Rom
Puritan Board Junior
Since we have some threads on the Sabbath and the Superbowl, I thought it might be good for those curious about Sabbath keeping to see how the saints here kept the Lord's Day! I'll go first.
Our family of 6 woke up a little earlier than usual. We have a saint of the RP church from a persecuted country visiting our congregation as they are in Dallas doing some research. It was our family's turn to pick them up. We had a quick breakfast, got the kids ready and left our home at 7:30am. On the way, we listened to a sermon from Rev. Stewart of the Glasgow RP congregation in Scotland. The kids were excited to spend time with our visitor in the car and all got up very early.
We picked up our guest, and we got a wonderful conversation with them about how saints in other parts of the world are living, under the hands of an oppressive regime, and how even things we take for granted like 'homeschooling', are slowly starting to become implemented in countries that are extremely hostile to such things. Made me extremely grateful for what we enjoy in this country, and also was a strengthening of my faith as I considered how God was building His Church.
We got to the church building around 8:45am. We had a good time visiting with Rev. Koller who is always at the building early! Andrew's (our very own Andres) family also showed up early at 9am, so it was a good time to visit with everyone before Sabbath School which was at 9:30am. In that class, we studied the Preface to the Ten Commandments via Questions 43 and 44 in the Shorter Catechism.
After class, the children of the church came up to recite their catechism memory work. We have children from ages 3 and up memorizing from either the Children's Catechism or the Shorter Catechism. Too many adorable moments to count when the children come up, and it is always an encouragement to hear them learn more of our faith (and a good reminder to the adults of the answers to these questions).
When we were done, we had a good time visiting with families as they started arriving for morning worship. Morning worship was at 10:45am - and we heard a wonderful sermon preached on Psalm 15.
Then it was time for lunch with the saints - most of our families stay for lunch, and we had a good time of fellowship - plus one family had brought some venison stew, and it was pretty remarkable.
There was a time for the older children to have their communicant members class before afternoon service, so they went to be a part of that.
At 2pm it was time for our second worship service, and we finished the book of Jonah. There's always this great feeling of accomplishment when we wrap up a book of the Bible, and certainly it was nice closing out Jonah.
More fellowship afterward, several families left for the day. We usually have around 4 families left for Psalm practice - so we did that from 3:45pm to 4:30pm.
The remaining families stayed for more fellowship opportunities, but I had a very rough week - worked several 15 hour days, so I took this opportunity to go home and sleep early. We took our visitor back to Dallas, and got home around 6pm. We had dinner with the family, had a good opportunity to discuss with them what we had learned at church today, between all of the classes, and sermons and psalm singing - and then we put the children to bed.
My wife and I stayed up for a little bit, doing some reading (I am currently studying the first commandment) - but I turned in around 9:30pm so I could get some extra sleep (which I needed).
I always wish that the Lord's Day could last several more hours - and those times when we have planned poorly and have to prepare dinner, or do something that interrupts the rest that we have, it starts to become a real annoyance as it pulls my focus away from delighting in the day! It is always over far too quickly.
We never really ever focus on the "dos and the donts", we simply try to feast on the means of grace, and the fellowship with God's People, and our family's spirituality, and everything works itself out!
How was your Lord's Day?
Our family of 6 woke up a little earlier than usual. We have a saint of the RP church from a persecuted country visiting our congregation as they are in Dallas doing some research. It was our family's turn to pick them up. We had a quick breakfast, got the kids ready and left our home at 7:30am. On the way, we listened to a sermon from Rev. Stewart of the Glasgow RP congregation in Scotland. The kids were excited to spend time with our visitor in the car and all got up very early.
We picked up our guest, and we got a wonderful conversation with them about how saints in other parts of the world are living, under the hands of an oppressive regime, and how even things we take for granted like 'homeschooling', are slowly starting to become implemented in countries that are extremely hostile to such things. Made me extremely grateful for what we enjoy in this country, and also was a strengthening of my faith as I considered how God was building His Church.
We got to the church building around 8:45am. We had a good time visiting with Rev. Koller who is always at the building early! Andrew's (our very own Andres) family also showed up early at 9am, so it was a good time to visit with everyone before Sabbath School which was at 9:30am. In that class, we studied the Preface to the Ten Commandments via Questions 43 and 44 in the Shorter Catechism.
After class, the children of the church came up to recite their catechism memory work. We have children from ages 3 and up memorizing from either the Children's Catechism or the Shorter Catechism. Too many adorable moments to count when the children come up, and it is always an encouragement to hear them learn more of our faith (and a good reminder to the adults of the answers to these questions).
When we were done, we had a good time visiting with families as they started arriving for morning worship. Morning worship was at 10:45am - and we heard a wonderful sermon preached on Psalm 15.
Then it was time for lunch with the saints - most of our families stay for lunch, and we had a good time of fellowship - plus one family had brought some venison stew, and it was pretty remarkable.
There was a time for the older children to have their communicant members class before afternoon service, so they went to be a part of that.
At 2pm it was time for our second worship service, and we finished the book of Jonah. There's always this great feeling of accomplishment when we wrap up a book of the Bible, and certainly it was nice closing out Jonah.
More fellowship afterward, several families left for the day. We usually have around 4 families left for Psalm practice - so we did that from 3:45pm to 4:30pm.
The remaining families stayed for more fellowship opportunities, but I had a very rough week - worked several 15 hour days, so I took this opportunity to go home and sleep early. We took our visitor back to Dallas, and got home around 6pm. We had dinner with the family, had a good opportunity to discuss with them what we had learned at church today, between all of the classes, and sermons and psalm singing - and then we put the children to bed.
My wife and I stayed up for a little bit, doing some reading (I am currently studying the first commandment) - but I turned in around 9:30pm so I could get some extra sleep (which I needed).
I always wish that the Lord's Day could last several more hours - and those times when we have planned poorly and have to prepare dinner, or do something that interrupts the rest that we have, it starts to become a real annoyance as it pulls my focus away from delighting in the day! It is always over far too quickly.
We never really ever focus on the "dos and the donts", we simply try to feast on the means of grace, and the fellowship with God's People, and our family's spirituality, and everything works itself out!
How was your Lord's Day?
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