For those of you who read the blog yesterday and thought, "Oh I wish I could freely dance in church like Emily but I have been an immobile church blob for too long, I just don't know how."
Here is a little tutorial from Tim Hawkins to get you started. Happy Tuesday you all!
Some Worship Assistance from Tim Hawkins
My Pint-Sized Worship Mentors
This morning at breakfast we read Matthew 18. Fresh off Sunday service, verses 1-3 struck a chord with me.
"At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
Last year our girls started staying in church with us. It's not always an easy choice, but I have learned so much about worship from watching them, and from being more in tune to other children in the service.
Yesterday I was listening and watching Emily sing the last song of the service. The senior pastor at our church REALLY wants his congregation to clap, to be joyful, to maybe, dare I say it, raise a hand. Just about nobody does. Every week it's just the pastor clapping. It's awkward. We are a unexpressive lot, except for kids like Emily. She loves music and she loves Jesus, and she has no problem sharing that. Oh how free she is to worship! She dances. She sings. Without inhibition, she pours out the joy in her heart.
So I hear Matthew 18:1-3 and I feel challenged. It is ME who needs to be trained. I need to learn what Emily already knows, that it's okay to worship. I need to change and approach Jesus with the JOY of a six year old.
Most Sundays when I politely get in communion line at the elder approved moment, I think of a little boy I had the privilege to worship with in Denver. For a time last winter we were attending a very small church. There was one little boy who was quite a handful. He is the type of child that prompted somebody 40 years ago to come up with the idea of locking the parish children away in Children's Church.
One day the pastor was giving a children's message about communion. The children were invited to come forward and see the communion elements. This little boy was delayed in heading up with the other kids. I think he was stuck under the pew. We all heard a muffled voice calling out from the back. "Wait! Waaaaiiiiiiit!" Then a little blur flew past us shouting, "I'm coming! Don't start without me!" As he screeched to a halt, barely missing the table, he triumphantly shouted
"Here I am!"
The congregation started to laugh. The pastor and the child's parents were mortified. I started to cry. Had I ever ONCE approached the Lord's table that way? Had I ever longed for communion with God so greatly that I would RUN for fear of missing it? Had I ever triumphantly called out to God even in my own heart,
"Here I am!"
In that moment I believe the little boy brought God joy. How God must have loved his urgency.
How He must despise our orderly lines that approach Communion with the same passion as approaching the grocery cashier.
Since that Sunday last winter, I take a moment in communion line to remember that boy's sprint. I imagine joining him and shouting "Here I am Lord!" And I thank God for my pint-sized mentors who are indeed changing me.
And he (Jesus) said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
A gathering of God's little princesses
Last week kicked off our first grade mother-daughter bible study. All first grade girls and their moms were invited to my friend Cindy's house for fellowship and a bible study. Cindy has an amazing heart for these little girls and puts so much into planning our meetings. She has searched and searched for a mother-daughter bible study for this age group, but none exist, so she is paving her own way and trusting that God is going to give her a plan.
What a plan He gave her for last weekend. The girls were invited to dress as princesses. They loved it! Cindy introduced the study time by sharing with the girls that since God, who is the King of Kings calls each of them his daughter, they are true princesses. (sniff, sniff). She explained that each month we will look at characteristics of some of God's "princesses" found in the Bible.
Each girl and her mom took time alone to discuss the characteristics of a princess. They each chose one or two to write on a pink crown and then shared it with the group. The characteristics the girls came up with were beautiful. Many were internal things not physical - which gave me hope for these young princesses!
According to our little princesses...A Princess is.... kind, good, adventurous, a leader, special, gentle, someone who cares about others.
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There was a lesson about Tabitha, one of God's daughters who displayed the princess characteristic of kindness. We discussed kindness and Matthew 7:12 (the golden rule).
Our Princesses decorated folders which will hold the bible story sheets they get each month.
Cindy made sure no 1st grade girl was left out.
She made hearts with the names of each little girl who could not be there, as well as the 1st grade teachers. She passed out these hearts before our prayer time. (How awesome is that!) This group meets monthly during the school year. I look forward to sharing each month's meeting with you. Cindy and I both hope that these posts will encourage moms to start a mother-daughter bible study for their daughter's class. We both hope the ideas Cindy comes up with, and I share here, will inspire additional moms out there to join us. And please share your ideas with us. We would love to hear them!
Orrange Family Update and Prayer Request
A week or so ago I blogged about my friend Courtney who moved recently to Sierra Leone with her young family. Several of you e-mailed, commented or have personally asked me to keep you updated on them. Well I didn't think I would be updated you so soon... but need some prayers my friends. Courtney's daughter Brooklyn (8) has been very sick for over a week now. She has been diagnosed with Typhoid and has today been admitted to the hospital. Please pray for healing for this sweet little girl who is far, far from home, and her mom and dad (Brent) who are so very concerned.
Half is still too much
For 18 months, Pete and I thought we were relocating outside of the US, so I was on a mission to get rid of our stuff. Now I don't think of myself as a "stuff" person. I don't like to give or get gifts of "stuff." Give me a gift card for Starbucks or a massage and I am a happy girl. Have someone come clean my bathrooms and I will weep. Stuff on the other hand isn't quite my thing, but somehow our family has accumulated WAY too much stuff. I blame it on living in a house with a basement (it is a well known fact that junk breeds down there) and the children (little people come with SO much stuff!).
