Family Worship I: Soul Care | Behold Your God Podcast

Family Worship as Soul Care in the Home

Welcome to the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Teddy James, content producer for Media Gratia. And if you're watching this podcast, then you notice that the setting is a little bit different. This week we're not in John's office, but rather this is the Media Gratia office.

Welcome to our home. We've been here for the past couple of months. We've been working on it. There's some things coming in the future that we want you to see, but we're going to work on that in a future episode.

But there's another reason that this episode is different. It probably sounds different, too. We're not using our normal mics, just like we're not using our normal cameras. We're using a laptop. The reason for that is because the podcast is a little distant podcast.

This week we have Ryan Bush, and we're going to get Ryan's story in just a minute. But I want to explain to you why we wanted Ryan to come on.

And it's this.

We've just done five episodes where we discussed presenting the gospel, the doctrine of regeneration, to children. And one of the best and one of the simplest tools to do that in a day-in and day-out situation of a family is a thing called family worship.

And Ryan has been a man who has studied family worship, thought a lot about family worship. And so, Ryan, first off, man, I just want to thank you for taking some time and talking with me.

Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be here. Thanks for the invite.

So, Ryan, tell me a little bit about yourself. You're with International Church Planters. Tell me a little bit about who you are and where you come from.

Well, I'm married 17 years. My wife and I, Amanda, we have five children. And live in Heber Springs, Arkansas, where I lead a missions organization called International Church Planters. The essence of what we do there is train pastors.

So primarily we're working in Kenya. We have several training locations going on there right now. But also in Ecuador and a few other places, as well as an online presence. But what we want to do, what our goal is, is to equip pastors to faithfully shepherd their flocks.

So that churches will be strengthened, the Lord will be glorified, and the gospel will go out across the globe.

The Definition of Family Worship

Yeah, and if you want more information about International Church Planners and Ryan Bush's ministry there, make sure that you click the link in the description. We'll put that below for you. Make it really easy for you to get some more information about that.

Wonderful organization, wonderful ministry. Ryan, the reason that we have you here is to talk about family worship. So before we get any further, I really would love for you to just kind of give us a simple working definition of what exactly is family worship.

Yeah, I think that's helpful. Because family worship, for many folks, it sounds like a mystery. It did for me when I started. But family worship is simply when a family, under the leadership of the head of the household, comes together to worship God and receive from Him using the ordinary means of grace.

And by that, I mean simply the reading and proclamation of Scripture, prayer, and singing.

Discovering Family Worship and the Call to Shepherd the Family

Let me ask you this, because I think this is going to be one of those things. Somebody's going to say, well, obviously, Ryan, you grew up doing family worship. I know that's not the case. So how was it you came about discovering family worship and came under the conviction of doing family worship?

Yeah, and thankfully, there has been a resurgence of this focus on spiritual care within the home by the head of the household, and specifically utilizing family worship. But there are probably some folks listening, watching this right now, that it's a totally foreign concept.

It was for me. I really didn't come upon the idea of it until three or four years ago. And through a series of conversations with brothers and reading some folks, and also the force of the Scriptures of the responsibility of the head of the household, I became convinced and also convicted of this need for me to shepherd my family well, to shepherd them faithfully.

And that's a whole big theme, the shepherding of the family. But family worship is kind of the consistent, maybe we might even say glue that holds all of that together, the regular practice of gathering the family together to worship the Lord.

Well, yeah, and it is. It is the literal soul care of your family because you are caring for the immortal souls of your children. In fact, just remembering Tuesday of this week, we had a blog post go out where we were quoting from C .S. Lewis.

He said, you've never met a mortal being, a mortal human being, because there's always within that person an immortal soul that will one day be transformed to glory or will be transformed to horror. And in the practice of family worship, we are caring for that eternal soul of those God's put under our care.

