Family Worship

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. 

In the Word - 2014

UPDATED: In light of this post, I found this amazing offer online. You can download 16 of Beth Moore's ebooks FOR FREE. Click here for the link.

Last year at the end of January, I began my first venture to read through the bible in a year. I was completely and utterly convicted about my lack of bible reading after going through the Personal Disciple Making Plan with our former small group (click on the link to download).

So I began following the reading plan that Brook Hills used when they read through the bible in one year with the Radical Experiment. I started attending Brook Hills in August of that year, so I followed along with the New Testament, but I missed so much in the Old Testament that I'd never gone back and revisited it. I also decided that I'd listen to the sermon that Pastor David preached the week that coincided with my reading. 

I'm actually really excited about how far I got in the reading plan. I got to Ecclesiastes. It was a slow process, and I skipped days along the way here and there, but for the most part, I consistently read the bible for an entire year! I cannot tell you how much this has done for my life. 

I'm not very good at memorizing things - I'm much more or a writer and storyteller. But, the Old Testament is FULL of stories and expository literature, and I was captivated by the incredible story of redemption that has taken place from just about the beginning of time, namely since The Fall in Genesis 3. I realized over the last year that I only had glimpses of this incredible story from sermons that I've heard and through bible stories I learned in children's church many years ago. I'd never craved God's Word like this before, but somewhere in the days that passed by in 2013, I had a yearning for His Word like never before. 

I finished up reading Ecclesiastes around the time that Brook Hills announced that we, as a church, would be walking through the bible again, but this time at a slower pace over the course of two years. Honestly, when I picked up the reading plan, I was giddy. I always get excited about beginning a new sermon series at church, but this was at a whole other level. I was waiting and anticipating January 1st like it was Christmas morning.  

Here's my challenge to you: Whether you're a Christian or not, open up a bible, or go to an online bible like biblegateway.com. Begin reading Genesis...and see how the story unfolds. It really is incredible. 

I'll be reading along with Brook Hills' 2014 Bible Reading Plan (click the link to download) and following along with the supplementary book by D.A. Carson For the Love of God (click the link to download the free PDF version of the book). I'm also going to begin journaling most days, which is something I used to do, but have gotten away from in the last few years. 

How can you grow closer to God in 2014? My hope in prayer for all of us to look back at this day on December 31st of this year and know that God has done a magnificent work in our hearts and in our lives because we were obedient to His calling to dive deep into His Word.