5 Reasons to have Family Worship

Posted by Joe Thorn - 14/06/07

“these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down,
and when you rise.”
Deut. 6:6, 7

I’ve talked a little about family worship/devotions in the past, and interviewed Tom Ascol on the subject. As our new church develops unique ministry emphases family continues to remain at the top of the list in a number of different ways. One of the simplest things we are doing is encouraging families to discover or strengthen their practice of family worship. Here are a few good reasons your family should be practicing this ancient discipline.

1. It’s your job to train your children, not your church’s.
God gives you, the parents, the responsibility and privilege of discipling your children. Have you thought about it that way before? You are tasked with teaching your children to be the disciples of Jesus. Simply handing them over to the church for instruction, and assuming that is enough, is lazy and dangerous. It is lazy because it is a refusal to participate in one of our most important roles as parents, and dangerous because we are dealing with children whose lives hang in the balance. I want fathers to see themselves as the pastors of their families. I want parents to see their families as their most important ministry; far more important than anything else they are involved in. What I tend to find is parents who will spend hours preparing for and executing ministries in the church while giving little time and less thought to family worship.

2. It teaches parents how to talk to their kids about spiritual things.
For many parents, especially new parents, talking to children about spiritual things does not come naturally. It can be awkward. Regularly gathering with your whole family to read and discuss Scripture will help you develop your communication skills, and help you better understand the truth as well. C. Ben Mitchell once suggested to me that if I cannot explain the truth to a child, I might not understand that truth very well myself.

3. It provides a regular context in which spiritual conversations take place.
Not only will this force you to learn how to speak to your children, but it will give you regular opportunity to do so. Let me tell you what I have observed. Families that do not regularly gather for family worship have little opportunity for real, spiritual conversations with the kids. But those who do regularly gather for family worship not only have that time to discuss things, but wind up having other, more spontaneous conversations about spiritual things as well.

4. It allows parents to guide theological development.
Your kids are theologians - right now. They have beliefs about God and probably articulate those beliefs if you listen carefully. Their theology will continue to develop over time, and their best hope for good theology is the passionate, clearly articulated, Scriptural teaching of their parents. Let me also remind you that your kids are watching you, to see if the things you teach them are the things you really believe. And when they discover that what you said about God being sovereign and good impacts the way you receive suffering and affliction, their theology will begin to blossom.

5. It prepares kids for corporate worship.
Family worship is a great aid in getting your kids ready for corporate worship. It teaches them the importance and value of sitting still, listening, and truly engaging corporate worship. They learn that the Bible is holy, and worth paying attention to. They learn songs, and will enjoy singing them in church after learning them in the home. It also demonstrates the value of corporate worship itself, preventing them from thinking about worship as something private. The dominant thinking on worship that I encounter in the evangelical church today is that worship is almost exclusively a very personal/private encounter with Christ. Family worship can lead our kids to see that while worship is always personal, and we should find time to get alone with God, it is meant to be expressed and experienced in community.

Start small, be regular, make it fun, keep it simple, and lead your family in worshiping Jesus Christ for the glory of God, and the good of your home.

Eight Dollar Hot Dog

Posted by Joe Thorn - 10/06/07

Amid a Flood of Mortal Ills

Posted by Joe Thorn - 02/04/07

There is no shortage of scandals in the evangelical church these days. Many of our leaders are stealing from churches and associations, cheating on their wives, or outright abandoning them. Hypocrisy abounds and it seems like every month or so there is some other high-profile, Christian superstar whose gross, secret sins find him out and bring significant damage to marriage and ministry. Such news always catches my attention, but it has little impact on me personally because I do not know these men, and generally have not heard for them until their scandal. What has had continual, significant impact on me throughout the years is seeing men I know, and have looked up to, fall from grace.

I have watched a zealous, evangelistic, biblically informed friend give up and jump head first into a life of immorality. He never denied the gospel to be true, but claimed he was never truly converted and just walked away. I watched another young man who formerly appeared to be walking with Jesus with great care reject it all for the things the world offers. I had a close friend who was a great theologian, a good teacher/evangelist who produced some very good fruit grow to be so overtaken by pride that he left his family and little children to pursue his own sinful interests. I have seen other leaders, men that I knew well and admired, abandon their spouses or lose their ministry because their secret moral failure had found them out. At one point in my life I honestly felt like I was left almost all alone, standing by myself, covered in the blood of my friends who had fallen and died - asking, “Why am I still standing? I am just as screwed up as everyone else, just as tempted with sin. What have I done to protect myself?” I certainly was never foolish enough to think of myself as more spiritual than those who fell morally. Watching my friends fall was not only frightening, but discouraging. Perhaps, I often thought, it is only a matter of time before I fall in the same way.

