Michael Hart's blog

This past sunday we started our preaching series on 1 Peter: Sojourn. To help families get more out of it, we've put together a study guide with questions for each of the sermon topics. You can download that guide for free right here.

 From Ed Stetzer's Blog:

When it comes to church engagement, those who attended Sunday school or other religious programs as children or as teens were much more likely than those without such experiences to attend church and to have an active faith as adults. For instance, among those who frequently attended such programs as a child, 50% said they attended a worship service in the last week, which is slightly higher than the national average and well ahead of those who rarely or never attended children's programs. Among those who frequently attended religious programs as teenagers, 58% said they had attended a worship service in the last week. In comparison, less frequent participation as a teenager correlated with less frequent adult participation.

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One of the reasons we often don't get into a routine of Family Worship, or Family Devotional time, is we just don't have an easy place to begin. At AAC, we've provided a few options for our families to do just this.

The one I've been pushing the most is Get Into the Story. Get Into the Story is our family worship guide which provides Bible reading and discussion ideas which follow our Sunday school lessons. If you haven't given it a try, start here!

Another, which was just realeased earlier this year, is the Family Worship Guide site. What's great about this resource is that it provides Bible reading, prayer, musical worship, Bible memory, and catechism resources every day. If you're looking for a solid place to begin, head over there and check it out.

 From Christianity Today:

"The statistics are grim. Rainer Research estimates that 70 percent of young people leave the church by age 22. Barna Group argues that the figure increases to 80 percent by age 30. The Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest denomination, recently observed that growth in their churches is failing to keep up with the birth rate. Taken together, these findings suggest a startling fact: not only are we failing to attract younger worshipers, we're not holding on to the ones we have. read more »

Hi Everyone, I've put together a presentation over at prezi.com to help communicate some of my vision and goals for family ministry in the coming year. Expect to see it a few times in parent meetings. So, feel free to take a look now, and we'll all have a chance to talk about it together.

Looking forward to another great year of growing and equipping families at All Angels'!

Let's just say it was an interesting night...

I will need to have the 2 permission slips attached below as well as the $75 before we leave Saturday morning. Thanks!

Image via Wikipedia

David Powlison provides us with 3 questions which should spark significant spousal discussion.

• What are your present burdens?
• What are your present joys?
• What is your calling?

Check out the rest of the post by Tony Reinke... read more »