Q Gift 9 Family Worship

Another exciting byproduct during our time in quarantine is family worship. Because we cannot get out and go to church, we have Sunday church services at home and share and swapping devotionals at home. In the past, we exchanged texts and emails that were overlooked or forgotten, but here, in the house, we are doing this together as a unit. Because without Sunday services, there are no sending kids to Sunday school classes. There are no Youth Group classes. There are no adults only in the sanctuary. There is only everyone together worshipping and learning the same way at the same time. And in these home’s services, it is fascinating to find out what each of us prefers and what we take in.
One of the things we have done in our house is each week, and a person gets to choose a network or online church service that they will share with the rest of the household sanctuary worshipers. My youngest son and I have had an opportunity to share a preaching style the opposite of the more seasoned and structured services that my husband, a pastor, prefers. My husband swears by the expository method of preaching the word. A structured verse by verse method of a section of the bible to him is the only way to share the teachings of the bible. So my husband is getting an education as we share with him some of the people and the message styles that brings the message by topic or concepts, reaching across multiple books of the bible to get the message across.
But the most startling thing to learn is our son and his peers that they look up to in worship. And we did not recognize any of them. There have been times when we thought our doctrinal teaching was passing him by, but in learning whose messages he values and the message they are bringing, even though it may have more flair and flash than we prefer, it is has been doctrinally sound. And I have been proud of each choice because we see our values and spiritual training has not been wasted. And when it is our son’s turn to be the worship leader, we get to understand a new generation of worship and praise music. We get to see what the next generation of the church.
Quarantine has given us something we had forgotten or never learned firsthand, being together with Christ. My grandmother lived it. My mother knew of it. But in my time, we never knew what it was like to worship together in one place, under one God, and the chapel is our home.