We are an age-integrated church, which means we bring the household together for worship. A family is not just dad, mom, and children. It is a household-even if it is a household of one! We avoid the various church programs that tend to fragment households. What we strive to do is encourage households to worship together and the fathers to take the lead in preparing the family for worship. We realize that not every family has a father or even an active father. We hope to assist in those situations with direction, encouragement, and prayer.
We believe the biblical order is for families to worship together. This is illustrated in the following passages: Numbers 16:27, Ezra 10:1, Romans 16:10, I Corinthians 1:16, and Galatians 6:10. We believe we should worship the Lord through personal (Mark 3:14), family (Deuteronomy 6) and corporate (Hebrews 3:13) worship. All three are equally vital to the proper worship of the Lord. We do not worship the family but seek to worship the Lord with the family integrated for that purpose. In our day the family is under tremendous assault and we are prayerfully seeking to intentionally build Christ-honoring households. By filling our own hearts and homes with God’s Word, we hope to do just that. God’s Word will make a difference.
We keep the family together and do not provide childcare. We encourage households to participate in family worship during the week to prepare children for worship. To take the pressure off of parents, there is occasionally a little noise in the training process in the church (although it is a lot less than you might think). At the same time, we want to encourage you to actively train your children to orderliness and quietness in the service. If you need to take your children out of the service until they quiet down, please do so.
We feel so strongly about family worship that we structure our worship so households can participate. We sing two or three hymns monthly and encourage families to sing them at home during the week. This has been very popular with the church members.
We meet on Sunday Mornings in Lavonia,GA. Our Sunday worship is centered on the Word of God. We do that by preaching first so we capitalize on our children’s attention. Then we sing, eat together each week, and offer a time for fellowship. The result has been an experience highly desirable for those that have participated. We have Men’s Discipleship with their sons in homes during the week. This allows each family the time to strengthen their own family in the Word resulting in spreading the Word to someone else. The church is Elder-led, so there are no business or committee meetings. We have no other agenda but to seek to glorify the Lord by simplifying the church and providing the essential tools for households to serve the Lord together.
There have been souls saved, with the focus being on fathers leading their families in outreach. Our families have reached out to their neighbors, the local nursing home, relatives, local officials, and even to the local mail carrier. Families are “adopting” some of these folks as they express interest in the gospel.
The church activities and services are centered on the Word of God, the gospel, and the work of Jesus Christ. Our duty should be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.