Our first visit to a family integrated church

Upon arriving at Grace Family Baptist Church (held in a seventh day adventist gym) the first thing we noticed were several vans, many of which were large 15 passengers! YES, we are in a cool place! A place that will accept our large family and even be genuinely excited to see it/us! How, refreshing! We walk into the building and you can already smell lunch. We sign in as visitors, send children to the restroom, receive bulletins, gather hymnbooks and find seats. As we sit waiting for the service to begin, we read through our bulletins and find a few interesting things that I will share here. There is an order to their worship involving hymns, prayers, scripture (which you stand for) and catechism (baptist version! who knew their was such a thing?) readings. Also they have a hymn of the month, a prayer gram and catechisms that they encourage families to use in their homes during the week. a few quotes: "At GFBC, families stay together." "Children are Welcome" "Don't bother looking for the nursery; we don't have one." "Cooing babies don't bother us one bit." my fav = "If your children are practicing their sin nature, you are welcome to remove them from the room and practice discipline in the back." Then starts the service, a few things I noticed while standing in the back with my Kayson during the very timely, well-spoken message were: several strollers in the aisles next to the parents, I saw three *rods* of correction (I am sure there were more but those are the ones I saw), several women with babies in carriers and one young girl (about 8 or 9) with a baby in one, women (covered) breastfeeding right there *gasp* (that was sarcastic by the way, I think this is an excellent thing!) in front of God and everybody not hidden away like it was something to be ashamed of and how willingly the young girls helped with the siblings and the serving of the lunch. It was all so very refreshing. After the service there was a dinner and then a q&a time where the men could ask questions they had about the sermon.