Family Worship may be a phrase that sounds kind of foreign and maybe even a little awkward to a lot of people. The first time I heard my pastor talking about Family Worship, I had this vision in my head of a Mother Goose type woman sitting with her skirt surrounding her in a perfect circle with little children gathered around gazing up at her attentively. I don't know why that was my vision, but it was...I'm a little weird.
But, this past Sunday, when Pastor David began explaining what Family Worship is, and the importance of it, I realized that it was something my family had done most of my life periodically, but we had never had a name for it. Family Worship is basically discipleship in the home. It's formal times of worship as a family, and it's informal teaching moments, as we called them in the Sansom House. I have vivid memories of my family gathering in our living room to pray, or listening to worship music together as we drive around in the car together. Formal and informal.
Jason and I began doing "sermon dates" occasionally when we were dating. One of us would find a sermon that we wanted to listen to, and we'd bring over our computer or iPod and we'd listen to a sermon together. We also have attended a small group together since before we were even engaged, and I believe that even though that's not family in the sense of DNA or marriage, it's a family of believers - The Body of Christ. Both have been extremely influential in our relationship before and after marriage.
But Sunday as we walked through some tangible ways to draw near to God in 2014, I became undoubtedly convicted about a void in our little family of two - we've never carved out a specific time for Jason and I to engage in Family Worship together on a consistent basic each week.
Therefore, beginning in 2014, the Morales' will carve out a time for Family Worship each week. Sometimes this may but be reading the bible together, praying, and worshiping. Sometimes it may be a sermon date. But whatever it is, we want to be sure that we don't let that fall by the wayside when life gets going too fast. It's healthy for us to put the brakes on, even if just for 20 or 30 minutes, and just spend time worshiping together.
Another benefit that we see in beginning Family Worship now is so that it's not a foreign or new concept to add once we have a child. I dream about a day when we have Baby Morales and we seamlessly continue in our tradition of Family Worship, even though I know that realistically, any transition with a new baby is far from seamless :) .
Speaking of children...
...Amazon has the Jesus Storybook Bible Kindle Edition for $1.99 right now. I have heard wonderful things about this bible for children, and I plan on buying a hard copy someday when we have a child, but I went ahead and purchased the Kindle Edition now because it's such a good price.
If you're interested in reading more about Family Worship, you can download this resource and hopefully it will answer any questions you may have.
I hope that the last few days of posts about growing near to the Lord in 2014 have been an encouragement to you. It's definitely been helpful and encouraging to me to really put my thoughts into words and share what the Lord is teaching me in this new year. My hope and prayer is that putting these thoughts out into the blogisphere helps to hold me accountable in ways over this next year.
