60. Family Worship As Warfare

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Welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 60, family worship as warfare.

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If you've seen or read the Lord of the Rings, you will remember that the defense of Helm's Deep was one of the finest battles ever filmed or recorded today.

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It seems that Christianity in general and Christian families in particular have found themselves where the forces of Rohan once stood, outnumbered, outmatched, and in a battle for their survival.

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Upon the horizon of Western civilization, the storm is raging, howling like a tempest on the open sea, threatening to engulf the kingdom of God and all its soldiers in a torrent of doubt and misery.

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Under the spell of the Dark Lord's command, the forces of liberalism, secularism, and moral relativism have been amassing their armies for years, bending the education system to their will, employing the entertainment industrial complex as propaganda for their perversions, and strong -arming government to execute their commands.

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This warfare has been aimed squarely at the home, perverting marriages, sexuality, children, and the faith.

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But, like the valiant defenders of Helm's Deep, we are tempted to look around and to notice that there are few upon the walls defending compared to the advancing legions.

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As a result, many have abandoned the fight. Many have convinced themselves that there is no fight, or that the

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Uruk -hai would just convert if we will be nice to them. That doesn't work with Uruk -hai or with secularists.

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Yet, this small and embattled group, known as the Covenant Home, though vastly outnumbered by the forces of darkness that are assailing them, will likewise triumph.

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They will triumph just like Rohan in Lord of the Rings. Why? It's not because our weapons and our defenses are so great.

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It's because our God and His promises are greater than the walls of Hornburg.

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This means that we are not defenseless. On the contrary, God has armed our men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers to wield

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His weapons, which are as ancient and as powerful as the faith that we hold dear. The sword of truth cuts through the lies and the deceptions of the enemy, illuminating the darkness with the bright and piercing light.

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The shield of faith protects the heart of the believer, deflecting the fiery arrows of doubt and the blows of temptation.

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Our banner of love waves high, even above the castle walls of our homes, as a symbol of the divine affection that sustains us and strengthens us for every future battle.

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And like the men of Helm's Deep, an abiding conviction exists within our men, although there are few today compared to in former years, this conviction still stands.

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That we must be out on the wall in order to protect our families, our women, and our children.

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Today, an all -out war is being waged to snuff out the light of the gospel and to plunge this world into chaos, moral perversion, and ruin.

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The fight is coming to you, your home, your faith, your children, and you men must be vigilant to stand on the wall and fight.

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This post is for our men. That we would wake up. That we would remember that there's a battle.

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That we would join the ranks and we would do everything humanly possibly that we can to protect our wives and our children from the enemy's encroachment.

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Our families are our future. The next generation churches are going to be filled with and led by our kids.

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And if they're going to take the kingdom deeper and farther than we did, then we're going to need to prepare them well.

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And to do that, we must recover the ancient discipline of family worship.

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Now what is family worship? Quite simply, family worship is daily biblical worship that emanates within our home.

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It is male -led, wife -aided, spirit -inspired, truth -bound, faithful and joyful morning and evening adoration of our family unto

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God. It is the hymns that we sing. It's the scriptures we read, the thanksgivings that we share, the blessings that we heap, the service that we render, the prayers that we pray, and the love that we give to God.

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And the commands that we commit both to memory and action that echo from the covenant home and prepare our children for the future battle.

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Think about it this way. Your children are being prepared for something. No matter what you do, they're being prepared for something.

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They're either going to be intentionally prepared for a worshipful life in the service of Christ or a worshipless life in the service of self.

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Your home is going to prepare them for something. The question is, what is it preparing them for?

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Below, I'd like to share a few things to consider as you cultivate a home that worships and prepares your children for battle.

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These are things that have been helpful for me, and I'd like to share them to you. Number one, be a

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Christian that's worth imitating. You are going to naturally replicate who you are.

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Dysfunctional people create dysfunctional homes, and then dysfunctional homes produce a new generation of ongoing dysfunction.

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Instead of that, set yourself to the work of growing in Christ. That is your primary work.

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As you mature in him, your marriage is going to improve, and as your marriage is improved, your children are going to improve, and as your children improve, the aroma of your home is going to be glorious.

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Everything in the home is downstream of your relationship with God. Cultivate that, grow in that, thrive in that, because when you thrive there, everything else is going to thrive too.