So for 18 months I got rid of stuff. I went closet to closet getting rid of half of the contents of every closet, cabinet, and drawer. I had two HUGE garage sales. My neighbors came and wondered where all the stuff had come from. I didn't know. At the second sale a woman approached me and asked in broken English, "they die here?" It took me a minute. "They die here?" she asked again.
She thought we had DIED and it was an estate sale. She thought we were selling the total possessions of a family.
Oh, I was mortified...but mostly because the house was still full of stuff.
When we found out that we were moving to Raleigh and would be in a rental home for up to a year, I once again went through all our stuff. Half of our stuff would be unpacked, half would stay boxed ready to move again.
So this is what our garage here looks like.
Now six months into a life with half our stuff (actually about 1/4 compared to where we begin.) I have come to three sad conclusions.
1. I don't miss anything that is sitting in one of those boxes. (I am not even sure what they are.)
2. We unpacked too much stuff.
3. I can't remember a SINGLE item I sold at those two garage sales.
I have started reading Jen Hatmaker's new book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. The book chronicles Jen, her husband, and sometimes her children taking 7 months to confront head-on the excess of their very normal American lives. For one month each, they GREATLY reduce their food, clothes, possessions, shopping, waste, media and stress.
Jen is a hilarious, honest and challenging voice in the Christian marketplace asking can we really say we follow Jesus while living in such enormous excess and waste. It is something that is challenging me a lot these days. My friend Amy suggested we do the 7 experiment and start with our hubbies' stuff. Oh she is brilliant.
Hang onto your computers babe, hide your bitty baby and her 76 coordinating outfits Emmie - Momma is on a roll ... apparently half is still too much.
By-Product Blessings - a guest post by Amy Carroll
I asked my friend Amy Carroll if I could repost her blog about her family's first week into Our Salvation and Song. I am so blessed to have other families reading along with us. Although we are all on our own schedule and pace, it is such an encouragement to me (and some good accountability) to know other moms are out there each morning trying to get everyone to the table in time to read together.
Amy Carroll is a speaker and writer with Proverbs 31 Ministries and is a speaking coach through Next Step Speaker Services. I met Amy recently at a women's ministry luncheon. Her eldest was leaving for college the next week, this immediately made me want to weep and wear sack cloth with her. Oh I can't imagine, but I know the day will come!! But she seems to have survived this event and is doing Our Salvation and Song with her husband and teenage son. I am so inspired by this because I have a bit of parenting tunnel vision. I think of spiritual development in children as an elementary school thing - I have a hard time thinking ahead to the high school years. But those years are on the way - so I better get ready!
I hope Amy's message with encourage you to pick up or keep at the practice of daily bible reading as a family, whether your kids are 6 or 16 .... God has bountiful blessings waiting to pour onto your family.
By-Product Blessings (originally posted @ www.amycarroll.org)
Day 3. Check!
On Monday I wrote about our family's attempt at pre-school morning devotions. I thought that it was so interesting that my friend Lynn Cowell wrote about the same thing for Encouragement for Today this morning.
Lest you start to think that our family is super-spiritual, let me just get the truth out there. Morning 3 of the alarm clock was way harder than morning 1. Also, I don't have a great track record for finishing what I've started. If you've ever wondered why I start series on things like wunning or memorizing James and then you don't hear anymore...is that enough of a confession?
But there is already a byproduct of our morning devotions that is unexpected and wonderful enough to keep me going--hearing Nolan pray. I'm gaining encouragement, spiritual insight and a glimpse at my boy's heart that is both surprising and delightful.
As the boys have gotten older and have started having their own prayer and Bible reading time, our family prayer time has fallen off, but the last three mornings have reminded me of why it's so important. I thought I'd be modeling prayer, but it turns out that I'm the learner!
I'd love to hear your family devotions stories. How do you follow through and keep going even with busy schedules?
Sarah's Hand-Me-Down Store
Being the little sister myself, I have a soft spot for the fact that Sarah (9) shops at the mall, and Emily (6) shops in the basement. A few years ago, in order to soothe my guilt, I started having Sarah set up Sarah's Hand-Me-Down Store. Sarah does a great job and takes a lot of pride in organizing "this season's fashions," as she calls her old clothes. She organizes everything by type of clothes, gives Emily a purse full of change and coupons, and acts as Emily's personal shopper.
Sarah's Hand-Me-Down shop does three things for me.
1. It makes hand-me-downs exciting to Emily.
2. It gives Emily a say in her clothes. If she won't "buy" something, I just donate it because I know she is never going to put it on.
3. It makes Sarah a more grateful child when she does get to go to the mall shopping.
A few weeks ago my niece Barrett was here visiting. She and Emily are both entering first grade. Barrett is the big sister at her house, so it was a great novelty for her to get to go shopping with Emily at Sarah's store. Sarah gave them both a purse full of change and they went wild!
My mom and I had a great time watching Emily and Barrett try on one thing after the next.
The girls found church dresses,
and matching dresses,
and a whole bunch of other stuff.
When they were done shopping it was time to pay up. I think each of their totals, after discounts and coupons (oh it's so embarrassing what I teach them!!) was about $.63.
How does your family handle the hand-me downs? I have taken off the blog comment setting that I think were causing all the issues of late. So give commenting a try again and let me know!
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