Family Worship Recap

When we talked about calling today a "Family Worship" and closing our nursery while it's facelift continues, we jokingly called it "Chaos Sunday". It's difficult to have a little guy in the worship service but I have a 7-year helper in the form of a Big Sister. Some parents have two or more of equal age or close in age and that can get fairly rowdy.

But, all in all, Family Worship is a joyous place to be. We didn't have a church nursery most of the time in the church I grew up in because we didn't really have any babies most of the time. But, I remember the men making announcements to the effect that it is ok if we hear those babies cry in worship, they are God's little babies. They also declared you a member on your second visit ... but that's another post.

Here is the good in intergenerational worship:

From Recently Updated

. That's Jeff Adams with Reese. Reese wandered over to Jeff just a few minutes after worship began. Jeff snatched him up and loved on him for a while. In many churches, Jeff wouldn't know Reese. The Adams have a college and high school boy. Jeff loves the babies and is one of our most consistent Cradle Roll helpers. This reminded of the beauty of intergenerational worship. Watching the church families come together as spiritual grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and parents. I'm sure there were others throughout the auditorium that participate as spiritual families this morning.

As we began the morning, another wonderful thing happened. One of the Middle School girls that are dear to my heart searched me out to tell me, "I'm being baptized this morning"! Lainey, I'm very happy for you and thank you for sharing your special decision with me in such a joyoust way before our services. Here are those pictures:

From Recently Updated

,

From Recently Updated

.

All of this made me think about how those of us in paid and volunteer leadership positions can sometimes think of Sunday morning as the chaos that has to be managed. The timing that has to be worked out among all the leaders of worship, the nursery workers that must be in place and even the toys that must be disinfected to properly care for kids adds up to one REALLY BIG task shared by many people. But, then I realized, that God's Kingdom must look a little bit like chaos every day from up above and His people coming together, to focus solely on Him, is the most important, and orderly, activity that we do all week. That few moments when all of His people, His community, stop, focus, sing, pray, commune, fellowship, love, rejoice, encourage, and forgive each other in His name is, perhaps, the most beautiful thing God ever created.