A Quick Start Guide to Public Worship With Kids

As churches slowly begin holding live services again following COVID-19 closures, one thing is clear: Most won’t be hosting any form of children’s church or student ministry. 

That means entire families will be joining the main worship service together, which for many will be an entirely new thing. 

For years, we’ve attended a “family integrated church,” and it can be a beautiful experience, but there’s a few things to understand and appreciate, as well as a few steps we wanted to share that might make it just a bit more meaningful.

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Operation: Family Photo, Take 2

Friday rolled around perhaps sooner than I expected, and much sooner than I thought I could possibly endure.

Here we were, getting dressed in clothes picked out by my lovely wife, ready to take our first family photo since we left Nepal, when in the dying moments of loading up a few remaining boxes before we headed quickly to the airport, a family friend snapped a few pictures to remind us not so much of that day, but of the family we were—as well as the family we were leaving behind.

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Planning Time

With all the rain we’ve had here in Tennessee lately, it’s hard to believe that the growing season is just around the corner.

But the buds on trees and the seed catalogs in the mail tell a different story, and so it’s with excitement and some trepidation that we look forward to spring.

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Outdoors with Jack…despite a downpour!

Just this past weekend, my 15-year-old son and I spent a night and day searching for a little white box in the woods during an ongoing downpour.

I can think of about a million more things that might have been more comfortable — even at moments more enjoyable — than getting soaking wet, but, as members of the Civil Air Patrol, we were training for search-and-rescue missions in the wild woods of Tennessee.

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Stripping apart bikes to build family

I recently stopped to watch my 17-year-old and 15-year-old sons strip apart some bikes to fix brake and sprocket issues.

Ball bearings were rolling across the floor as one leaned down to grab them. And later, inside, the other told me how some of the work had to be redone because, well, when they had finished, there were a few extra parts that shouldn’t have been extra.  Continue reading