The Beauty of Liturgy

“Let me know you, for you are the God who knows me…This is my hope…”

Husband leads and we follow, in unison from our printed liturgies the night before the Sabbath, around the table.

Little ones look us in the face curiously.  “What is this rhythmic ritual?”

Our voices rise in song…

“For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child…Lord of all to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.”

The swell and break of our voices, this family, together has a unifying effect…our eyes dart at one another.

“Tomorrow when we read our confession, listen to the words and make them yours.”

“I am righteous before God only by true faith in Jesus Christ; that is, although my conscience accuses me, that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God….yet God, without any merit of mine, of mere grace, imputes to me perfect righteousness…”

Our souls are instructed, young and old, baby learns to sit quietly and though she doesn’t understand, she will.

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven…”

The liturgical exercise I once spurned has now become precious to me.

Its very constancy reflects the constancy of our faithful God.

The reading of truths out loud serves me twice as I see it and then hear it, and it strengthens the eyes of my faith more and more.

The affirmation of our faith at home as a family and then corporately with the rest of our family, week after week, begins to weave itself in and out of our lives like a tapestry that comes to life as God breathes over it.

“In joy of heart, in brotherly union, in Christian love we come to partake of Your table, giving thanks for the great love which You have shown to us through Christ our Lord.”

Little ones take their cues, hold their bread and wait….then together we remember His love and death and resurrection for us.

Hands lifted up…they don’t know why now, but they will.

“Praise God from Whom all blessings flow…”

One body, one Lord, one heart going out “to love and serve the Lord”.

Fortified for the week, strengthened for the task, we look forward to when we’ll meet again.

Children With Disabilities-Part 2: The Christian’s Response

Image from "DSALA"

Can we fully believe that children with special needs are used by God, perhaps in the profoundest of ways, to show us our deep needs and to present us with opportunities to serve “the least of these” and therefore Christ Himself?  In a culture assuring us of our right to demand comfort and ease, we destroy ourselves as a people when we destroy these precious “imperfect” lives that keep us fully human.  And the joke’s on the “perfect” us.  Strong bodies, sound minds–yet so often spiritually depraved as a result of our bodily prosperity.  As R.C. Sproul, Jr. said of his disabled daughter, “She is my spiritual better”.

Following up from Part 1 of Children With Disabilities, I thought the subject undone without a practical look at how the body of Christ should…no, MUST respond to these children and their families.

Adoption

I have been challenged to take an honest look at the subject of adoption.  Most of us maintain that it is a “calling”, but sometimes I wonder how conveniently we use that word to relieve ourselves of any pressure or responsibility we might feel if we considered what is asked of all believers.  Of course it’s not a reality for everyone. It doesn’t seem so for us at this very moment.  But have we been open to the possibility?  Have we trusted that God, if He wills, can provide in that area just like we trust Him to provide for those He gives us through the womb?  Perhaps some were meant to adopt and others were meant to fund those adoptions.  These are merely conversations we’re having that I think we all need to have.

Bearing Burdens

Secondly, I feel certain that helping families with special needs children is a command, inclusive in the command to share all of one another’s burdens.  Frankly, the body of Christ at large seems fairly lousy at sharing one another’s burdens and the state has happily taken over that job.  Will we give an account?  I think so.

I’m an amateur at this conversation.  Most of this post is just a random musing as I have not given this subject enough thought in the past.  This would be a great time for those of you in the trenches to jump in and share what you perceive to be the most important way fellow believers can help in these situations.

Pro-Life Hypocrites

A concluding thought comes to mind about children–disabled or not–and what I believe the birth control culture within the church has done to make us “pro-life hypocrites”.

The same woman who gasped in horror at the young couple when she found out they were expecting their third child never offered a meal or a hand to relieve them.  Does she really have a right, then, to flout her staunch opposition to abortion?  If all the women in her church espouse this conflicting view, this young couple would be forced into an ethical corner were they to find out the Lord has blessed them with another child.

And what has this woman done to relieve the lives of the couple with a disabled child?  Offered her best advice on birth control methods?

I submit that it’s time we draw a line in the sand of our own hearts.  Are we truly pro-life?  If so, it’s time to act like it.

Girly Christianity

(Hat-tip to LAF)

What a thought-provoking article I read at Boundless called, Girlie Christianity. It struck so many chords with me.  It opened up a rivulet of thinking that brought some clarity to topics we discuss here often.  It really made me think.  I think you will love it.

“Maybe Christianity is sort of girlie….”

