we don't create family to become valuable; we're already valuable, so we steward the gift of family well.

The Extended Family Revolution

One of the most practical ways the panel has lived this out is through opening their homes. Dave and his wife Julie have "always had people live with us... at any one time up to recent years we've had two or three people living with us for long periods of time."

But here's the crucial bit: "We have to say to them if you want to come and live with us that's fine but we're not looking for a lodger, we need people who can become part of our family."

This isn't about filling spare rooms. It's about intentionally building an extended family. Matt and Sharon have had lodgers for almost their entire 26-year marriage. Anna and Andy don't have lodgers, but they're intentional about including single friends in their family life: "Come around to our house, have dinner with us, just mooch about in the garden."

Whether through lodgers or regular dinner invites, the principle is the same: family extends beyond biology. Anna reflected on her single years in her twenties: "I know what it's like to be on the other side... we're always really mindful that we include our single friends in our family life, that they get up close to our marriage, to our family days."

Dave admitted it takes humility: "It takes a certain amount of openness and honesty... you really do open up your marriage and your family to close scrutiny from someone else."

Marriage

When it comes to marriage specifically, the panel was refreshingly honest about the ongoing work required. Anna's advice for those considering marriage? "Make sure this is someone that you're aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses and... are sure that you can live with them on their worst day, not just the best parts."

Communication emerged as the non-negotiable. Anna explained: "Me and Andy are quite different people personality-wise... I have to be very explicit with Andy about... not just assume that he gets it."

Dave shared a brilliant example about bins: After 45 years of marriage, he's learned that when Julie says "the bin needs to go out," she means now—not after the football finishes. "I know now that she means now... sometimes we just need to be far simpler."

The practical advice? Date nights. Anna insisted: "Andy's really good at this but he'll regularly say we need a date night... and we'll have to get the diaries together and like make it happen." It takes intentionality, but as Dave pointed out: "If it's precious enough, we'll do what we need to do to make it happen."

Dave also shared his approach to meaningful conversations: "I need to sit at the table and that means you don't answer your phone... this is important to me and it might not be something that I'm bringing, it might be you know you were saying... I want to honour and respond appropriately to what you're saying."

The Money Question

Financial pressure is real, and the panel didn't dance around it. Anna and Andy both work full-time with similar salaries, so they split things "50/50" with shared accounts for household expenses. But more importantly, they made a conscious decision early on: "We don't need a bigger house... contentment is really key."

Anna has declined job promotions because "going any higher would be a lot more money, a lot more commitment, stress, less flexibility and we've chosen that's not going to work for our family."

Dave echoed this: "For me, if we have this amount of money coming in, this is what we can afford to do... but if I want a holiday there, I'm going to have to get a bigger job with more hours and it will mean me being out of the house more."

The cultural message is clear: work harder, earn more, get bigger, better, shinier things. But as Matt observed, "I see a lot of successful business people with very broken marriages... the average hours worked by a CEO is 70 hours a week. Do you know what the average hours worked by an Uber driver is? 70."

Dave challenged the church's complicity in this: "Quite often we have this thing that God is blessing you when you got a bigger job, bigger car, bigger house. And I'm like, why? It doesn't say that."

Responsibility Over Rights

Perhaps the most counter-cultural moment came when Dave addressed modern culture's focus on individual rights: "When we talk about our rights... I have a right for this... I think that is fundamentally an unbiblical approach. I think it's more about our responsibility."

Anna added: "Marriage is about serving each other's needs and preferring each other... a relationship should fulfil you and make you whole and complete you... it's not true. Like you're not going to find your core identity, meaning, and all your belonging and all your self-worth in any partner."

This is radically different from the "live your truth" culture we're immersed in. As Matt observed: "I don't know if you can have that 'me, myself, and I' in the context of family... there has to be a crucifying of self in order to have that relationship."

Anna's assessment was stark: "We do need to turn it on its head and be like, this is about preferring each other's needs and serving one another... husbands should serve their wives as Christ serves the church. That's the order. It's opposite of what can I get from this marriage."

The Practical Steps

So what does this look like on a Monday morning? The panel offered several practical actions:

1. Be intentional about extended family - Whether through lodgers, regular dinners, or including singles in your family activities, make a plan to open your life to others.

2. Schedule date nights - Get out your diaries and book time together. If it matters, you'll make it happen.

3. Create conversation rituals - Dave's "sit at the table" approach ensures that meaningful conversations receive the attention they deserve, without interruptions from phones.

4. Choose contentment - Before chasing the next promotion or bigger house, ask whether the cost to your family is worth it. Sometimes enough is enough.

5. Lead with responsibility, not rights - Instead of asking, "What am I entitled to?" ask, "What's my responsibility here?"

6. Seek wisdom from Scripture - As Dave put it: "Drawing closer to God... just reading the word, I just found that has just been such a life source for me."

The Legacy Question

Dave shared a beautiful picture of legacy with his grandchildren—five of them ranging from six to twelve years old. When they stay over on Wednesday evenings, they ask: "Tell us a story," meaning a testimony of how they've experienced God.

"It's a way for us to use legacy with our grandkids, but it's only because we did it with our own kids... our own kids have shared some of these stories with our grandkids."

Family isn't just about getting through the week; it's about making the most of it. It's about passing on faith, values, and stories of God's faithfulness to the next generation.

Moving Forward

The conversation didn't offer a neat blueprint for perfect family life—because there isn't one. What it did offer was something better: honest examples of real people working out what family means in the messiness of actual life.

Dave's final encouragement? "Go on the journey with God."

That's it. Not "get it all sorted first." Not "wait until you're ready." Simply bring God into your family conversations, your marriage struggles, your parenting challenges, your financial decisions, and your relationships with extended family.

As Matt challenged at the end: "Study it out, read the Bible, find out what it's got to say because it is life-changing stuff... I think one of the biggest calls on men is to be fathers, even outside of their own biological kids because there's such a need for it."

Family is God's idea. It's meant to reflect his love, his grace, his community. It won't be perfect—your family hasn't been, mine hasn't been, and theirs hasn't been. But when we open our lives, prefer one another, and invite God into the mess, something beautiful happens.

What would change in your family if you genuinely believed that serving others matters more than your individual rights? What if contentment really is better than climbing the next rung? What if extended family isn't just a nice idea, but a practical way to live out the gospel?

It may be time to find out.