Family Worship

In our household after dinner and before we wind down for the night, one of the most chaotic scenes of the day ensues. Kids jump on and off the couch, practicing cartwheels and somersaults. They’re not often focused on what we are doing. They find every reason to leave the room. And our young boys use closed fists and sharp kicks to communicate with each other instead of their words. Honestly, many nights, I feel tempted to just give up and send everybody to bed.

But what we’re doing is too important. This is our Family Worship. Every night we sing,we read. And we pray. And yes, it is rare that we make it through Family Worship without somebody crying or leaving (okay, it’s rare that we make it two minutes before this happens). Yet this consistent, crazy, patience-testing time is incredibly valuable. Why? I’ll give three related reasons.

1. It’s an expression of gratitude and obedience to God. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is a foundational text for seeing the value of regular, formal, times of worship and instruction in our homes (this is not to exclude informal times of worship and instruction). We are instructing ourselves and our kids about who God is, how to worship Him, and how important it is to worship Him daily. 
2. The regular rhythm of formal worship in our homes orients our schedules towards God. God’s people have always had daily (prayer times), weekly (sabbath), seasonal (various festivals of worship), and annual (Day of Atonement) formal times of worship. Their entire calendars were oriented around the worship of God. When we or our children are involved in various activities and hobbies, our calendars (and so our lives) can easily become oriented around those things. The incorporation of daily, formal, scheduled, worship of God is a helpful antidote to a culture full of activity vying for the attention of our hearts and those of our families.
3. A commitment to daily formal worship literally tunes our hearts to sing God’s praise. As we practice the discipline of prioritizing and protecting that time for our households, over time our hearts come to cherish it. Day after day, it is reinforced into our hearts and minds that this is worth it and this is valuable.

So, how does a household engage in Family Worship? In his little book titled Family Worship, Donald Whitney succinctly outlines the why and the how. He identifies the three simple ingredients of reading God’s Word, singing praise in response to God’s grace, and encountering God personally through prayer. That’s it. No need for a deep theological lesson. No pre-planned devotion. In our house we choose a hymn of the month (we sing the same hymn every night for the month), we read a Psalm (or portion of one if it is too long), and we invite the kids to choose one family to pray for.

You need to know, we do this almost every night, but we are not perfect. And some nights our attitudes are far better than others. We haven’t figured it all out, and we’ve failed in so many different ways, but we have seen the Lord bear fruit in being faithful through years of commitment to this formal, scheduled, regular time of worship.

Whether you are single, widowed, married, with or without kids, this simple commitment to worship God in your household daily can bear massive fruit in your walk with the Lord. Yet, for many (and we ourselves were in this boat for quite some time), the greatest hindrance seems to be that we’ve gone so long without doing it, can we even start something like this? Will it even be beneficial at this point? To which I would respond with a gardening proverb I heard recently. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, true. But the second best time to plant a tree, is right now. Go plant that tree, and see what fruit the Lord may bear.