Yeah, yeah, and that perspective is critical for beginning family worship and continuing it. If we start family worship because we feel pressured, because I watched a Media Gratia episode, and they said, you know, we should do family worship, so I guess I better do it.

If that's all we have as a foundation, then it's going to fizzle out. We're going to throw up the white flag because it's hard. It's a difficult thing. But if we can remember that this short space that we have here on Earth in comparison with eternity is really very small, and that in that small space we have been given these souls to care for, then family worship becomes something that's, oh, well, you know, maybe, maybe not.

I don't care what it takes today. I'm gathering my family together to read the Scriptures to them, to pray over them, and to sing songs of the faith with them, because this is a matter of eternity.

Neediness, the Means of Grace, and the Basic Elements of Family Worship

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that we talk about very often in the podcast is the fact that we are needy beings. We are needy souls, and if it weren't for an infinite God who is all-sufficient, we of all people would be most hopeless.

And it's when we understand not just our own neediness but the neediness of our spouse, the neediness of our children, the neediness of our future grandchildren, that I think those things really can drive us to family worship.

And, you know, it took me a long time to really come to grips with that. I remember my first introduction to family worship was a book by Votie Bauckham, Family Shepherds. And he just mentions it. It's almost—he doesn't really assume you know what it is, but there's not a great deal of time spent on what is family worship and how do you incorporate that, the kind of things that I really want us to get into soon.

But then there was another book, and I know you've read it, by Donald Whitney called Family Worship, a wonderful little book that just simply explains what family worship is, how to build it into the rhythm of your family, all these kinds of things.

And so those are, you know, if you're interested, those are a couple of places to get started, learning about family worship, how to incorporate it. So, Ryan, at its essence, in its most basic form, give us again, what are the elements of family worship?

Yeah, and actually let me return to something you mentioned about the neediness. I think this is maybe a plague on Christian men today. We see our neediness, but that's where it stops. You know, we were taught to do quiet times, and we need to read those scriptures.

We need to avail ourselves to the means of grace. And many of us—I was good at that, diligent, disciplined. But for some reason, a lot of us—this was the case for me—don't make the leap to that need that is also present in our wives, and if we have them, in our children.

And I spent many years very, very self-centered when it comes to the spiritual nourishment in my family. I was worried about myself, really. And I got my family to church, of course, but beyond that, you know, they can take care of themselves, which that's not what Job did.

Job offered sacrifices on behalf of his kids in case they had cursed the Lord in their hearts. What an example. Joshua said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. David, after blessing the people when the ark came into Jerusalem, blessing the whole nation, he went home to bless his family as well.

We have to move beyond this self-centered spiritual focus of, I need to be nourished, to, yes, I need to be nourished so that I can nourish those under my care. And the way that we do that, to get to your question, is it's nothing magical or mysterious.

It's the simple, ordinary, regular means of grace. So, in family worship, really, the three simple elements are read the Scriptures, pray, and sing hymns.

How to Begin Family Worship Simply and Consistently

Yeah, and that's it. I think often when people hear of family worship, I think initially they want to overcomplicate it. Add a whole bunch of things. We're going to have this order of worship. Let me go get the bulletin at my church and copy and paste this every single day.

But really, it is incredibly, incredibly simple. So, before we get any further, for someone who says, okay, so you say that family worship is just praying, reading Scripture, and a hymn. Practically, what does that look like if someone said, okay, I'm going to stop right now, and I'm going to go do family worship with my family.

What would that look like?

Yeah, and if someone's thinking that, do it.

Hit pause.

Praise the Lord. Thank the Lord for that sign of grace in your life. Go do it right now, and then come back, and we can finish up this video later, this podcast later. But for a lot of folks, they do want a bit more instruction.

They need help. I needed a lot of help. And I just want to reiterate what you said. Be really careful about bringing a bunch of stuff. If we feel insecure about something, we'll bring in extra things so that we can put the responsibility off on those.

