Title: Together with God
Author: Ed Mackenzie and Gareth Crispin
Price: £6.95
Published by: Together with God
Perfect for: anyone wanting inspiring ideas and real examples of how they could do family worship at home together
Best bit: Each family shares something they’ve done, including challenges and what they would recommend. The format is easy to read so you’ll quickly be inspired!
Worst bit: Although there’s obviously been an effort made to interview families from different ethnic background, it would have been even better to have some more diverse families, such as single parents (both male and female), families where one parent isn’t a Christian, blending families with children in a much wider age range. Picky, I know. Sorry.
More thoughts:
With lovely photos of all the families, this book has lots to inspire and guide you into the sort of family worship which might work for you.
The stories are short and designed with bullet points to make it easy to read (while on the loo?!), with lots of practical ideas of things people have tried and found worked for them.
What I like most about this book, is that, by definition it’s showing how family worship is different for all families, and getting a window in the lives of other families helps us to find things which we can try in our own families.
I’ve mentioned I’d like to see more diversity, which is a big ask and might seem like a small nitpick, but it’s really important to us that we see ourselves when we read about this stuff. For the single parents struggling to make ends meet, the photos in this book might look at bit too perfect (although I’m sure they weren’t designed to look this way), and while the ideas might well work for her family, she might not read it because it doesn’t feel accessible.
Maybe there could be a book two featuring a parent with a child with life-changing special needs, one caring for an elderly parent and one with a partner with a disability, a parent who’s a widow, a single parent (one of each gender please) and maybe even a same-sex couple?