Update: If you can’t attend the conference in North Carolina, this giveaway is still for you!  You can choose to receive 35 audio messages from the conference!

When we worship, we do it as a family.  We don’t want to send our noisy little ones to the nursery, and we don’t want our children to attend a separate children’s service.  Yes, we might hear more of the sermon if we did, but we are doing important work here in the pews, and these days pass quickly enough.

We are blessed to attend a church where the rest of the congregation agrees.  There are no dirty looks when the baby acts up.  If the toddler acts up, there may be suppressed laughter, but we’re OK with that.  Sometimes we’re the ones laughing at other people’s children.  Our congregation loves children, and we are all thankful for the opportunity to present ourselves and our children before the Lord in formal worship.

Churches like this can be hard to find, so it’s good to know about the NCFIC – the National Center of Family Integrated Churches.  They have an interactive list of churches all over the US and even the world where families are allowed and encouraged to worship together.

But they do a lot more than that.

Free resources

The NCFIC offers many other free resources.  There is a long list of free audio messages for the church and family.  There are many free video messages as well, and enough articles to keep facebook busy for a long, long time.

Many of these free resources are samplings from past conferences by the NCFIC: Building a God-Centered Family, Gospel Centered Marriages, Sufficiency of Scripture and more.

More resources

They also have a store with an extensive collection of books, audio and video messages, and instant downloads.

Conferences

The Worship of God conference will be in Asheville, NC on Oct 31 – Nov 2.  Who wants to go?!

Description from the NCFIC website:

At this conference, we will seek to examine and experience the worship of God and to say with king David, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells” (Psalm 26:8). Our starting point will be to establish that God must be worshipped in the way He has designed, not the way man desires. Then, we will study the various categories of biblical truth that teach us about worship. Is there any more important activity for the human soul? Is there any more important category of Christian theology? Is there anything more powerful in the hearts and lives of men? Is there anything more pivotal for home life? Is there anything more important in church life and community life, than the worship of God?

Here is part one of a five part online instruction video series entitled The Family That Worships Together hosted by Scott Brown with interviews from Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Conrad Mbewe, Doug Phillips, Kevin Swanson, Jeff Pollard, Joe Morecraft, Michael Gobart, Boyd Dellinger, Fikret Bocek, Marcus Serven, Paul Thompson.  These videos are deliberately not exhaustive but are interview compilations on key subjects designed to whet your family’s appetite for the glorious and expansive subject of our highest duty – to worship God.

If it’s not practical for your family to attend the conference, this giveaway is still for you: You can choose to receive the complete Worship of God audio instead!

Worship of God CD

At this conference, we will seek to examine and experience the worship of God and to say with king David, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells” (Psalm 26:8). Our starting point will be to establish that God must be worshipped in the way He has designed, not the way man desires. Then, we will study the various categories of biblical truth that teach us about worship. Is there any more important activity for the human soul? Is there any more important category of Christian theology? Is there anything more powerful in the hearts and lives of men? Is there anything more pivotal for home life? Is there anything more important in church life and community life, than the worship of God?

This set includes over 35 messages featuring speakers such as Scott Brown, Kevin Swanson, Joel Beeke, Joe Morecraft, Jeff Pollard and others.

THE GIVEAWAY

Oh, this is fun!  I know I haven’t blogged enough lately, but maybe I can make it up to you.  At least, to one of you.

I have a giveaway coming soon with a prize worth over $500.

Can you guess what it is?  Here’s a clue: it’s an event.

We’re home from our church’s Christian Community Conference/Talent Show.  I’m back online (whew!) and back home with my chocolate (double whew!).  mmm…chocolate…

During much of the conference I found myself in the back of the room nursing a fussy baby and watching the kids make crazy hats, jewelry, flowers and other stuff with pipe cleaners.

When Bethany wasn’t fussing, she was being passed around like a basketball, from one eager set of hands to the next with hardly a pause in the rhythm.  I never knew where to find her until she cried; then she seemed to find me.

The 3rd annual Talent Show was a challenge and a success.  There were 26 acts in all and it lasted for 3 hours.  We’re a talented bunch.  It was highly entertaining, of course – how could it fail to be? – but many acts ran into bumps and roadblocks, including one of ours.  I’ll tell you about my ovarian guilt from that incident in another post.  For now, I’ll just tell you what our family did.  Poetry seems to be our specialty, so you’ll see that we are heavy in that area:

Would you like to know Who was on first?  That’s right; He was.  Who was? Yes.  Who? Exactly!  Can you guess what act hubby and his friend did?  In spite of the fact that I had heard it a hundred times in the weeks before the show, I still laugh at all the same lines, every time.  I just can’t help it.  I’ll break your arm you say Who’s on first! And I couldn’t help but laugh at audience’s delighted reaction to all the punch lines.  Do I have to tell you that hubby and his friend did a great job on a great skit?  Go watch the original now.

Deanna recited Carry On by Robert Service.  This was a late change, as we decided that the extremely long poem she had memorized was less fitting to the occasion.  She memorized this entire poem nearly effortlessly in about a day and a half, including a small improvisation which fitted seamlessly into the original.  I always tell her that if she had a super power, it would be Memorization.  Not quite as dramatic as the powers of Superman or the Xmen, perhaps, but quite impressive nonetheless.

Kaitlyn and Lydia performed Twins by Henry S. Leigh.  They alternated, each saying half a line without missing a beat.  Very funny and very fitting since they are our only two light-haired green-eyed daughters, and used to be mistaken for twins almost every time we left the house.

Megan learned It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Guest.  This was also a late addition to the plan, and like Deanna, Megan learned her poem very quickly.  What can I say?  My kids are talented.  😉

Natalie worked very hard to learn Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash.  She had a little trouble remembering the poet’s name when she was first learning it, so I had all the children repeat his name as a group about 10 times.  As a result, Perry Boy ran around the house for several days chanting, Ogen Nash!  Ogden Nash!  Ogden Nash! Needless to say, Natalie had no more trouble recalling the poet’s name.

Becca learned My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson almost entirely by herself, and recited it flawlessly.  She came away glowing.

Our family had been working on learning Proverbs chapter 3 (not for the talent show), and a couple of weeks before the show we realized that 3yo Rachael had learned the first 8 verses.  This seemed very talented of her, so she recited that for the talent show.

The girls were very nervous about this one, but they did a lovely rendition of Wayfaring Stranger, which they learned from the Von Trapp family CD.  The three on the left sang melody while the 3 on the right sang harmony a half line later, with a sort of echo effect.  I’m sure there’s a technical name for it but I have no idea what it is; at any rate, it was hauntingly beautiful and I’m glad they were brave enough to do it.

And then we all ate BBQ until we could eat no more.  It was a good day in Texas.