Having small children can be a challenge when it comes to worship.  We, as parents, can make it even more of a challenge if we fail to prepare our family for worship.  Yes, we must prepare their hearts and minds, but sometimes preparations include the most basic of things as well.  Here is a brief list:

• Get them to bed early on Saturday Night.  We do it for school, why shouldn’t we do it for something that is to be more important?  It will probably limit some of your Saturday social life, but it will set an example of priorities for your children.
• Have things laid out (clothes, shoes, bibles, Sunday School papers) or in the car ready to go Saturday evening.  For some reason Sunday Mornings seem like the worst morning of the week.  With three kids there is always a bible or paper missing and then we pull out for worship with dad blaming mom, mom not having time to get done what she needs because she has spent 15 minutes looking for a flip flop, and kids crying and upset after getting instructed on their irresponsibility.  All the devotions you did Saturday night to prepare for worship seem rather empty at this point.
• Parents should rise before the children.  (Usually not a problem, this also seems like the one morning when all of the kids would sleep until 10 AM if we would let them)  No matter how much we seem to prepare on Saturday evening, there is always something else that comes up.  If we can be ready to go before we get the children up it helps us be on time and the attitudes of all are usually dramatically improved.
• Take your children to the bathroom. I cannot stress how important this is for the entire congregation and the preacher.  Not only does it disrupt your ability to worship, but the pee-pee parade down the center aisle will disrupt others as well and spark a subconscious desire for other children to “need” to go to the bathroom.  Take your children to the bathroom 5 minutes before the service and they will almost always be able to hold it for an hour or more.  They do it all the time during “Cars” and “Cinderella”.
• Bring your loose change for the offering. It may not be their offering, but it gives them something to anticipate and participate in during worship.  As they get older, then they can bring their own money to give.
• Allow them to use a Hymnal, Bulletin, or Prayer Sheet.  Again, it is important that they know they are a part of what is going on and not just required to sit still while we participate.  Small children love to imitate and if they desire to imitate us worshiping, why not allow them?  As long as they are using it semi-properly, allow them to have it so they know what is going on is for them as well.
• Have them draw or look at books, don’t bring toys.  Bring papers, quiet crayons, etc.  Once a child is out of toddler nursery and in worship it is for training them.  If they still need toys, maybe they still need to be in nursery (talk to your pastor or nursery staff and see if they can stay in a little longer).  Let them color, draw, take notes or look at books (There are many good bible story and bible picture books they can use).  Again, even if they are not always drawing or coloring about the sermon or reading about what is being preached on, they are doing what everyone else is doing.  (Hopefully parents still “draw”, take notes during sermons)  Also, don’t allow them to draw during prayer, singing, etc.  Have them participate in all that they can.  Drawing should be limited to times when you as a parent would be drawing.
• Learn to pray with one eye open. If you don’t there may be entire rows of adults with both eyes open behind you.  Multitasking is part of it.  It is a training process.

Hopefully this will help enhance not only our children’s worhip, but also our’s and the entire congregation’s.

From A Quest for More and based on Romans 8:22-25:

Being ungodly is not just about committing a certain lists of sins.  It is also about finding fulfillment outside of God, which leads me to commit an endless list of sins of the heart … We are supposed to groan because there are things that we have been promised but do not yet have.  We are supposed to groan because the full expression of God’s Kingdom has not yet come.  We are supposed to groan because we are not yet all that God shed the blood of his Son for us to become.  We are supposed to groan because the temporary pleasures of this physical world do not satisfy us; they always leave a void in our hearts.  We are supposed to groan because in every situation and circumstance we see the damage that sin has done and is wrong.  We are supposed to groan because we recognize how we each give into the temptation to seek in the physical world what we can only find in the Lord and what will only be fulfilled in eternity.  This side of eternity, groaning is meant to be the default language of the big kingdom.

• 1848 Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union
• 1903 Entertainer Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England
• 1917 John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was born in Brookline Mass.
• 1942 Bing Crosby recorded Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”
• 1970 Tom Lutz and Sue Spratlin were married in Atlanta, GA

The rest is history

Happy Anniversary Dad and Mom!