Over the years I have talked with a lot of Christians who have shared the same fear. How can they stand when so many others have fallen before them? Is it even possible to persevere in faith and godliness when surrounded not only by temptation but by so much failure and moral collapse among men formerly held in high esteem? William Gurnall said that many Christians lose hope of persevering when,

seeing such, whose gifts they so much admired, lie before them, wallowing in the blood of their slain profession: [from being] zealous professors, to prove perhaps fiery persecutors; [from being] strict performers of religious duties, [to prove] irreligious atheists: no more like the men they were some years past
The Christian in Complete Armour (pp. 14, 15)

But the failure of the men we know should not only be a discouragement to us. We should let it have a positive effect on us as well.

When we see those who have fallen morally:

1. Mourn over it.
See the awfulness of sin, and the devastation that comes from a self-directed life. Learn to hate the sinfulness of sin.
The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. (Pr. 8:13)

2. Be warned by it.
Yes, you too can fall. The potential for every wickedness lies in your heart, just as it does in mine, just has it did in those who have fallen. Be stirred to greater care of your soul, life, family and church.

3. Repent.
Take the opportunity to examine yourself and confess your sins carefully and precisely; addressing both those sins of omission and of commission. Look to those “root sins” that bear fruit in your lives and tear them out.

4. Let it draw you close to Jesus.
Let the failure of others compel you to cling more tightly to the Savior. Men will fail both God and let us down, but our hope is not the men who go before us. Our confidence of continuing in the faith is not rooted in becoming more like those we admire, but in abiding in Jesus (see What Jesus Demands of the World, Demand #7 by John Piper).

5. Surround yourself with men who will encourage you and hold you accountable.
When men are walking with Christ together, not attempting to go it alone, they are much more likely to remain strong and persevere.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! (Ecc. 4:10)

And be encouraged that though many may fall, many more - even Jesus himself - will cheer you on as you persevere in holiness.

Christians, God and angels are spectators, observing how you [conduct] yourselves like children of the Most High; every exploit your faith doth against sin and Satan causeth a shout in heaven; while you valiantly prostrate this temptation, scale that difficulty, regain the other ground you even now lost out of your enemies’ hands. Your dear Savior, who stands by with a reserve for your relief at a pinch, his very heart leaps within him for joy to see the proof of your love to him and zeal for him in all your combats; and will not forget all the faithful service you have done in his wars on earth; but when thou comest out of the field, will receive thee with the like joy as he was entertained himself at his return to heaven of his Father.
William Gurnall, ‘Armour (pg. 17)

Ascol on Family Worship

Posted by Joe Thorn - 29/03/07

Dr. Tom Ascol pastors Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, FL and is the Executive Director of Founders Ministries. Most of my readers probably know this about him. Some of you may know him more for his blogging. As we have become friends I have been very encouraged by his love for God, his church and his family. I thought an interview would be an interesting way to talk about family worship on the blog, and Tom was the person who I most wanted to share his thoughts and experiences.

Is family worship something God expects of each family, and why is it so important?

I do believe that God expects everyone and every family to worship Him daily. The Psalms are certainly filled with expressions that indicate that. “O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch” (5:3). David resolved to sing of God’s power and mercy “in the morning” (59:16; cf. 88:13, 119:147) and to sing praise and pay his vows to the Lord daily (61:8). Psalm 68:19 says, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!” Being loaded daily with blessings from above should provoke daily expressions of praise and blessing from below.

One thing that has helped Donna and me to see the importance of this practice is recognizing that the the whole earth is, as Calvin put it, the theater of God’s glory. In Proverbs you sense that Solomon understood this as he treats the world as a classroom in which to teach wisdom to his son. God’s fingerprints are everywhere and we must cultivate eyes to see them and hearts to respond to Him with praise and gratitude.

Deuteronomy 6:4-7, of course, is one of the better known passages in Scripture that sets before parents the responsibility to train our children in the ways of God.This is to be done not in a perfunctory way but out of a heart that cherishes God’s commands. And it is to be done formally and informally. “When you sit in your house” certainly suggests a specific time of concerted effort for parents to teach their children God’s law.