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So number one, men, be men worth imitating. That's number one. Number two, do not conceal your faith.

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Don't hide it. When a man goes outside to build a fire, he spends time collecting various resources such as sticks and logs and kindling, fuel, matches, whatever he's going to need.

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Indeed, much work actually goes into the getting ready for the fire, the preparing for it before the first ember ever even smokes.

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Well, in the same way, the fires of family worship will not smolder and they will not eventually ignite into glorious illuminating light without preparing the family throughout the day.

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There's preparation work to do. Instead of gathering sticks and kindling, your preparation, men, comes in creating a home where it is customary to speak about God, where faith is not a private matter.

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It's a public matter. It's an open matter. It's something that we talk about all the time, where children regularly ask questions, where parents share what they're reading in the scriptures or what they're learning.

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And then they have the confidence to ask their children, hey, what are you learning in the scriptures today? Where behavior, it's a home where behavior is corrected with God's love, with Christ's grace and with the

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Holy Spirit's wisdom. It's where the gospel, it's a home where the gospel is being applied to every aspect of our lives.

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It's a home where the children have a curriculum that they're learning that is entirely God centered.

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And this is not a post on homeschool versus public school, but if you are going to send your children to public school, you are, you are sending them into the belly of the beast for eight hours a day.

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You have got to do family worship to combat the lies of the enemy.

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I do not suggest any family in all of Christianity, send their kids to public school.

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That's not a debate I'm having right now. Maybe in a future post. My point is your home has to be a place of consistent communication about God and those consistent efforts morning to evening are going to prime the fire for family worship that is going to ignite hot that evening.

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You have to prepare your home for it. Your home is a worshipful space. Prepare your children to enter into worship there.

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Number three, keep it really simple. After being an example worth imitating and creating a home that naturally and eagerly speaks about the things of God.

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Now it's time to sit down and to lead the ones that you love into worship. You're the pastor of your home, brother.

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Lead your family into worship. Here's a couple of tips. Number one, pick a time of the day that works for everyone where everyone can consistently commit to it.

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Maybe that's in the morning. Everybody wake up at a certain time. Do your family worship before the day begins. Maybe that's in the evening when everybody gets home and has dinner together.

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Pick a time that works for everybody that everybody can consistently commit to. That's number one.

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Number two, choose a plan that you will follow in leading your family. This may include picking a book of the

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Bible to study together, selecting a catechism to memorize and explore or committing to doing a particular devotional that lays these things out for you.

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Whatever you choose, pick something that you're going to stick with. Pick something that you're going to be enthusiastic about.

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Pick something that you're going to be encouraged to lead your family through that's actually going to help your family in the season that they're in.

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That's number two. Number three, keep in regular conversation with your wife.

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Ask her how you can lead better and be open to the feedback. Help her understand how she can support you in your leadership better so that you can have the best family worship.

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I mean, your wife's role in your life and in the life of your family is essential. You guys have great conversations and talk about these things because it's only going to improve the family worship.

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The family worship is going to help your children grow up in the strength and grace of Christ. So these conversations are incredibly important.

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Number four, make a plan. Now I do want to say this right off the top of the bat.

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Don't make your plan so elaborate that it takes hours to complete, that you're exegeting original

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Greek and Hebrew passages to your family, and then you're singing chants in the Latin. Don't do that.

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Make it simple. Make it something that can be accomplished in 15 or 20 minutes daily. And I can give you a couple examples, and I've posted these on the blogs if you want to look at them as well.

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I've basically done two kinds of family worship. I've done one from a Bible reading plan.

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I've done one from a catechism plan. The Bible reading plan, I open up in prayer and I sing a song.

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We sing a hymn from the church. We sing maybe a song that's going to be sung that week or a song that's been especially important to our family, but we sing.

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After that, we read a passage of scripture. I normally pick, when I do this plan, I pick a book of the

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Bible, like say Philippians, and I'll read one or two verses. You don't need to read a chapter.

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You're going to lose everybody, especially if your reading voice is monotonous. Don't do that, but pick one or two verses.

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Pick a psalm, pick a Pauline epistle, something, a proverb even. Pick something that's one or two verses that you can digest, that you can explain what the passage means in simple terms, and then you can sit back and just ask great questions so that your family can enter into discussion.

