"We are Family"

When I hear a Leader say to his congregation "We are Family" I cringe. Not that it's not true in a metaphorical theoretical quasibiblical sense. It's just not true in practice. I read the book of Acts, they were family. Holding things in common. Confronting.

I don't remember my father making me sit and be quiet while he held the floor and being ushered out an hour later. OR, worse, keeping us all sitting in the dark without real opportunity to develop family relationship.

It would be as if we all were kept in a cell anonymously, being let out with blinders and ear plugs for a few hours a week to see one another. Then after that recommitted to the cell.

I was at a meeting recently where the leader said such a thing. I looked around and said to myself, if this is family it's pretty strange that I maybe know 20 out of the hundred or so that were there. No way to get it done. I'm pretty gregarious, but the opportunity to develop relationship never happened. I guess when he said, we're your family he meant HIM, not all of us. Strange family.

How can we straighten out this sad distortion? I want to belong to the family of God in a true sense. I know I can't go hang out with the Pope or Rick Joyner... UNLESS I had a family relationship with them. Just asking.