Making this a priority helps remind us that we are here for God and that He deserves to be worshiped all the time in the ways that we conduct our affairs and relate to people.

I think it’s fair to say this is not something most Christian families practice today. Do you agree? Why is it this way?

Yes, from my observation that is sadly and undeniably true. Family worship has been lost to large segments of the Christian church over the last 100 years. Much of it has to do with the dissolution of the family due to various social and cultural forces. Just like family meals have become increasingly rare, so has family worship. But I think there is more to it than just those pressures. I think that the loss of a Gospel-driven, Christ-centered understanding of the Christian faith has made many beliefs and practices that were once common and prized among believers almost obsolete. American Christianity has become much more American than Christian. The message of salvation has been efficiently reduced to a “Jesus-fix” or a “get-out-of-jail-free” card that has virtually no implications for how one lives. Christian belief and experience are relegated to the periphery of life rather than the center. Where this approach to Christianity predominates, regular corporate worship is often treated as a matter of convenience and regular family worship is completely foreign. That is where most of our American evangelical culture is, I am afraid.

Most of the second generation Christians in our church (including me) did not grow up in homes where Christ was worshiped as a family. In my case, that was true despite the fact that our family was very active in our Baptist church. I do not recall ever hearing of the concept until I was an adult.

What is the fallout from the absence of family worship in our homes?

One great one is that it contributes to the tendency to divide life up into “sacred” and “secular.” Worship is what we do on Sundays. Life is what we do the other six days of the week. That perspective is contrary to a biblical worldview and tends to relegate our corporate worship experiences to the ethereal.

In addition to this, children do not receive the kind of training that they could and ought. Children who are taught to worship in their homes learn much more readily what is involved in worshiping with the larger family of the church on the Lord’s Day. It is much easier to instruct and correct your child in your own home than it is in a church service. Corporate gatherings of worship are not as spiritually intense as they would be if every individual and family came from a week of regularly worshiping the Lord in their homes.

What have you found to be the biggest hindrances in maintaining this discipline?

Early on, when I first began to attempt it, the greatest hindrance was unrealistic ideas of what ought to happen. I read about “family worship” and “family altars” and “family devotions,” but, to my knowledge, I had never experienced one. So I envisioned a full-fledged Lord’s Day liturgy conducted in my living room, complete with a robed choir, pipe-organ accompaniment of hymns and a 45 minute sermon! It wasn’t quite that bad, but it wasn’t far off. With a new mom and barely crawling baby, I would schedule a “family worship service” in the evening and come fully armed with an in-depth Bible study that required at least an hour. That seemed like a minimal amount of time to devote to the God of the Universe who created time and from whose hand we had received every good and perfect gift we enjoyed (my theological reasoning trumped my wife’s practical wisdom every time). Of course, my infant child rarely cooperated and when she became a toddler it only got worse. When her sister arrived I viewed it as reinforcements to undermine my righteous efforts to lead my family in worship! They wouldn’t sit still or quiet for the scheduled hour. I would usually get frustrated and quit, sometimes with a prayer whose tone and spirit betrayed my wounded pride at having a family that simply would not follow my leadership to worship God. We would go weeks without attempting it again until the guilt overruled the sense of futility and I would plan another “service,” usually bigger and better in order to make up for all the days we had missed. No matter how strong my resolve, we never seemed to make it through my whole agenda. It was pretty pitiful.

It wasn’t until our family visited in the home of a fellow pastor that the Lord delivered me from my terribly misguided attempts to lead in family worship. After supper, this man pulled out Leading Little Ones to God and read a chapter (about a page), asked the suggested questions, and then led in prayer. It was simple and effective. And it lasted only 5 to 10 minutes. The three toddlers and one baby who were present did just fine. So did the four adults. It was a liberating moment for me.

I tell that story to illustrate one huge hindrance to attempting family worship, namely, unrealistic expectations born of inexperience. I have seen many families effectively begin this practice as a result of seeing it modeled in the homes of fellow believers who wisely know how to plan and structure the time so as not to be wearisome.

As our family has grown and our children’s lives have become more complicated it has been increasingly difficult to maintain regular times of family devotions. Our home has 3 children who are in college and 3 under the age of 17. Just recently we recognized that we had fallen into a pattern of sporadic family worship, due in part to the fact that we rarely have all of the children home in the evenings anymore. We unwittingly developed a habit of waiting until everyone was home for the night before we would gather for worship, in part because we read through books of the Bible together and no one wants to miss a section. As those times got later and later it became easier and easier to simply declare that it was “too late” for family worship. We are now resolved to carry on whether or not we are all present, regretting when that is not the case but recognizing that this is simply the season of life we have entered.