“All the music was so sentimental and touchy-feely,” he said. “And it went on and on as though the musicians were trying to work us up into a sugary trance. One more refrain of ‘His Banner Over Me is Luhhhv’ and I think I would have passed out. You know that song?”…

“Wait, I’m not finished. It’s also hard to sing. I used to think that’s just because I’m not a great singer, but I can sing other songs. This time it hit me. The problem is that most of it is pitched way too high for male voices. Wouldn’t you call that girlie?” Read more »

Unhealthy Family, Unhealthy Church

I love how being a mother so perfectly (and so painfully) allows me to see God’s purpose for the body of Christ.  Belonging to a family and being fully engaged in that family provides a clear picture of how the body of Christ is supposed to function.  And to the extent we are shaped to live properly in this family, we are equipped to live properly among the Church.

“Shaped to live properly in this family” = HARD WORK.  Crucifying flesh is a basic theme in Scripture.  Where do you think that happens?

The more I ponder it, the more I can see why the body of Christ does not function as it ought.  Given the statements I just made, its antithesis is also true.  And because we aren’t being fully engaged in our families or learning to live properly among its members, the family is broken.  When the family is broken the church is broken.

And when I say “broken family” our thoughts default to divorced and single-parents homes.  But by “broken” I mean something as simple as children not taught to defer to each other because they are too busy or not together enough or the parents too distracted.  Broken is a child who doesn’t honor his parents.  Broken is a husband and wife not on the same team.  Broken is a rejection of  “more members”.  Broken is a segregated family.

How can there be unity among the body of Christ if there isn’t unity in the home?  How can we be “members fitly joined together” when we are disjointed in our homes?  How can we yearn for a bigger church and spurn a bigger family?  How can we show the world the faithfulness of Christ to His bride and the love of a Parent-God if we can’t show it from our homes?

It starts here.  Here is where we learn to grow together and forgive each other and nurture our relationships.  We honor one another here or we can’t honor elsewhere.  We learn to serve each other here or we can’t really serve anywhere else.  Husband to wife, parents to children, sibling to sibling–this is our starting place.  If we miss it here, if the body is dislocated here, what hope is there that it will fit rightly in the Church?

I’m exasperated of seeing churches pull its members apart in every direction and then expect the church to be healthy!  “Go and make disciples”? First we must “stay” and make them.

A Church Full of Grown Babies?

We don’t live like we believe what’s in the Bible.  And we live like what’s in the Bible doesn’t matter much to the Kingdom.

There are a few topics that I jump on a soap box about. I’ve been accused of “majoring on the minor” about those topics. Two of them are the way we view children and the way we approach marriage.

Newsflash: Those aren’t minor topics. Just those two topics completely change our lives, our marriages, our parenting and our society.

My burden is for the body of Christ. People say, “you don’t talk about grace enough”.  I say if we understand grace properly it changes the way we live and I don’t think people are talking about that enough.

A believer who has been made so by the redemptive work of Christ should give his life afterward to pursing Him and becoming a disciple. His very life–the way he lives in every part–should reflect the life-changing power of the Savior. That is a point that shouldn’t have to be rehashed; that is why I don’t “talk about grace” more than I do. Grace is the foundational force which changes the way we live.

But we’re not living it.

And that’s what I feel compelled to talk about.

Godly marriage advice?

Recently an older woman, a woman who has been a Christian for years, a pillar-member of her church, asked me if my daughter was dating anyone.

Digging for a short answer I replied, “No, we’re waiting until she’s ready to get married before she looks for a husband.”

She turned to my daughter and said sincerely, with a sober face, “Just make sure he’s rich and treats you good, and if he’s nice-looking that would be good too”.

That was her shining, Titus 2 moment.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction…But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.“ 1 Timothy 6:9

I was so deflated. I answered (gently, and with a smile), “Well, actually our main criterion is that he loves the Lord.”

If young women can’t get solid, biblical counsel from the matriarchs of the church, then where’s the hope?

Watch for a post soon on the problem with her question in the first place: why I think Christians should be appalled by the dating system.

I would encourage all of you older women to earnestly seek opportunities to teach the younger women what the word of God says.  Even in the small moments your words can have tremendous impact.

A New Kind of Church

“Do you see that the church is completely dependent on what is taught in the homes of its people? Likewise the civil society is also dependent on it. What has happened over the last 50 years is that self-discipline is no longer being taught in the home, either because parents are not present or because they have chosen not to take the difficult task of parenting seriously enough.”

“A New Kind of Church” by Eric Rauch points out the error in Brian McClaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity and poignantly describes the proper way we must think about the church if we desire to see its effectual power around us:

It starts in the home!

“Remember that God ordained three separate and distinct realms of government…The most basic of all of these realms is, of course, the family, and basic to the proper operation of the family is the practice of self-government. No family, church, or society will exist long with members that are not self-governed (self-disciplined).”