Tag Archives: Family Worship

The Secret of Strong Families

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I have to hand it to Facebook. They finally figured me out.

For the longest time the ads in my feed were useless and annoying. But last month there was an ad from Crossway Publishing promoting a free five day email course on Family Worship.

I clicked on it, signed up, read the emails and watch the videos for each of the five days. And to my surprise the videos were all very helpful. So I bought the book the videos were promoting.

The book is called Family Worship: In the Bible, In History, and In Your Home by Donald S. Whitney. And it really is a great book…so great, I wrote the following review on Amazon:

Every Christian family should read this book. Clear, simple, short but very informative, and very practical. This book will be helpful for any family interested in family worship…especially for those that have never done it before. As a pastor I will be recommending this book to every family in our church.

The book is really that great. So here I am recommending it to every family in our church.

One thing that has become clear to me over the years is, families who worship together flourish together.

Worshiping families are closer. Their kids do better in school, and they make better choices with their friends. Their kids don’t leave their faith in college and they tend do better after college.

Worshiping families flourish because they make Jesus the foundation of the family…and that’s a foundation that doesn’t break.

But here’s the thing,  if you’re like me, maybe you’re not sure how to do family worship. Growing up my family was a Christian family. But we never spent time as a family reading the Bible, praying, or singing. Those were things we did “at church”…not at home.

So when I wanted to start family worship in my own home I didn’t have a clue what to do. It was awkward. It was frustrating. It often felt forced.

I needed help.

Family Worship: In the Bible, In History, and In Your Home has been that help.

My hope is that every Christian family will buy this book. Not because I want to add one more thing to your to-do list. But because it is my prayer that every Christian family will commit to worshiping as a family throughout the week. Because I want every Christian family to be a strong family…built on the strong foundation of Jesus Christ.

If your family does not worship together, consider getting a copy of Family Worship: In the Bible, In History, and In Your Home. If you want to preview things before you buy here’s the link to the five day video course. And if you just need someone to talk to (or vent to) about family worship leave a comment, I’d be happy to help in any way I can.

May God bless your family!

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What Puritans Can Teach Us About Family Worship

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What can I do to help my kids grow spiritually?

For most of us, the first thing that comes to our mind is to teach our kids the Bible. This is great, but depending on the age and stage of our kids this can be rough. So what can we as parents do?

This week I came across a conversation between  Tim Challies and Dr. Joel Beeke on the family worship habits of Puritans.  In it, Dr. Joel Beeke points out that for Puritans reading the Bible was just one part of family worship. But it certainly wasn’t the only part.

Below is a part of the conversation between Tim Challies (TC) and Dr. Joel Beeke (JB). You can read the entire conversation here.

TC: To hear people talk about the Puritans, you would imagine they were harsh toward their children, making them endure endless hours of family worship. Is this accurate?

JB: Endless hours in family worship would have been impossible for most people in the seventeenth-century. In Puritan New England, many people were farmers who had to labor hard to produce food. Children also had much to do in school, household chores, and working alongside their fathers and mothers to learn a vocation. The Puritans also took time for recreation. They enjoyed hunting, fishing, shooting competitions, and wrestling—two New England Puritan ministers were famous amateur wrestlers. They enjoyed music in their homes, owning guitars, harpsichords, trumpets, violas, drums, and other instruments. There was a lot to do; family devotions were one part—albeit the most important part—of a busy daily schedule.

The Puritans aimed at pithy instruction and heart-moving prayer. Samuel Lee wrote that in all our teaching of the family we should beware of boring the children by talking too much. Long devotions overburden their little minds. It is best to hold the attention of children by using spiritual analogies with flowers, rivers, a field of grain, birds singing, the sun, a rainbow, etc.

 

What is clear from this brief exchange is that Puritan families were spiritually strengthened by at least three practices:

They worked together

Whether household chores or learning their parent’s vocation, children worked along side their parents. This provided plenty of opportunities to for parents and children to talk together about life, the Bible, and the Christian faith. It was a way of living out the principles of Deuteronomy 6:4-7.

They played together

As hard as it is to imagine, puritans families had fun together. Sports, music, and just good old fashion play was a regular part of the their household interaction. They understood that all activities could be done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

They enjoyed God’s creation together

Notice when teaching the Bible, parents were encouraged to use spiritual analogies to help children understand. They used pictures of flowers, rivers, fields of grain, singing birds, the sun, and rainbows, to help explain the Christian life. They used such analogies because they took pleasure in these creations. Puritans understood that one of the purposes of creation is to lead us to worship of our Creator (Romans 1:20).

 

Helping you family grow spiritually doesn’t have to be boring. And it doesn’t have to just consists of a series of Bible studies. If you really want your family to grow spiritually, then take a lesson from the Puritans. Work to together. Play together. Enjoy God’s creation together. Knowing that such practices will enhance those times when you do read the Bible together.

Family Worship

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“What do you do for family worship?”

That was the question I asked my volunteer leaders about six months ago. I asked not because I wanted to check up on their family’s spiritual health. I asked because I was honestly looking for ways in which I could lead my family in worship.

Growing up, my family (although Christian) did not practice family worship. And even though I am a pastor, the idea of worshiping with my family by ourselves at home still feels a little awkward. We have, for a while, prayed together at night, and often even read the Bible together. But I still felt like I wasn’t very good at it. There were restless kids constantly getting up and down. There was yelling. There was crying. There were stuffed animal friends missing.   There was fighting over what to read and who got to hold what. There were tantrums so dramatic that I was tempted to cast out demons.

Then I came across an excellent book entitled A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home by Jason Helopoulos (yeah, I’m not sure how pronounce his last name either). Now the book didn’t magically fix everything. But it has given me a much better paradigm and model for family worship. And it is a book I would highly recommend to you for five reasons.

  1. It’s short. At 126 pages you could easily read it in a week.
  2. It’s biblical. Jason gives a great overview of family worship in the Bible, and demonstrates, from the Bible, why family worship is worth pursuing today.
  3. It’s relatable. Jason knows that, for most people, family worship is new and out of their comfort zone. So he provides real-life testimonies from regular families on the benefits of family worship.
  4. It’s incredibility practical. Jason offers some great practical models of what family worship can look like. He even has age-appropriate discussion questions for parents to ask their children as they read through the Bible.
  5. It’s from a perspective of grace. Jason is not challenging parents to add one more thing to their already full plate. For him, “Family worship is an instrument through which God gives us grace…It is not something that should be a burden. It is a joy.” Jason’s desire throughout the book is to help families experience more of God’s grace.

If you’re a parent or grandparent who wants to see your family grow in God’s grace, I would encourage you to get this book.

Family worship is by no means perfect at our house. But I can already see the benefits of making the effort. I love hearing my kids sing worship songs, I love hearing my kids pray, and I love hearing my oldest read the Bible. Every night these things happen we experience God’s  grace in our family.