There’s a great book you might have heard about for parents of children 6-14 years old. It’s called, Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God, by Bruce Ware.

Dr. Ware is a seminary professor and Christian theologian. He has written several timely and important books on the doctrine of doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine of the Trinity. But in Big Truths, he unpacks the Bible’s major doctrines in the way he unpacked them for his own daughters as they grew up in his home. It’s worth getting if you have kids, and if you don’t have kids.

In a recent blog interview,  Dr. Ware’s wife, Jodi Ware, answered questions about what family devotions looked like in the Ware household when their children were young. It’s titled, “Family Devotions in Real Life,” and it’s worth your time. Here’s how the article begins.

Have you ever felt like your efforts to do family devotions — to read the Bible with your kids, to pray, to sing songs — are doomed from the start? Spilled milk, waning attention, wiggles and more seem to conspire against meaningful discipleship. Is there something the authors of books about discipling your children know but aren’t telling the rest of us?

Here are the questions Jodi goes on to answer:

• Who influenced your approach to discipling your children? Who were your role models?
• In trying to set a routine for family devotions, what challenges did you have to overcome in your own home, for example: schedule conflicts, distractions, young children, etc.?
• What things can parents do with young children, one and two, whom they may think aren’t ready for family discipleship that will lay the groundwork for more intense/focused learning later?
• What advice do you give parents of school age children who want to start doing family devotions?
• How did your formal discipleship time shape your faith conversations with your daughters?

Click here to read the whole blog interview.

Heading into the weekend and about a day away from Sunday, here’s some excellent counsel from David Murray for how we should worship God:

Worship is so powerful that we not only take on the image of what worship, but we also take on the image of the manner and style of our worship. So it’s not enough that we worship the right God, the God of the Bible, we must also worship the right God in the right way, the biblical way. And if we do so, we will become what He wants us to be – remade in His image.

Truthful
For example, the truth of God’s Word should be at the center of all worship. We read the Word, sing the Word, pray in accordance with the Word, and hear the Word preached. True Worship is truthFULL. And if our worship is truthful, we also will be truthful in our daily lives. Truthful worship on a Sunday makes for a truthful Monday to Saturday.

Spiritual
Much worship today aims primarily at stimulating and exciting our physical senses. If we can provide a colorful spectacle for the eyes, spectacular musical sounds for the ears, a pounding beat to impact the body and get the adrenaline running, then the emotions are stirred, and there’s a sense of elation and excitement. But if we become how we worship, such sensual, emotion-driven, thrill-seeking worship will produce sensual, feeling-focused, thrill-seeking Christians.

Spiritual worship does not aim primarily at the physical senses and the emotions (although it should have a secondary impact on them) but it primarily addresses the mind and seeks to impress the soul with divine truth about eternal facts. It demands thought and interaction with the Word of God and lifts people out of this world of sense and time, into the spiritual and eternal dimension.

And if our worship focuses on the spiritual, on spiritual truths, that’s the kind of people we will become Monday to Saturday. We will live in the spiritual realm, we will sustain and guide our souls with the abiding truths of God’s Word, we will be aware of eternity and the presence of God.

Reverent
If our worship is full of humor, frivolity, jokes, and casualness, we shouldn’t be surprised if that’s the kind of character that will be produced in the worshipers.

But if our worship is reverent, respectful, and careful, that will be reflected in our characters through the week.

Now this can go way too far, of course. If worship is morose, fearful, joyless, hopeless, and miserable then worshipers will become like that too. Any church that specializes in putting people in fear, in limiting hope, in minimizing assurance, is going to produce people that are like that in their daily lives – fearful, suspicious, cold, unfriendly, hopeless, and unhappy.

Christ-Centered
God has set forth His image perfectly in His Son. He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, if we are to become like Jesus, and we become what we worship, we must make Christ the focus of our worship. We hear Christ’s Word, we preach Christ, we pray in Christ’s name, and we sing of, to, and with Christ in our songs.

