Here is the church. Here is the steeple (actually a bell tower)....

These are the cars...Bringing lots of little people.

Note:

This picture was not staged. I shot it after service one Sunday. The vehicles in the picture are privately owned by different families.

In our congregation, we pray for the blessing of the fruit of the womb because we view children as a blessing. Some families have no children. Some have a few children. Some have many. We rejoice in every family regardless of whether they have zero, ten or twenty children. We do, however, obey the Scriptures, by exhorting our loved ones in Christ with the Scriptures to embrace the blessing of children as God providentially distributes these children according to His wisdom and perfect will. We also preach against the sin of abortifacient contraceptive technology. We recognize that the failure of preachers to address this subject has probably contributed to more abortions in Christian households than have ever been performed in American abortuaries.

When God does send the fruit to the womb of one of the members of our congregation, the entire congregation is genuinely excited. It does not matter whether the baby is the first or the sixteenth child to that family —- each baby is a victory, a miracle, and a blessed gift. Mothers and motherhood are viewed as extremely precious.

Because we live in the 21st century, our families hear many jokes about children. We are learning to “be always ready” to give men an answer of the hope that is within us when men demean parenthood or view temporary economic convenience as more important than the blessing of bringing an eternal soul into the universe. We are even learning to smile and pray for those vicious bigots and false teachers who call mothers baby machines, as well as those who ignorantly joke about cutting off the godly seed. We genuinely hurt for all those men and women who will reap the consequences (be they health issues from destructive drugs, loneliness in old age, judgment for abortion, unresolved bitterness stemming from the selfishness of their younger days, etc.) of taking their cue more from Margaret (Sanger) than Moses.

When I see these cars pull up to our little country meeting house, I can only thank God from the depths of my soul that He is turning the hearts of parents to their children, and children to their parents to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. One evidence of this is the revival of love for children (having them, raising them, training them), most notably evidenced in America’s home school community, but thrilling and beautiful regardless from what segment of Christendom it is manifest. Because of this we can without embarrassment offer the following blessing on all our young ladies as they pledge their troth in marriage:

Be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them. (Genesis 24:60)