So, let's do this video series, or let's go through this book, devotional guide together, or this book, or whatever it might be. Stick with the simple elements, the simple means of grace. So, here's what I would do.

If I were starting family worship today, or if someone came and asked me and they really had never done it before, I'd say, do this. Get your family together around the kitchen table, couch, back porch, wherever.

Explain to them what family worship is, simple terms, and then say, so we're going to try it. I want to nourish your souls in this way. Let's just start now. And begin. Open with a simple prayer. You or maybe someone else in your family could do that.

And then read a passage that you selected. I suggest something familiar, something short, Psalm 23, Psalm 1, and then sing the first stanza of a hymn. I would just sing the first verse. I wouldn't even try to get through the whole thing.

A verse that your family knows really well, a hymn that they know well, maybe Holy, Holy, Holy, Amazing Grace, Come Thou Fount, something that's very familiar to them. Sing that out loud together, a cappella, and then close with a prayer.

That might take five, six, seven minutes, but that's okay. That's an excellent way to start, get going on this path of family worship.

The Biblical and Historical Case for Family Worship

Yeah, absolutely. And I do pray that there's someone out there who is just, maybe they're listening to this, and maybe it's while they're cooking dinner or cleaning up after dinner, and they are just saying, okay, I'm going to stop, and we're going to go do this, and I want to come back and listen to some of the finer details.

But there's also going to be those who say, you know, guys, this is a great idea, but you're talking as though there's a command to do this, and I've read through the Scriptures, and I don't see that command.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's not there. So the responsibility to care for our family spiritually, you're not going to find it at the end of the Ten Commandments. There's not a direct positive command in the Old or New Testament.

However, we see throughout Scripture that the principle of caring for one's family, their spiritual well-being, is really a part of the fabric of the Scripture itself, of the lives of our spiritual ancestors, all the way from Adam teaching Cain and Abel to come before the Lord and worship Him, to Noah on the ark leading his family in times of worship, to Abraham leading Isaac up the mountain to worship the Lord, and Isaac, you know, how did he know that the sacrifice was missing?

He'd done it many times before. I mentioned Job. I mentioned Joshua. We see this throughout Old Testament. We see these principles in the New Testament of Paul telling the Ephesians, the husbands, to love their wives as Christ loved the church, to raise their children in fear and admonition of the Lord.

Paul telling Timothy that those who don't care for their family's physical well-being weren't, could we even call them Christians? How much more would he emphasize the care of their spiritual well-being?

All of these things combined create this sort of avalanche of evidence for the importance and responsibility of heads of households to care for the spiritual well-being of their families. In fact, it would be hard to find a more implicit command than this one, to care for the spiritual well-being of the household by the head of the household.

Charles Spurgeon said that he's talking about prayer specifically. He said, who among us could say that it isn't right and good for a head of a household to lead his family in prayer? He said, if someone confesses Christ but doesn't do that, at best, we could say it's a very strange inconsistency.

So, throughout the Scriptures and then throughout church history as well, it's been a part of what those who followed Christ did. In fact, in 17th century Scotland, there were formal measures of accountability for family worship, and even formal measures of discipline.

There were families who were excluded, heads of households who were excluded from the Lord's Supper as disciplined, because they did not lead their families in regular family worship. So, yeah, it's there.

I don't know if I made a strong enough case. Do I have you convinced?

No, I think we're going to need some more proof there, right?

Yeah.

I can bring some more.

We'll do that next episode.

Yeah, yeah. But here's the thing, though. I promise you, and I know this was my case, and I know it was your case just a few years ago. So many people have just simply never heard of it. And so part of me—so there's a big part of me that loves history and asking the question, how did we get from this place where there was formal church discipline if you did not practice it to today where there are people who were raised in a church and have never heard the term family worship?

And maybe that's an episode for another time. But now, like you said earlier, there's a resurgence in interest in family worship and awareness of the reality of family worship. So what would you say to a dad who says, okay, you made a really good case.

