Feature: Where Family Devotions Are Alive and Well
Mark Littleton
by Mark R. Littleton, pastor, Berea Baptist Church, Glen Burnie, Maryland
I hadn't realized how discouraged I was until I sat in my office one October and stared into space for 10 minutes straight. "Lord, what is wrong?" I finally prayed.
Rarely has the "still, small voice" spoken so quickly and clearly. "You need to teach these people how to walk with me as families. What about Richard Baxter?"
Right, Richard Baxter. Just the week before I'd read how Baxter, after three years without results in an affluent English church in the 1600s, had gone from house to house teaching his people how to have family worship. You know—devotions. The thing we wrap today with gimmicks and games, and everyone still gives up.
But the voice was persistent. I'd been working with about 10 to 15 individuals, teaching them how to have a Quiet Time. Why not whole families?
To a few people I volunteered the idea of my stopping over in the morning for devotions … and got mostly strange looks and mumbled excuses.
"What now. Lord?"
Another heart message: "Why don't you start with the ones I want you to start with?"
"Right, but who?"
"Just sit tight."
The next day I stopped at a new convert's home to encourage him. A night-shift worker, he was fighting a hard battle with alcoholism. "He's down at the bar," his wife told me after I knocked at the door. "Been there since 6:30 this morning." Her son was on the way to bring him home.
When he showed up, he was crocked, but friendly. He admitted everything, too. The whole family situation was killing him.
I'd tried counseling him. I'd even written down what to do on three-by-five cards. We'd been praying for him in church. He was in a good Sunday school class. But still, here he was, smashed.
I held my breath, then asked, ...
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