Believing
If we become how we worship, the more we exercise faith in Sunday worship the more faith we will have Monday to Saturday. The more we trust in the Lord in church, the more we will trust in him in the world. Faithless and life-less Sunday worship produces faithless and lifeless Christians at home, at work, and in the community.

All this underlines that if worshiping the true God in the true way is the biggest formative influence in our lives, then let’s prioritize worship, especially the corporate gatherings of God’s people on the Lord’s Day.

And let’s also ensure that we and our children are in churches that not only worship the one living and true God, but also where God is worshipped in a truthful and lively way.

David writes posts like this day in and day out at his blog, Head, Heart, Hands. Bookmark it and swing by from time to time.

When the Psalmist wanted to say, “worship God!,” he said it this way: “Serve the Lord with gladness!” (Psalm 100:2).

Service can take on many forms in the Christian life. Some are informal and happen in the simplicity and hiddenness of our personal relationships. Others are overt and organized. Both are important.

Here’s the video we showed in the service on Ministry Fair Sunday introducing you to many of DSC’s ministries. Watch this video, visit the Ministries Page, and take note of any ministries you would like to learn more about. Fill out the Communication Card on any Sunday and we will follow up with you that week.

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In the months ahead you will hear about a two-pronged encouragement to study the Bible and serve the body. In the fall of ’14 we will roll out a more substantive ministry of adult education on Sunday mornings to encourage your study of God’s Word. With that will come an encouragement for more of our body to be involved in meaningful service, and especially service on Sunday mornings.

If you need five reasons to come to Clarus, then here they are. Listen to Ryan and pastors from several of our partner churches share about this year’s conference:

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If you haven’t registered for Clarus yet, register today. Or at least register before January 31 for early registration pricing. Childcare is available by registration for children birth-10 years for families who call DSC home. And if you volunteer to help with childcare you’ll get a free registration.

As you may know, this Sunday is Sanctity of Life Sunday. Although we don’t build our Sunday service around the occasion, we wholeheartedly embrace the cause of justice for vulnerable unborn human life and wanted to link you to an important article on the subject.

Over at Christianity Today, Daniel Darling and Andrew Walker have written a piece, “Abortion Meets a New Generation,” showing the pro-life cause to be a matter of basic human justice, a cause important for each generation regardless of the cultural mood or cost.

Here are some excerpts:

As evangelicals who came of age during the culture wars, we’re part of a generation ready to move past the pitched left-right debates. The critiques of Christian political activism have held some merit: A hyper-focus on elections, voter guides, and strategy has often buried the gospel story. Sometimes following Christ has strangely looked like following an elephant or a donkey. . . .

We’ve heard well-meaning, but cautious lovers of the gospel say that the cause of the unborn is too political, that it casts a harmful pall over the church, damaging gospel witness. To be sure, politics has not always brought out the best of God’s people. A renewed embrace of the grace-truth tension is needed. And yet, can we really claim to be social justice warriors if we ignore the millions of unborn children silenced and snuffed out in America at the altar of convenience? Can we overlook the corporatist worldview of Planned Parenthood that has industrialized abortion? No, we cannot. . . .

In fact, the denial of human life is arguably what triggers all other forms of activism. If we don’t get our witness right on life, how can our witness on any other issue seem anything other than pyrrhic? A Christian approach to social engagement cannot be calculated through the grid of popular appeal or mass approval. . . .

Being pro-life is about justice. And justice is blind—blind to color, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status. Justice is standing up for what is true, good, and beautiful; and on the issue of life, we insist that every child is a uniquely good and beautiful creation of God, and therefore deserving of life.

Click here to read the whole article.

For more reflection on the question of unborn life, read a blog published here earlier this year, “Why are we against abortion?.” Also, in love for the unborn and their parents, consider volunteering at Care Net, one of DSC’s strategic local missions partners. You’ll also have a chance to meet a representative from Care Net next Sunday morning, January 26, at DSC’s Ministry Fair.