Well I didn't as I skipped church-- I know {{{gasp}}}. I have many excuses, non really good enough but anyway I wasn't there!
Dave took the three children to church last Wed night. Kaitlin was working with the pastor's wife setting up for the kids choir preformance on Sunday. So Dave was in the fellowship hall (adult Bible study) with Matt and Emily.
We have imposed new rules for our family and they are
WE SHALL WORSHIP AS A FAMILY
Yes, I understand that I, myself broke this rule by skipping--- I promise I had good excuses!
Anyhoo...
Dave came home early and apparently Matt and Emily had put on quite the show during Bible study and Dave finally left with them.
Emily is unhappy with our family decision to worship together... she thinks we have not made the best choice. She cried and carried on.
Matt was just in a funky-- I don't want to be here and you cannot convince me otherwise mood. He was busy picking a scab and making it bleed and "falling" asleep on the table.
NOT ACCEPTABLE.
So when they came in we sat down and had us a family meeting!
We re-established some family rules (went over and hung our rules back up on the wall-- aparently they need to be in full sight)
I reminded the kids of some of the reasons we have chosen the path our family walks.
I reminded them of the precious freedom we have here to worship and hear the Word of God.
I reminded them of character building choices and character building consequences-- you either build good character or bad character, no in-between!
Dave and I reminded them of our expectation.
Dave and I reminded them of God's expectations.
Dave and I set up a few new consequences and ideas to help get up back on track.
1. They all will work over the next week on writing scriptures from the Bible in regards to the particular character trait that they are having trouble the most with. When this bad character shows up they will be given a chance to go over, review the cards and make a choice. If the choice is good--- GREAT. If the choice is to continue in the behaviour---consequence.
2. We are going to re- read the Proverbs on HEEDING YOUR FATHER'S INSTRUCTIONS.
3. We are going to start our biographies with maybe some martyers for Christ.
4. We are going to pray weekly for a different country who have christians where is it illegal to worship God.
5. We are going to be viligant to "nip" attitudes and situations in the head, while still maintaining grace= hard to balance!
6. We are going to be viligant to set up play dates for the kids church friends to allow them to play and foster relationships.... I know this is important too.
7. We are going to going to make sure they are ready and prepared to listen, take notes and participate in bible study on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. ( We are currently deciding if we will allow Emily to participate in choir on Wed evenings followed by a missionary study.... HARD decisions!)
8. We are also trying VERY viligantly to really make sure that we applaud good character choices and I have taken to leaving notes for the kids that maybe mention a good character choice I saw them make during the week.
I am reminded of this scripture...
Let us not become weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap
a harvest if we do not give up.
Galations 6:9
4 comments:
Good for you! Keep it up....
What a challenge! I love the hour of family worship we have at church, but it certainly is challenging too with all the children.
We DO still have children's church as well. Church is 3 hours on Sunday for us. Hour 1 is children's singing and lesson as a group broken into two age groups (3-8, 9-11). The second hour they have classes sorted by age. The third hour is Sacrament meeting with everyone together. The youth and adults have different lessons/classes 1st and 2nd hour (split into women, men, girl youth, boy youth for first hour, then sunday school as men/women combined, and youth combined in narrow age groups (12-13, 14-15, 16-17). Our church works dilligently to make sure mature, wise teachers are chosen for all children's and youth classes, we do not have youth teachers.
Children under 3 are welcome to be with parents during the first two hours or in the nursery (which has play time, snack time, lesson time, and singing time).
One reason why I LOVE our new church. NON-ISSUE!
And that sounds like quite the lecture!
brenda-- Ha. It was quite a lecture but actually it went really, really well... It was kindof a few weeks in the making and the evening just brought everything to a head! It was a lot more talking in a good way than lecturing.. in fact I would say it was our first truly successful family meeting.
and totally jealose of your church!
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