"Home is the nicest word there is." ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
In love with Jesus. Wife to my best friend & man I love more than life. Mama to 4 amazing God given blessings. Proud Homemaker & Homeschooler. Living life with it's ups and downs and blogging about it!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Focus on the Family Friday



I am a little late getting this up, I tried to get as much possible done today and spend LOTS of time with my precious little girls so getting this done took a while. I had to wait until they were tucked in bed!

Sarah, this week is discussing Family Worship. I think this is a wonderful topic and I am interested in your views and how you and your family "worship" ? I hope that you will share that with me! As for now, I will share what we do during our "official" day of worship:

We are Church of Christ. We worship with accapella singing and we partake of the Lord's Supper every Sunday. We have a group of 3 men who take turns preaching for us. We start our worship service with a total of about 16 songs accapella (I am not kidding, sometimes it's 20, if my Dad is feeling like we need the practice!lol) We then have a prayer and go into the sermon. We then sing an invitation song and pray for those who need prayers or for those who would like to be baptized. If you wish to be baptized, we baptize you right then and there. We then have a prayer over the bread, we break it in two pieces (in half) , pass it around and then we pray over the grape juice, and pass it around. We then sing another two songs and dismiss in prayer. We have bible study on Sunday night and sometimes singing. We usually eat supper together at church. These are just a few of the things that we do as a family in our worship services.

Sarah asked about children's church. We don't have that and we never have and probably never will. I am not putting it down, I believe it is a personal choice. We do not have it so I have always just taken my children to worship with me and they do just fine. It is a process trying to teach them to be still and listen but if they are taken every Sunday they get the hang of it fairly quickly. If they see that you are serious about it. I applaud Sarah's decision to teach Eli the importance of this. I believe that teaching our children reverance is one of the most important lessons we can teach them.

This Sunday, my husband will give about a 30 minute devotion/lesson. I am looking forward to it because I love to hear him speak and see the thrill on his face when he talks about something that he is getting in his spritual life, the lessons that the Lord is teaching him. I will keep Claire occupied with coloring and quiet things such as puzzles and I allow her to bring her cloth tea set and 1 baby doll with accessories. We have a small church with a lot of young children and people are very relaxed about babies crying and temper tantrums. I have had people change diapers for me and feed my children. Claire sits with her cousins most Sundays and they are very well behaved. It's a very relaxed atmosphere but we don't have children running wild, either.

We also, as a family, do a short devotion with the girls on Sunday morning and a couple of children's songs and a little prayer. We are trying to be more regular with this and Claire loves for Daddy to tell her stories! We also are trying to do more activities with the little children in our church.

I am going to close for now and I know that I have rambled. I just get really excited about sharing our customs of worshipping our Lord and Savior as a family!

Have a Blessed Weekend!

Love,

Julie

4 comments:

In Light of the Truth... said...

Thanks so much for sharing this, Julie! I love hearing what other people do because it makes me all the more excited for what we can continue to incorporate into our routines as Eli gets older.

Aunt Angie said...

Julie that is such an sweet post! Bless you for your devotion and dedication to the Lord and your family!

Denise said...

Such a beautiful way to worship, thanks for sharing.

cryssi said...

I dont think I can add anything new...since this is how we worship too. Wait yes I can....when Paul preaches and he gets through...during the invitation song, the girls run up to him and he holds them and sings....they love it. Some people may look down on this and say it is out of order but if it is something that happens every sunday then it is not out of order for us...lol They enjoy it, it is one of the highlights of Church and if I dont let them go up there, someone usually gets them and takes them up there...lol. They all think it is so cute. I know that someday soon they will be to big to do it but for now...

Anyway, I am glad yall are doing the devotions with the kids in the mornings..It sounds wonderful.

Blessings and Love
Sis

If we don't find Him in the small things, how will we ever find Him in the big ones? ~Elisabeth Elliot