Justin Taylor had a post about adoption that pointed to Shaohannah’s Hope. I watched this video and it reminded me of a thought I had while on my roof cleaning out the gutters Monday (ah my random thought life). While adoptions is a wonderful thing, it is also a reminder that so is having our own children. Sometimes adoption may make what we are doing more intentional, caring for this child, teaching them the things of God, giving of ourselves, etc., but we who have unadopted children need to be intentional as well. Did we have children to glorify God? Are we raising them to the glory of God? No matter under what circumstance you had children, this is the goal. It is so difficult in the midst of daily whiningvand fussing to forget and just try to make it through another day, but God has given us our children as a gift, for our good and pleasure, but ultimately for His glory. It is easy to forget this simple truth, we have a responsibility to bring Him glory in our parenting.
There appear to be 3 attitudes parents fall into:

1. Shepherds: Rearing children for God’s Glory.
2. Wardens: Ready to give up or trying to maintain peace, but with no real joy.
3. Golden Calf Herders: Love their children to the point that they become idols.

I will write about each in the following days.

Just in case some of you may be feeling tired of disciplining your children, here is a reason to stick with it: Do it so the terrible 2’s or teenage years don’t turn into the terrible 62’s!

ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son’s house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.

Tired of her son’s misbehavior, the retiree in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to “convince this blockhead” to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily’s leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.

The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook.

“My son does not respect me, he doesn’t tell me where he’s going in the evenings and returns home late,” the woman was quoted as saying. “He is never happy with the food I make and always complains. This can’t go on.”

Sorry for the lack of posts and the disappearance of the Puritan of the Week posts. Puritan of the Week will resume next week, but will be switched from Tuesdays to Wednesdays. There has been a lot going on in church and family life, limiting my blogging.

We have just returned from Greenville, SC where we celebrated the life, love, and home going of my grandmother, Virginia Lutz. I am thankful for the past three days with my Grandpa, father, and family. We all rejoice she is no longer diseased and now worships her Savior face to face. She will be missed, I cannot think of Grandpa without her. They were married 65 years. As a grandchild, I will be forever grateful for the love exhibited by my grandparents, and not simply toward us and their children but toward each other. My words will fail to explain what I have observed over the years and watching my Grandpa grieve, but I love to hear my Grandpa speak of Grandma for he adored her and gave himself for her. He cared for her for over 15 years where she was confined to a wheelchair and/or bed, and in that time he adored her equally if not more. He truly seemed to delight in being able to serve her in those years. When we first got down to Greenville, I asked him how he was doing. He thought I was my dad standing beside him. He teared up and said, I am grieving, I miss my wife. I want that in my relationship with Heather, to give myself up for her as Christ did for the church, and I want to delight in it in sickness and in health. Thank you Grandpa and Grandma!

For those who are interested, here is the video played at her funeral:

I am not a regular on posting Friday’s Fotos but I have been away this week to Alistair Begg’s Basics Conference and am now catching up on other things. So, here are a few shots from over the last week:

Kara Turned 7!

Lauren was the flower girl at Matt and Alison’s wedding

I enjoyed catching up with friends from Southern Seminary, Rick Crews and Jeff Douglas at the Conference

Recently several young couples in our church went through half of the video series on Shepherding a Child’s Heart. It was convicting and encouraging then, but more convicting today. He often taught about listening to our children. He encourages parents to ask questions and find out what the deeper issues are rather than provoking our children to wrath on the surface issues that really aren’t the problem.

I had gotten on one of our children today about a tardy note. I wanted her to understand this was not acceptable (we have been working with our children about not piddling). The tardy happened because she wanted to get a notebook out of the school vending machine, had trouble with the machine, and was then late. I was ready to set the course straight, “you should not be tardy!” The discussion caused her to get more upset than I thought it would. Next I saw a very sad face had been quickly drawn on the first page of the new notebook. The issue then moved on to not pouting. Nothing was going to get by me today! During the course of lunch we began to discuss the notebook and why she had all of her friends sign in it. Turns out Dad and Mom had failed to purchase a yearbook, and this week was yearbook week and all her friends had received theirs and were signing each others. Now the tears really poured down, this was the real issue.

We never thought twice about the reason we had been asked for 4 quarters for a notebook the morning before. I spoke too quickly and made a special notebook a mark of shame. The real issue had gotten completely by me and was nearly missed. I was reminded again of how important it is to make sure we are daily connecting to our children. To make sure we are asking questions and then listening, so that we are dealing with the real issues.

Probably won’t be updating for two weeks, check back around Easter!

Many times I get to tuck Tyler in for bed at night. We often read and sing and do the usually. He got a new book about Bible stories the other night and it has a few stories about creation. We read two and then I asked him a few questions. Here is how it went:

Me: Tyler, who made you? Who made Tyler?

Ty: God made Tyler.

Me: Yes, God made Tyler. Who made Daddy?

Ty: Somebody cool!

When he is a teenager I hope to remind him about that.