Why The Bear is TV's blueprint for a healthy church

A sweary Chicago TV series about a dysfunctional family restaurant has become a cult hit. As the fourth series hits our screens, Martin Saunders says it has a lot to teach Christians about loving one another well

Families are complicated. For some of us, the word itself can feel difficult and even painful; for others it describes our entire world. A family can be a ‘traditional’ unit of parents and children; it can be a wide extended web of relationships and connections. It can be two people who’ve made promises to each other, or even a virtual group, held together by common threads across the planet. It can be the lineage you were born into or the tribe that you joined. What links all these definitions together is a commitment to each other; an agreement – to try, at least – to love one another.