Monday, April 19, 2010

A Guest Blog from Bro. Bubba Crowder on Family Worship...

Bro. Bubba and his precious wife, Whitney should be in all of our daily prayers as they recently had a sweet baby girl (one of the only little girls in all of these boys being born at Trinity right now - so needless to say, Bro. Bubba will REALLY need your prayers as she grows up among all these boys!). We are blessed as a Church to have Bubba on staff not only for his obvious talent in the video and media side of things (as we have been seeing through the Freedom for Tomorrow...Today campaign) but also because of his devotion to the Lord. Bubba has a passion to see our Church be the Body as the Bible defines it.

As Bubba shares with you his family's time in worship each day, I am excited for you to see that family worship does NOT just begin when the children come along! Men, you are responsible for your wife's walk with God and wives, you must be the helpmate that makes it easier for your husband to walk with God! We begin FAMILY worship when we become FAMILY!!! That means husbands and wives are accountable to each other! Praise God that Bro. Bubba and Whitney demonstrate that in their marriage! I thank God for allowing Bubba to be a part of our Trinity family and a part of this Staff!


The Crowder's Family Worship – from the perspective of a couple without kids

Having just had our first-child recently, we’re obviously just beginning the journey towards learning how to lead our child in Family Worship. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss more of how we’ve done this as a married couple (without kids) over the past few years. This could also apply to empty-nesters and senior adults who are home, without children.

No one ever seems to have enough time, and everyone seems to struggle to find where exactly to “fit in” Family Worship time. Even though children increase the chaos in a household, they also bring a sense of structure to most homes as well. They have school time and bedtime, and practice time - and even though these things add so much more to a schedule, it does at least create some sort of daily schedule. A lot of times, and this is the boat we found ourselves in, without kids each day can look so drastically different. One weekday schedule may be based on a book club you have weekly on that night and another night based on working late. Another night may even be based on what TV shows you want to watch. This creates a messy weekly schedule, which creates a problem in where exactly you’re to fit Family Worship. For example, most married couples without kids also don’t sit down to “family dinner” nearly as often as those with kids do.

So, what we’ve found is that for being a married couple without kids, flexibility was extremely important. Now, I must go ahead and say, flexibility is always a threat to consistency, but it doesn’t have to be. This is where discipline must step in. Consistency must always be in place because it makes it a natural desire for us to spend this time each day. With that being said, some of the things we do as Family Worship:

- Prayer. We keep up with our family, friends, and situation God has laid on our hearts to pray about. Instead of praying for the entire list, we try and split them up into specific days. This allows us to focus on praying specifics instead of “rushing to finish a list”. We also spend time praying for each other.
- Read. We have different books that we read, and then we discuss them with each other. Just recently, I was walking through The Trellis and the Vine and she was reading The Excellent Wife. Now, it’s not that Whitney was teaching me how to be a wife, but there’s great accountability and encouragement in sharing what you’re learning and bouncing that off your spouse.
- Bible. We try to stay together in reading through the Word. Both of us spend our own time studying and walking through Scripture, but we also take time to talk about it together and to challenge each other in God’s Word. Something that’s recently been on the forefront for us is walking through what the Bible says on anything related to raising children. There are times where it’s related to a subject that we’re dealing with, and there are also times where it’s just a chance for us to walk through a book of Scripture together. The important thing is that we’re on the same “page” in God’s Word.

Now, it’s important to share that we don’t do this as a list. There are times where we focus more on praying for each other and there are times where we focus more on reading through the Bible.
There are also times where we don’t do all of this together. We may discuss a book over dinner, and then pray together later at night before we get ready for bed.
The important thing is that it’s done, and that it’s done with the heart to lead your family in worship, not just to check it off your list of things.
Also, we’re not perfect. This doesn’t always fit neatly into our lives, but there’s a sacrifice that must be made to carve out this time. It’s probably never going to be convenient. It may never even be easy to do. It is however, necessary!