The School of Everyday Christianity 6: How to Start Family Worship

Welcome to the School of Everyday Christianity where we apply the Bible and Christian teaching to problems and situations and questions that people face in the course of everyday life.

Today we want to ask and answer the question, how do I get started in family worship or family devotions?

And so maybe you realize that you need to be more active in training your children in the scriptures and how

God wants them to live in this world. Maybe you realize that you need some sort of family devotion time, some sort of family worship time.

Maybe you've heard of other families who are doing that but you don't quite know how to get started.

That's what we want to talk about today. And the first thing, the main thing that I would tell you is just do something.

Something is always better than nothing. And so what you do in family worship, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be drawn out, it doesn't have to be sophisticated, and it doesn't have to be perfect.

You just want to do something and do something consistently. And what you do over time is going to add up and make a massive difference in the life, the spiritual life of your child.

And so what do we do though? And so I want to give you just a blueprint for simple family devotion, simple family worship.

And that is the first thing you want to do is just read the Bible. Just give your children the

Bible. Now this is going to depend on the age and stage of life of your children, how much you read.

Maybe you read them they're really young, maybe you read out of a storybook Bible. Though I would say as quickly as you can just give them the

Bible straight up, even if it's just a couple of verses. You want to read the Bible to them and then you want to talk about it.

And so depending on how old your kids are, maybe you ask them what did you hear, what do you think about, what you heard, what did you pick up on, what is what is

God saying here in this passage. And get some feedback from them just to see how much they understood.

But you also want to take the opportunity to teach them from the Scriptures. You want to talk about what you see that God is saying in the

Scriptures. And I know some people get really nervous about teaching the Bible. They don't think they're qualified. I want you to know you don't have to have a seminary education in order to teach the

Bible to your kids. You just want to see what God is saying and then express that and communicate that to them.

And I think it can help take the pressure off a little bit just to think about what what good teaching really is.

And good teaching, you know, at a fundamental level it's talking about something that you love with other people that you also love.

It's talking about something that you love with other people that you also love. So you love your kids, you love your family, and you want to communicate and give to them something else that you also love.

And so if you're loving the Scriptures, if you're loving the God of the Scriptures, if you're loving the way of life and standard for life that the

Scriptures lay out for us, when you talk about that, that's going to come through. And your children are going to imitate your loves to a large extent.

And so what you want to do is talk about the Bible that you love with your children and your family that you also love.

And that can take the pressure off because you don't need a seminary education to love the Bible and to talk about the Bible. And so what you see that God says, point that out to your children.

The Bible is like a rich mine and you can go looking for treasures and say, hey kids, here's one.

Hey kids, here's another one. See this? This is this really cool thing about who God is. This is this really great way to live in this situation that God lays out for us in His Word.

So you want to read the Bible and then you want to talk about the Bible with them. Then sing.

Maybe you're not a very good singer. That's okay. You're not performing on stage. You're sitting around your kitchen table.

You're sitting in your living room. You're in your children's bedroom. You're not performing for anybody.

You're joining with your family and lifting up in glorified speech, which is what Psalm is, in praising

God together. And that is a formative experience for you and for your children and for your family.

And so you read the Bible, you talk about the Bible, you sing, and then last thing I would say to do is pray.

Pray for needs in your family. Maybe you take prayer requests from your family. Maybe you talk about specific needs that you know of in your church or in your neighborhood, your community, your school, and you pray about those things together.

Maybe you give your kids an opportunity to pray. And that's really all you need to do. You can be done in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 7 minutes.

Again, it doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be complicated. And it doesn't have to be perfect.

You just want to do something and do it consistently. But how do you decide what part of the

Bible you're going to read? I mean, the Bible is a big book. There's some parts of it that are more obscure than others.

How do you determine what you're going to read? Maybe you take the big stories of the

Bible that you want your kids to know to kind of have the grand narrative of Scripture communicated to them.

And so you tell them the story of creation. You tell them the story of Noah and the flood, of Abraham, and the patriarchs.

And then you go through the Bible and tell them the big stories and go about it that way. A great way to do it.

Or maybe you see something specific in your family that you need to address.

Maybe there's a specific sin that you need to apply God's Word to so that your children can repent and turn from you.

Maybe there's anger issues or self -control issues or envy issues going on in the life of your family or laziness.

Things that you need to address, you need to address them with God's Word because that's how we fight against sin is with God's Word.

And so you find those passages, those verses that deal with those sins so you can talk about them.

Maybe there's virtues that you want to build in your children's lives.

And so you find verses about those virtues, kindness and gentleness and humility, self -control.

And you talk about those things. Diligence. And so you find where those are in the

Scripture and you talk about those. Maybe you go through specific books of the Bible. So you just pick one of Paul's letters or you pick one of the

Gospels and you just go through it straight. And then when you get done with it, you go to the next book. Great way to do it.

Another option is to go through the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is a father, a king, with his son teaching him practical ways to live in God's world with wisdom.

And so the Proverbs are a great resource for family devotions and family worship.

Now what about when? When should we do family devotions? When should we do family worship? Do you need to carve out this hour for this very elaborate worship service in the evenings with your family?

Not necessarily. No. I would suggest habit stacking. That is where you take habits that you already have that are already built into the rhythm of your family life and then you put family worship on top of that.

So maybe it's a meal time. Is your family together at breakfast? Maybe you do it at breakfast. Mornings are hectic, but you're home for dinner.

Maybe after dinner dad grabs the Bible, opens it up, reads it, talks about it. You sing a song, you pray, and before you get up from the table you have done family worship with your family.

Or maybe it's before bedtime. But find a time within the rhythm of your family's life where you already have some habits and routines established and then stack family worship, family devotion on top of that.

That way you'll have a better chance of being consistent. And remember what we're trying to do is do something and do something consistently.

And then the last thing I would say is this. You want to supplement this family worship time which functions as an anchor that orients your family towards eternal things, that orients your family towards God.

You want to supplement that throughout the rest of your day by pointing to the scriptures, pointing to God, pointing to how

God has commanded and taught us to live in this world. And this is where Deuteronomy 6 comes into play.

Deuteronomy 6 tells us, and 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, when you lie down, and when you rise.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.

And so what we see here in Deuteronomy 6 is that as you go about your life, when you get up, when you lie down, when you go out, when you come home, you want to have the commandments of God.

You want to have the Word of God front and center for your children. And so as you're going along you're taking teachable moments throughout the course of your life and saying this is how

God's Word applies here. You remember what we read in family worship the other night? Here's a good opportunity to obey it.

And you are taking what God says in His Word and then you're applying it throughout your daily life.

This is how we teach our children diligently to follow the commands of the

Lord and follow the Word of the Lord. And so to get started, remember doesn't have to be complicated, doesn't have to be drawn out long, doesn't have to be fancy, doesn't have to be perfect.

You just need to do something and then do that something, simple as it is, consistently.

And through these ordinary means of discipleship, you're gonna make a massive difference in the life of your child.