What exactly happens during this time for your family and how many days a week do you all have it?

We plan to gather every evening except Wednesday and Sunday–days when we meet with our larger church family. Most weeks we are able to have 4 or 5 nights of family worship. On Sundays around the lunch table we discuss the morning lessons from church.

Our times together are very simple. We have read through various books together (Leading Little Ones to God, Big Thoughts for Little People, Children’s Story Bible, Dangerous Journey, sections of Mortification of Sin and Pilgrim’s Progress, etc., depending on the ages of the children). We always read Scripture, usually a chapter. Each child gets to choose a book from the Bible that we will read and we will stay with that one until we finish it. I usually read aloud and will offer some explanatory or devotional or applicatory comments and ask questions. Sometimes this leads to extended discussions and sometimes only brief answers. We often sing a song that one of the children selects. Right now we are memorizing 1 Peter together, so we will, if time allows, occasionally work on that some. Then we pray. Usually I lead us in prayer, though sometimes I call on others to pray aloud. If we have guests who are believers I will often ask one of them to lead us also. If there are particular things or people that need to be mentioned we pray for them. On Saturdays we name and pray for missionaries and “preacher friends” that we know or know of, asking the Lord to bless their labors on the Lord’s Day. For the last few years we have been kneeling as we pray and have found this to be a healthy reminder of our rightful place before the Lord.

Years ago we incorporated catechism training into our family worship. We are not as regular with that in recent years as the children have spread out on so many various levels of learning.

How long does family worship typically last in your home?

It varies. I try to plan for about 20 minutes. Sometimes that will stretch into an hour, which is not burdensome for the ages of our children (our youngest is 9). Usually we spend from 15 to 30 minutes together.

What benefit/fruit do you see coming from this time spent with God and family?

It has provided a natural way for us to talk about spiritual things as a family. Communication is so important in family life and it often gets stifled by knots in the relationships. Even where good communication is cultivated it can be hard to talk about the most important things in the world. Regular times of reading God’s Word together help cultivate healthy, spiritual communication.

These times have also afforded us many opportunities to confess sin or struggles to each other. Repentance and forgiveness are expressed and often modeled in front of us. Our times of worship have alerted Donna and me to things going on in the lives of our older children on occasion, allowing us to follow up with further conversation. On more than a few occasions, one of our children has come to us after a time of family worship seeking counsel or with a deep spiritual burden. The Lord used our time together as a family to encourage them to come to us.

Our children have learned to discuss theology, to respond to hard questions, to sit quietly as the Word of God is read and to pray. They have also learned to be patient and forgiving toward their parents. Donna and I have learned that God can and does give grace to do what He has called us to do.

What advice would you give to those who have/are starting young families?

Make family worship a priority. Don’t let pride keep you from asking for help. Ask men and women who are doing it to give you suggestions. Get Don Whitney’s booklet on the subject (now available as a message on CD, as well) and read it together. Don’t be intimidated with unrealistic goals or visions of what family worship ought to be. Start simple. Read the Bible, sing a song or a chorus or a verse of a song, and pray. Then do it again the next day. Recognize that there will be days that you are not able to worship together as you like. Recognize that there wiil be days that you are able and you simply choose not to due to laziness, neglect or blatant sin. When that happens, repent, believe the Gospel, and start over, and do that the rest of your life. Once you incorporate family worship into the regular pattern of your life, don’t let house guests divert you from your schedule. Include them, or at least invite them to join you. Evangelism happens during such times. So does discipleship. Your example and testimony can be powerfully used by God in the lives of others who witness it.

Here is a great gift to give to your children–a memory of always worshiping God in their home. What a blessing to bring a child into a worshipping family! His or her earliest memories will be framed by this God-honoring practice. Children blessed with this gift will never have a memory of a time where this was not a regular part of your family’s life.

If your children are older and you are just now beginning this practice, turn it into a marker of God’s grace in leading your family. Let this start be the beginning of deeper faith, deeper hope and renewed repentance in your lives and interpret it that way for your children. Don’t live in regret for the years of neglect, but trust the Lord to use your fruits of repentance and faith to strengthen your family.

