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Like no other season, Christmastime highlights the importance of “home” to us. Lit up and decorated, dreamy pictures show warm fires and family meals round the table. Seasonal songs tell of “driving home for Christmas” while outside the weather is cold.

But what about our theology of home? What does “home” mean in our Christian faith? For a comment about the public square, this might seem quite a contrary theme. Our homes are, quite literally, what keep us out of the public square. They are our private domains. But for Christians a theology of home is a public issue.

According to the Psalmist, the Lord is our dwelling-place, or “home” as the Good News Bible puts it. At Christmas we celebrate God coming to dwell with us that we might dwell with him. Both now, because we are “in Christ”, and in the future, when we will be with him forever, it is true to say we are at home in him.

If God is our home, it follows that we should have a loose grip on our brick abodes and use them for God’s glory. This provides a challenge to our thinking on at least three issues of which home is the primary social symbol.

Security. As house prices throughout the island spiral (you should add £40,000 to the asking price of a semi in East Belfast), security in bricks and mortar comes at a very high price. The average UK house price is seven times the average UK salary (try asking your mortgage lender for that). I’m no economist (and I do believe Christians should do wise and profitable business, mindful of the future), but as families become overstretched and under strain, as the UK clears the £1 trillion debt mark (and from what I’ve heard the Irish economy is also heavily based on credit) and as the potential for a crash heightens, let’s weigh up carefully how much we have placed on our home(s) as security for ourselves.

Quality of life. The “Changing Rooms” phenomenon seems to have inspired a reversal of the Psalm: “O Dwelling-place, you are my god”. Perhaps it is DIY shops that are holding the economy together, as we pour money into the fabric of our houses in the belief that a better-looking house provides a better-looking life. Again, I’m not for depressing décor or scruffy untidiness. But if the “public square” in our house is an immaculate looking front room, maybe it’s the domestic equivalent of saying “I’m doing well thanks” when in truth, you’re not. When people visit, when homes are opened to others, what marks our homes out as different, authentic, God-honouring places? I don’t think the answer is just a few Scripture texts on the wall.

Self-containment. According to a survey on the Genes Reunited website, only 1 in 4 households shared Christmas Day with anyone beyond their immediate family. Just 3% of people said they would invite their neighbours in for a drink. Only 15% said they would entertain friends. Christmas highlights the self-containment of our homes, a place where the door is for keeping people out rather than letting them in. We all need privacy, but at one of the most social times of the year, these statistics demonstrate how bad as a society we are at opening our homes to others.

If the Gospel message involves people finding their true home in God, then our concern for God’s glory should be seen wall to wall, inside and out.