My family attends a Messianic synagogue. We worship ישוע (Jesus), but in a very Jewish way. In fact, the worship time is one of the things we like best about our synagogue. We have Davidic dancers, people waving flags, and a very enthusiastic congregation with a tangible spirit of worship.

Today during worship, my wife and I were treated to a wonderful experience. For the first time in his life, our son, now three years old, participated in the worship activities. It began when he noticed that during the chorus of the song that was playing, the Davidic dancers would do a little hop when a particular lyric was sung. Our son started to hop along with the dancers, and he indicated to us that we should hop along with him. Only too happy to comply, my son and I hopped our way through the rest of the song. Too much fun! The song that followed was one of our favorites, so much so that we have played it many times on YouTube. I picked him up, and we both sang and raised hands to the Lord!

Now, I am not fooling myself about the spiritual significance of what happened. This does not mean that my son is saved. It can't even really be said that he was truly worshiping the Lord. He doesn't yet have the conceptual machinery to do either effectively. It was exciting partly because it was just so darned adorable (really, it was ), but mostly for another reason. We keep our son with us during the worship service, rather than dropping him off in the kids' room, because we want him to see us, and others, worship. We want to model that for him. The fact that he has begun to imitate us means that maybe we're doing a good job.

Anyway, praise to God, and give us more, more!