A Guide To Family Worship: Part 3, The Practice of Family Worship

This is the third post in a series on family worship. It is addressed directly to families, and it is my hope that it will be useful for helping Christian families understand how to practice biblically-informed worship in their homes. Before reading here, be sure to check out the first post, Introduction to the Christian Family and the second, A Brief Theology of Worship.

The information covered in the last two posts may make family worship seem like a complex task. In reality, the opposite is true. In the simplest form, your family will want to organize a plan to pray, read the Bible, sing, and teach. As you do so, you will want to include elements of adoration, confession, assurance, thanksgiving, petition, intercession, instruction, and obedience. As you spend more time in family worship, this will less like a “process” and become more intuitive!

It sure sounds like a lot of work, but here is what that might look like on a Tuesday evening:

Family Prayer

The husband asks everyone in the family what they would like to pray about. Also, he asks if there is anything that they would like to thank God for from the day. They join hands and he leads them in prayer. As he prays, he acknowledges that God is good and has been good to them as a family. He confesses that they are sinners, undeserving of God’s mercy, yet thanks God for sending Jesus into the world to die for them and forgive their sins. He mentions the ongoing prayer requests of the family, especially those that they mentioned today. He also thanks God for the blessings that were mentioned by the family.

Family Bible Time

The family has been reading together through the Gospel of Matthew. Today, they are reading Matthew 5:1-12. Each member of the family that is old enough reads a few verses aloud. The husband shares with the family some of the notes he picked up while reading a commentary on this passage last night. The parents take turns explaining to the children what the statements of Jesus in this passage mean, and answer any questions that the children have about the reading.

Family Singing

No one in the home plays any instruments, but the husband and wife have decided that they would rather sing with their children without any music than to play something pre-recorded. They keep a few copies of a hymnal that they were given from the church on their coffee table. Everyone takes a hymnal, and together they sing “Amazing Grace”. After singing, the husband asks if anyone wants to volunteer to pray before they put the children to bed and one of the children speaks up and offers a short prayer thanking God for his family.

Such a night of worship may sound idealistic, and in some ways it is. Thankfully, God is not concerned with how well we “do” worship. His concern is that we offer it sincerely from the heart in a way that is acceptable to Him. The worship above would probably take around half an hour. The family did not come to worship with a checklist of “elements” and “means”. They gathered together to pray, read the Bible, offer some instruction, and sing. In doing so, the following was present in their worship:

ELEMENT	MEANS
1. Adoration of God	Reading
2. Confession of Sin	Prayer
3. Assurance of Pardon	Singing
4. Thanksgiving	Prayer
5. Petition and Intercession	Prayer
6. Instruction	Teaching
7. Obedience	Teaching

 

Outside of prayer, reading, some teaching, and singing, there is nothing more required of your family for worship. It is probably biblical and wise and to do nothing less, but certainly, more complex structures of worship are not necessary. If your family does desire to employ other means into your worship, there are a few helpful ways to do so. Your family can work through a printed Bible study or devotional curriculum together. The use of catechisms for memorizing Scripture and teaching biblical truth is a long-standing practice within the church, and there are many of these available. You may decide to read a book on a particular topic together, like prayer or the biographies of Christian missionaries. All of these things are a great way to enhance your worship as a family.

As a final note about your family worship, strive for brevity and consistency. Worshipping together as a family should not be a drawn-out affair that will exasperate your children. Ideally, you will be worshipping together in the way described above no less than once and preferably twice, a day. Half an hour is ideal. As it regards consistency, this is a responsibility of yours, parents. Some families never miss their morning coffee or their evening television shows. The time is built into their day to do such things because they are a priority and they are done with consistency. Family worship is best done on a consistent basis, with an understanding that circumstances will sometimes demand flexibility.

Also, check out the great resources below for learning more about family worship. They explain the same things as above about the simplicity of family worship (prayer, Scripture reading, singing) while giving an overview of the history of Christian worship in the home:

Family Worship, by Joel Beeke

Family Worship: In the Bible, in History, in Your Home, by Donald Whitney