Happy New Year

I'm sitting in my messy house enjoying the dying fire. Tonight we had a crazy New Years Eve party with two other families from church. We started out the evening with sledding. Then we had dinner at our house. First we served kid-fare to the 11 little ones, then the adults ate. The kids were dying to get started on dessert with the chocolate fountain I got for Christmas. By the time we got dessert ready, it was time for our early countdown complete with noisemakers, hats, confetti and toasts. Everyone headed home by 9:30 to get their kids to bed. We had games and a time of sharing on our agenda, but that didn't happen tonight. Tonight it was all about the kids. And they had a great time!

This is our small group. We began meeting about a year and a half ago with the desire to intentionally include the kids in a meaningful way. We were looking for something that had been missing from other small group experiences. In a lot of ways this new experience has been successful. But I always feel a little frustrated that our meetings are somewhat disjointed and not all that focused with the inclusion of the kids. It was one thing to SAY that we wanted to include the kids, but it is another thing to DO it.


Tonight was no exception. I was disappointed that we didn't get to have any significant, spiritual sharing time. But when I was able to connect with the kids over cups of confetti, when I saw the kids' friendships with one another developing, when I felt a longing for everyone to stay another hour or two, I knew that we had made another step in the right direction.

Happy New Year. May 2008 bring families together for shared spiritual experiences that result in following Jesus more closely.