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That's one of the best parts of family worship is when I just sit back and I just ask questions and get the kids engaged.

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I may ask questions like, hey, what does this word mean? In this passage, it says love.

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What does love mean? What does the world think that love means? How do we as Christians know what the word means?

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How is it different than what the world thinks that it means? I will just come up with a bunch of different questions and start engaging every single one of the kids on their level, getting them to talk about it, getting them to understand the truth of the scriptures.

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There's a meaning underneath the text. I can tell them the meaning or I can help them uncover the meaning for themselves.

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That's what I would like to do in this time. So I ask a ton of questions. I would totally encourage you fathers, do not prepare a sermon.

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Do not manuscript out a 2000 word homily that you're going to present to your family.

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Don't do that. Read the passage. Talk about the passage for one minute. Give them a overview of what it means.

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One minute at the max, and then ask questions, invite them in, get the discussion flowing.

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You do not want them just sitting there listening to you ramble on as you practice for maybe one day being a pastor.

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You don't want to do that. You're leading them and by leading them, you're asking them questions to lead them to the truth.

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So that's the first way. The second way is I've often used catechisms as well. Currently right now, my family's doing the

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Westminster confession of, sorry, Westminster shorter catechism. We do the same thing.

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We open with prayer. We sing a song. And what we do is, I think we're on question 30 right now.

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We review a lot of the questions. Maybe sometimes once a week, maybe we'll review all 29 questions that they've memorized.

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And then we'll go to the next one. Sometimes we'll only do the last couple that we've memorized just to reinforce and solidify.

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But we do some form of review of the questions that we've memorized. And then after the review, we move into the question that we're currently on.

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I'll treat that very similar to the Bible study time. I will do a one minute teaching on what this question and answer is getting at.

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What does it mean? After that, I will ask a ton of questions. What does this word mean? What do you think the writers of the catechism were trying to say?

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I'll just pull out a bunch of different questions so that we can talk about it. And then I'll close our time with memorization techniques, like we'll break the sentence down into four different parts, and I will say, say after me, and then

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I will do the first part, and they'll do the first part. Then we'll do it by memory, and we'll just keep saying it about 10 times.

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And then after that, we'll close our eyes and we'll say it. We'll do little games like that. Sometimes we'll sing songs to memorize the catechism.

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And one thing that you can do to help motivate your children is you can tell them, hey, when we get to question 25, or you can do even 10, when we get to question 10, pick one, pick a number and say, we're going to have a little ice cream party.

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We're going to go buy ice cream. We're going to get sprinkles and chocolate fudge and caramel and whipped cream and all of that.

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And we're going to have an ice cream party when you've memorized 10 questions or 25 questions, whatever it is. Meet your kids where they're at.

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Make them enjoy family worship. Worshiping God is enjoying. It's something to enjoy.

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Don't let them think about family worship as a chore that they have to simply check off their list on the same level of making their bed.

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Let them enjoy worshiping God. Let them have fun worshiping God. And like I said, keep it simple, keep it short, but keep it focused.

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So this is a topic that is really important. It's one of the most important works that you're ever going to do as a man is bringing your family into family worship.

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Family worship is going to disciple your children in the faith. It's going to give them ownership of the faith that belongs to them.

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It's not their parents' faith. It's their faith. And it's their faith because they participated at the table with you 365 days a year for 18 to 20 years.

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It's their faith. It's going to prepare them for the war that they're going to be engaged in in their life.

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It's going to prepare them for the struggles. It's going to teach them the tools about how to pray, how to worship, how to make disciples of their children.

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You cannot imagine just how 15 minutes a day of family worship will change the direction of your family.

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It will change your legacy. There will be generations after you are gone who are faithful, who are worshiping

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Christ, who love the Lord. There will be thousands and thousands of future great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren who are down the line from you, who you'll never meet, who will say,

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I'm so thankful that I grew up in a family that worships God. I'm so thankful that I grew up in a family that prioritizes these things.

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Start them. If it's not normal in your family, start them today. Create a new legacy for your family.

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Your home is preparing your children for something. The question is whether it's going to prepare them to be a dynamic, bold, and ardent worshiper of Christ, or is it going to prepare them for something else?

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And yes, men, we will stand before the Father for how we do that. Don't neglect the work, brothers.