I see I need to do family worship, and it sounds like it's really easy. But look, you know, Ryan, you're the head of a missions organization, and TJ, you're the—you know, you're in Medi Gratis. You've got all this exposure, and you've read Puritans and whatever else you want to say.

You guys are equipped to do this, and it's easy for you to do it, but you don't know me. There's no way I can do it.

Encouragement for Fathers, Single Mothers, and Unequally Yoked Wives

Yeah, yeah, and that's common. It feels overwhelming. It really does. And so the first thing that I would say to that person is that you're in good company. I felt that way. TJ's felt that way. Any head of household who has started to do this a little bit later in life after their family started has felt overwhelmed, maybe confused, unclear about how to do it, and insecure about their ability.

So what you're feeling is normal. If you don't feel equipped, that is completely normal. What I want to say to you is that leading—first of all, you can lead family worship. Second of all, that you should lead family worship.

The Lord desires that your family be cared for by you as the shepherd of that little flock. And the last thing I would say is you probably do need some instruction. I needed that, but it doesn't take a seminary degree.

It doesn't take hours and hours of study. You don't have to go to a week-long conference to get this worked out. Really, one of the most beneficial things you can do is watch somebody do it, but also there's a lot of good little books and a study that we're putting out with Media Gratia that will help you with that.

But I'll say this. If you have done a personal devotion, and by that I mean if you've spent time with the Lord, read the scriptures, and prayed, and maybe even sang a song. I don't know if you sing in your personal devotions.

I do. It doesn't sound great, but I sing. If you've done that, you can lead family worship, because really one way to look at family worship is just letting your family in on your personal time with the Lord.

Just do it in a way in which they're included. Allow them to read some. Allow them to be a part of that. But it's not something that requires a seminary degree. It's not rocket science. It's not something that you can't start very, very soon.

Yeah, and also I think it goes back to even what we were talking about at the very beginning. When the drive for this, when the desire to do family worship is the sole care of your family. And look, I'll be completely honest.

There have been so many times where we've sat down to do family worship, and I've just felt like, can I really, particularly, can I teach my wife? She knows so much more than I do. She's so much further along in her spiritual walk than I am.

And in the beginning, it frankly was intimidating. But she was encouraging and understood the role that I have to shepherd the flock, that that is my role. And so if that's you, if your wife's maybe been a believer longer than you, don't let intimidation stop you.

Don't let awkwardness stop you, because it can feel that. But Ryan, we are looking primarily at fathers and at dads. What about the mom who says, okay, well, I'm a single mom, or my husband's not a believer?

The Role of Wives, Single Mothers, and Pastoral Wisdom

Yeah, well, even moms who are in a family who the husband is a believer, and maybe the husband is going to start leading family worship. Maybe there's a husband and wife watching this together. And we do tend to emphasize, put emphasis on the husband, because he really does have to take the lead.

But the role of the wife, of the helpmeet, is incredibly important in terms of being supportive in that, and being a stalwart of joy and optimism. When the kids don't want to, when the mom is excited about it and smiling and talking about family worship as a pleasure and a joy, that spreads.

And that's extremely helpful. Plus, obviously, all of the nurturing and caring for souls that moms do outside of formal times of family worship are critical. If you are a single mom, you can step into this role.

In fact, I encourage you to. You should. And I know that probably your heart's desire is to be led and not to be in this role. But for this time, right now, if you are the head of the household, you can step into it.

And I take heart. The Lord will help you. If you feel overwhelmed and even discouraged about that, take steps in that direction. And the Lord will encourage you. He'll help you through His Word, through His Spirit, and you can do it.

I'd also encourage you possibly to look for a family that is practicing it, and ask maybe if you can join their family from time to time, so that you can be nourished by it. And also, you can kind of see how it works.

