Family Worship

“Every christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove in effectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to prosper and be sucessful.”

Words from Jonathan Edwards http://members.aol.com/kptacek/jefg.html.

Experiential religion, in the way of family worship, is beneficial to everyone who walks faithfully with Christ for his glory in the earth. Men will disapprove of such a discipline as to binding in a time of such independence. I would argue that this teaching is grace and the neglect and disparaging of such instruction is to bring misery to a home and the churches those homes fill. We must enjoin ourselves for the spread of the glory of God’s name in the earth through worship in our homes.

I encourage all who call themselves the children of the living God to enjoin themselves daily to God’s means of grace through family worship. I have briefly outlined our practice for your help as you seek to walk with God in this discipline for his glory and the good of those who come after you.

In the evenings: The singing of the Psalms is a good way to begin family worship. Each week we sing a particular Psalm during our times of family worship. We choose those Psalms from the Trinity Psalter http://www.crownandcovenant.com/Trinity_Psalter_Words_Only_p/cm125.htm or Sing Psalms editions. The Psalm we are singing each week we have read publicly in worship on Sunday morning and sung together as a congregation on Sunday evening. After the word is sung we take up and read the word. We ask God to open our eyes to see wonderful things concerning him in his word and to bend our hearts to him through his word. We read through the McCheyene evening readings each year. In an even year we are reading the “Secret” readings in family worship and in the odd years we are reading the “Family” readings together. As I read I stop and give the sense of what we are reading asking questions for application. At the close of our reading I will answer questions the family may have concerning the passage. We then enter into a time of prayer. We seek to pray with the word we have read and from other portions of God’s word as a family. We close our time with the singing of a hymn or the Doxology. This is typical of our evening worship as a family. We are not able to do this every night but it is our aim to do so as often as we are home in the evenings together. This usually takes place 4 or 5 nights during the week.

In the mornings: We begin this time around the table with a prayer of thanksgiving. We recite a verse or more of Scripture that we are learning each week. We then recite together catechism questions that we are learning for that we week. We take up the word and read our morning reading from McCheyene’s reading plan (same as above). And then we close our time in prayer committing our lives together to the Lord for his glory in the earth.

Our morning times together are shorter than our evening times but we are usually more consistent during the week in the mornings. I have six children who range from 6 to 18. All of these participate in every element. We use a children’s catechism for our younger and the Shorter Catechism for our older children and Bethlehem Baptist Church’s Fighter Verse Memory system for scripture memory http://c4.atomicplaypen.com/sites/BBC/resources/images/58236.pdf

I pray that the Lord will pour out his Spirit upon us as we return with our families to the worship of his name around his word as the body of Christ in our homes and in our churches.