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More on Family-centered Worship

I have found a website that says a lot of what I was trying to say about family-centered worship.
Please do go and read it here.
I want to share a snippet from the site that I so enjoyed,
"In the spirit of preparation and peace, be prepared!  Our church is in the practice of emailing each household the upcoming songs and Scripture references for the following Sunday's service so that the fathers and other heads of households may prepare their families for worship.  It creates an expectancy for the pinnacle of the week (worship) and it familiarizes all of us with hymns we may not know and the sermon passage as well.  Maybe you could request the same from the leaders of your church home." -- From preschoolersandpeace.com 
Doesn't that just paint the most wonderful word picture?! Oh, how I wish our church would do this. It would be wonderful to prep and study at home in such a way. This isn't possible in our church right now as our pastor is an "up to the minute" man. He normally doesn't have his topics/scripture/hymns chosen until the very end of the week. But wouldn't it be wonderful?
Mr. Steady and I teach Jr and Sr high youth Sunday School class together and we have an amazing study going on right now based on the book of John. It's a 52 session study that really gets into the scripture. One Sunday Mr. Steady hadn't prepped/studied the lesson in advance and asked me to read it to him while he prepared Sunday morning breakfast. We found that the girls (especially Maiden) really enjoyed listening to the lesson and to Mr. Steady and I discuss how to run/lead it. And so now we have a new tradition- no matter how much we prep in advance, we read that day's lesson aloud during breakfast (or sometimes in the car on the way to church) and discuss it with the girls. What a blessing God made from an "oops" moment!
And by the by-- I think I would like to read the books pertaining to family-centered worship that were mentioned here. If you have read them- would you please share your insights with me? Are they worth purchasing?

Untitled Comment

4:05 PM, 2007-Jul-9 .. Posted by MicheleC11

I really enjoyed that article! Thanks for the link!

Kids in church.

12:11 PM, 2007-Jul-10 .. Posted by paschalhome

I try to bring a bag of appropriate toys with us too, but other kids who don't have anything to play with usually make there way over to take my kid's toys. I'm confused as to how to deal with this because my kids would gladly share, but the other kids don't want to . They just take off with them and then my kids will start yelling or crying. And the other kid's parent doesn't seem to care, so going to her isn't a solution. So we keep trying and hopefully it will work out soon.

God Bless.

Allison

To Alison

1:38 PM, 2007-Jul-10 .. Posted by YPAmy5

Alison-
We’ve been right where you are. We’ve had others take our kids’ toys and we’ve also been “talked to” by other parents about our children taking their kid’s toys (not that mine weren’t willing to trade- this kid wanted our kids toys plus his). Here’s some things we have done- first, we packed an extra little bag of toys to share and when that didn’t work (it did work the first couple of Sundays) then we “forgot” to bring toys the next Sunday (I had a couple pads of paper and pencils in my purse for the girls) which was mostly me trying to get my point across (but this particular parent seemed put out with me for “forgetting” – sigh). So, finally, we moved to a different pew- not just a different pew but a different pew on the other side of the church. The first Sunday their kids came right over to us (and the parents just sat there in their normal pew) and Mr. Steady and I just calmly said that it was important for them to sit with their parents during the service and shooed them back over to the other side.
I can totally understand how trying this us for you! My personal opinion (and I’m certainly opinionated) is this- when the kids with no toys come over to take your children’s toys and then your children begin to cry- take the toys back (unless they moved to another pew and you’d be disruptive). I’d say, “Please, may I have such and such toy back- my daughter brought it special today and would like to play with it.” Now, I don’t know your whole situation and this may just not work for you. But I gotta say it’s a big pet peeve of mine when parents are oblivious to their children’s bad behavior (or are aware and just choose to ignore it). My Grandfather always use to say “If you don’t parent your kids, I will.” While that’s a bit extreme- I can understand why he said it.
I pray your situation improves as I myself know how such matters disturbed my worship and greatly upset me.
Thanks for sharing your comments!
Amy W