Tonight I had an excellent time with some great friends. This morning during the message my heart was longing for closer intimacy among the body of Christ. My heart longs for the body of Christ to be the body of Christ and work together and be a true family. This just doesn't happen Sunday mornings. My Sunday mornings consists of getting up, helping my kids get breakfast,Keep them off the gamecube and computer (is that religious?) rushing to church and keeping them at bay so that they don't tear through the church. By the time worship starts,my hearty isn't right anyway.Then it seems that it is a mission to keep your kids still so that they don't 'bother' anyone. I wonder if we don't teach our kids a false perception of corporate worship.
As I was saying I was hungering for greater intimacy one to another. Sunday morning worship needs to precede weekly gatherings.
This evening my family was invited to our friends for supper. To our pleasant surprise they had invited another family over. 6 Adults and 16 childrenin one house...needless to say, there was life there. We fed the kids first, then the six of us sat down to eat. My goodness I don't know if anyone else felt this but that moment brought me close to the fathers heart. THAT was the very thing that I was longing for this morning True friendship happening among friends in a safe environment. For me Church took place when we sat down to eat together. Nothing spiritual, nothing scripted, just being together and enjoying fellowship together. That is the Church I long to see in our midst.
Unqualified To Drive\Live
6 years ago
7 comments:
hey cwg!! blessings to you! haven't been on here in quite a while.
i wanted to comment on your words about teaching our children a false perception of corporate worship. I believe our church is QUITE abnormal in the way we allow our children to be involved and hands-on in worship. It's not the norm. In fact, if you were to go to almost any other church in this city you would still see the same old "children should be seen and not heard" vibe in the service, more or less. perhaps i am generalizing. But as much as I love all of our kids and love worshiping with them, we do have to keep in mind that a lot of folks can find it distracting and would prefer to not have their eye poked out by a flag! lol! i hope you take this the right way, i mean absolutely NO offense by it. just trying to offer a kidless perspective on corporate worship.
be blessed today!
Had a good time last night with you guys. Let's not wait years before we do this again.
nice new look, by the way. ;)
Hey Camille
I think this is the first time you commented :)
You are right we as a church do have freedom to include children in our worship time. I have been contiplating my perspective on how I am raising my kids.It seems I am teaching them compliance over worship.My desire is to teach them the intimacy of Christ. I am just not sure how that can happen at such an early age.
I totally agree with the distraction of others that is why I tend to keep my kids with me. This is a journey. I think I need to find the balance. Thank you for your comment, I appreciate it.
Wow, that sounds good. Man I miss that so much.
Hey cwg,
This morning in corporate worship I was trying to teach my kids what the time was meant to be. I do not think that we can experience the depth of worship alone that we can have corporately and I want to share this with my kids. The seen and not heard thing is, I believe, reserved for those who are too frightened by intimate worship to know what to do with themselves, never mind teaching their kids. Instead of trying to reign our kids in we should be trying to see them be released, and instead of feeling distracted we should see the opportunity to embace true corporate worship. Consider the children of Israel on the Sinai side of the Red Sea. Very corporate, very exuberant and very much crossing what we in western churches consider well considered boundaries. I believe we worry waaaaay too much about appearances and tender toes. I also say this as one who has had Jesus step on his tender tootsies and came out better for it.
Good point Brad
At the time I wrote this post I was frustrated. Now I am more at ease with the whole thing. I really want my kids to experience God in his fullness and I agree corporate worship is key. Thanks for commenting.
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