Last week I wrote about the family worship seminar that we were holding at Ephesus Church — it’s over, and it went very well. I hope it was profitable for everyone who attended. I preached Deuteronomy 6:4-9, focusing on the importance of this passage (known to Jewish people as the “Shema”) as it pertains to the Church’s responsibility to teach and train parents who are, in turn, to teach and train (disciple) their children. I talked about the partnership between church and home as it pertains to the bringing up of Children in a God-centered manner. Pastor Steve Thomas focused on Ephesians 6:1-4 and talked a lot about the specific roles that each parent plays in family worship, paying particularly close attention to the father’s leadership role. He also provided us with “25 Ways Parents Provoke Their Children to Anger” from Lou Priolo’s book, The Heart of Anger.
One of the greatest joys of the evening was hearing from 3 men from Ephesus Church that conduct family worship in their homes on a regular basis. Each man has a different sized family, and each man does their family worship differently. It was great to hear what they’ve tried, what works, what doesn’t work, what’s useful for resources, how they manage the time, etc. Here were a few of my take-away points:
- Family worship does not need to be a burdensome, lengthy worship service complete with hymns, preaching, prayer, or extended Scripture readings. Most families that are consistent in family worship limit their time to 15-30 minutes maximum, depending on how many children are in the home.
- A father’s ambition for solid family worship most often outweighs his ability and availability to prepare for the daily responsibility.
- Family dynamics are noticeably different when the family is, and when the family isn’t, worshiping together.
- Momentum is a key factor — if you miss a day, don’t get discouraged but pick it up again immediately. Otherwise, it gets easier and easier to not do family worship.
- Dads: Don’t be afraid to delegate the task to mom when you can’t be home because of other obligations, but don’t make it a habit. Family worship is your responsibility.
- Moms: Don’t be afraid to lovingly suggest to dad that he might need to consider shortening the prayer because you and the kids are not always able to “hang in there” for such a long period of time in the evening. Remember also that you’re your husbands partner — he needs your encouragement to keep it up and not fall off the track.
- Family worship for the Christian family is vital. Its value is worth getting rid of the TV, excluding the kids from some extra-curricular activities, or even denying a job promotion if it means you’ll be able to maintain your time with the family on a daily basis.
- Resources are helpful. You’re not expected to be an expository genius to lead your family in worship. Use books, catechisms, stories, etc
- Get creative. One family reads through the Bible and has the kids act it out with costumes and all! Family worship can be fun, and that will make it memorable.
- Sing, talk, pray, and ask lots and lots of questions.
- Don’t let family worship be limited to once per day in the living room. Remember to pray with the kids in the car on the way to school, review memory verses and catechism questions at the dinner table, and pray and read together just before bedtime.
There were many more great things said — these stood out to me. If you’re reading this and you do regular family worship in your home, what do you do?
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Nick,
Thanks for sharing your take-away points with us. it sounds like your Family Worship Night was successful, if nothing else for the quality of sharing done by the men who lead their families in devotions. I’d like to see something like this done at my church.
Our family does a variety of things for family worship. We have used devotional books, we have studied certain Bible passages with different colored pens to underline different points, we have read biographies of missionaries, we’ve done word studies, we’ve even studied what the biblical meanings are of each of our names. Sometimes we’ve taken a Proverbs chapter a day, since they’re so neatly laid out for one a day for a month. Other times we’ve taken a godly character trait and studied what the Bible says about that. And of course, we often just read/study one particular book from the Bible. It all depends on what it is we feel our children are most in need of at the moment.
Admittedly, I carry out the majority of the actual devotions because my husband is on the road 5 days a week. We’re working on changing that, and hope the Lord will bless us in the next year with bringing my husband home for good. Nonetheless, if you ask our children who the spiritual leader is in the family, there is no question that it is my husband. He discusses things with the children on the phone, works through me in how to approach godly child training, and conducts devotions and general discussions on the weekend when he’s in. It brings me great joy to be married to a Joshua kind of a man (as for me and my house….).
Great points listed here, Nick. I’m going to refer my readers to this posting so they can see how family devotions come together for others.
Nick,
This all sounds very good. I’m excited to hear about a church taking family worship seriously. I’m also glad to hear that the pastors of the church aren’t threatened by the fathers leading their families in worship.
Our family tries to have a worship time each day. We actually manage to do it about four times per week. Our worship time takes place right after the evening meal. I want our children to have a sense of all of the books of the bible, so we are currently reading through a chapter or two of each book while we move through the bible. This is working well. We all have the same version of the bible; this helps as we all read a section of scripture each night. We also recently purchased a “Celebration Hymnal” for all of us. This has made singing much easier and more enjoyable. Another positive we have recently begun in using John
Piper’s Baptist catechism. It is amazing to watch how fast kids can learn.
Family worship is just about the most thrilling part of my life. I can’t imagine not doing it now.