I would encourage husbands and dads to resist with all of their strength every tendency to justify not leading their family in regular times of worship. No excuse is acceptable. If you have God’s Word and God’s Spirit, then no matter how inadequate you feel, you have what it takes to go forward in this area. Every thought that would suggest you are not qualified or that you are exempt is from the pit of hell. Declare war on your pride, humble yourself, and make a serious attempt for one month to lead your family in this way. Don’t be afraid to seek counsel and encouragement from other men. The opportunity is too great and the stakes are too high to neglect this responsibility.

Finally, I would encourage single moms to lead their children in family worship. It is hard, but everything that you are doing in trying to care for your family without a dad around is hard. Ask your church leaders for help in knowing what to do and how to begin. The Lord has particularly declared His concern for the widow and fatherless and though you and your children may not technically be classified as such, you can be sure that the Lord has compassion for those in your situation. He honors those who honor Him. So make it a priority to worship the Lord in your home with your children.

Family Worship

Posted by Joe Thorn - 28/03/07

As a college student one of my favorite professors warned our Greek class that it will take us up to 5 years to fall into a comfortable and profitable habit of “devotions” with our spouses. I thought he was crazy since Jen and I were frequently reading the Bible together and praying while dating. As it turns out his words proved prophetic once we were married. Though we were regular in our personal quiet time, doing this together proved difficult. So we started reading on the topic of family worship - when the household gathers to worship God led by the head of the house. One of the books we read early on was Thoughts on Family Worship by J.W. Alexander. It was a great read and really helped to establish what we wanted to do as a family. Unfortunately it did not establish our actual practice. When we transitioned from a dating couple who would spontaneously break out the Bible and pray to a married couple trying to establish a routine for this sort of thing we found it to feel awkward, unnatural and forced. We continued to read and work at it but our family worship was very irregular. We eventually gave up, but were not too alarmed since we remained disciplined on our own and had no children.

When we began to have children we took this much more seriously, but getting to the place where it was a natural part of our lives took some time. There were two things we learned along the way that were of particular help to us.

1. Don’t overdo it.
Most people I know who try to start family worship have unrealistic expectations about what it should look like. I know I did. Back in seminary my primary source for instruction in this was no one I knew personally, but the puritans. They spoke of reading the bible with simple explanation, prayer and singing. In my mind, this must have meant 1 to 2 hours for each gathering (and they often did it both in the morning and the evening). Then I came across “The Family Altar,” a compilation of the writings of Doddridge, Bickersteth, Watts, Hamilton, and Barnes and found relief through a more realistic expectation of how much time we should spend in family worship.

But some, in excuse for the neglect of this duty, urge the want of time: - their families are too large - their business presses them - it is of such a nature that they cannot control their hours. This they plead that they have not time for a duty which they confess to be all-important. On this point permit me to remark, that good people do sometimes err in spending an unreasonable length of time in the performance of this service. We may be so long as to become tedious in our prayers; and whenever this is the case, it creates a weariness, especially in the minds of the young, that is too apt to end in disgust or aversion. But when we urge the duty of allowing no day, in ordinary circumstances, to pass by without, as a family, spending ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, in the solemn worship of our Maker, and when the objection made against it is the want of time, we ask, Can men be serious when they say so?
pg. 44

This was very liberating for us. The warning of potential spiritual damage done to children by well-intentioned and over-zealous parents was helpful and reading that meaningful family worship can happen in the span of 10-20 minutes was exciting.

2. Find the right time.
Even after having a better understanding of what needs to be happening, finding time to be regular in this proved difficult for me as a pastor. Our attempts at family worship in the evening were often interrupted by church activities, counseling, associational meetings, etc. So we decided to move it to the mornings, and this changed everything for us. We get up, eat breakfast and then gather in the living room to read the Bible, pray and sing a song. Our 3 year old and 5 year old really enjoy this time, as do Jen and I. Family worship is now a regular and natural part of our lives. I would love to hear what you do for family worship, and/or what books and material you have found to be helpful.

Instead of making a biblical case for family worship here, I will recommend an interview and a few books. Tomorrow I will post an interview on the subject with Dr. Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, FL, Executive Director of Founders Ministries and Editor of the Founders Journal. Be sure to check that out, he has some great things to say.

For foundational material on the subject be sure to pick up one or more of the following:

Family Worship by Donald Whitney
Thoughts on Family Worship by J.W. Alexander
The Godly Family by various authors
The Bible and the Closet by Thomas Watson and Samuel Lee (see the very back for “The Family Altar”).

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