Now, if you're a wife watching this, your husband's not a believer, that's a trickier situation, and that would depend on what exactly the dynamic is there. But here's what I would say to you. Do all that you can to care for the souls of your children, and also to share the gospel with your husband, without leaving his authority, without going against, without subverting his authority, and his place, and his role as the head of the household, as your husband.

You have to be very careful about that. But at the same time, do all that you can through prayer, through informal teaching, through singing with your children, through music that's played in the house, and also through sharing with your husband in different ways.

It might be possible, and your husband might even support you leading family worship without him, or he might even join. Again, every situation is different. But prayer, wisdom, seeking the Lord in that situation, seeking the counsel of your pastor would be critical as well in that.

Resources for Starting Family Worship

Yeah, completely agree. And so, before we end, because we only have just a very few short moments left, we mentioned a few resources earlier. Votie Bauckham's Family Shepherds, Don Whitney's Family Worship.

There's one other that I want to mention, and this is written, well, compiled by you, Brian. Mitigate put this out just a few months ago, but it's called The Guide to Family Worship. What this is, it takes those simple elements that we mentioned.

Now, there's a few more, and we don't have time to get into all of the elements in this episode. So, Brian, we're going to ask you to come back next week and do this again. We'll talk about some particulars about The Guide to Family Worship.

We will talk, you and I both have young kids, so we'll talk about some practical applications of family worship when it comes to how to deal with young ones and some different things like that. The reason that I bring this up, you can go to Mitigate .org and get a copy of this.

You can also get a digital copy if you want some help. Starting in the practice of family worship, I have found it incredibly beneficial. Each member of my family has a copy. They found it so helpful.

Brian, very quickly, can you tell us the elements that you mentioned that we have in this work?

Yeah, and also let me mention that it differs, and that is the reason I put it together, it differs from other family worship books because it's not really a how-to guide. It's basically orders of service.

It helps you work your way through a time of family worship step by step, and it's filled with solid content that will help with that. The content consists of this. First, it's a scripture reading, and then it is a memory verse.

Then we go to catechism questions. After the catechism questions, there's a short section from the 1689 London Baptist Confession. After that, a pre-written prayer that we pulled and reworked from a Puritan author, and then we close with a hymn.

Why the Puritans Still Matter for Soul Care

Yeah, very, very simple, and we really want you to have every tool, every resource at your fingertips and available to you for this incredibly important practice. Again, this is for the sole care of your wife, maybe of your husband, and certainly of your children.

Who were the Puritans? Is their reputation deserved? And is there anything they had that you and I might need?

Are you interested in knowing the Bible? Are you interested in knowing Christ? Do you want someone to attend to the care of your soul? Then you're going to want to get to know the Puritans.

To learn more about Puritan All of Life to the Glory of God, visit Mediagracie .org or click the link in the description below. So as we do with every episode, we want to end it with a prayer. Now, one thing that we've not made a big deal about in the podcast when we're in John's office is that every prayer that we've done has been from this guide to family worship.

We've tried to find one that's a particular fit for the content of that particular podcast, but each one has come from this. The way that that started was I had gotten a copy of this, was editing it for work, and I was so blessed by it and then started using this in family worship.

My wife was so blessed by it, particularly by the prayers, that in speaking with John, we came to the conclusion that really we wanted to bless you, our listeners and our viewers, by reading these prayers to you.

Family worship is the reason that we end our podcast every week with a prayer. This has been an incredible resource for that. Ryan, before we really close today, I do want to thank you for putting this together.

Next week, I want to hear the story because I know there's a wonderful story behind how it came to be made. This week's is from Charles Spurgeon. Come near our Father. Come very near to your children.

Some of us are very weak in body and faint in heart. Soon, O God, lay your right hand upon us and say, Fear not. Come near to kill the influence of the world with your superior power. Our Father, come and rest your children now.

Take the helmet from our brow. Remove from us the weight of our heavy armor for a while. And may we just have peace, perfect peace, and be at rest.