Do I Still Have to Do Family Worship Now that My Church Hired a Youth Pastor? Feat. Scott Aniol

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:38

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Dr. Scott Aniole as we ask the age -old question, do

01:46

I have to do family worship now that our church has hired a youth pastor? Now, before we get going into the meat of this episode, this is something that I'm really excited to talk about, but before we do that,

01:59

Scott, why don't you just take a moment, and you've been on the show before, but take a moment and introduce yourself for those who maybe haven't heard of you before or aren't familiar with your work.

02:12

Sure. Thanks for having me. My name is Scott Aniole, and I'm executive vice president and editor -in -chief of G3 Ministries.

02:20

Just started in this role a little over a year ago now. I taught previously for 10 years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and my primary area of writing is in the area of philosophy of ministry and the church broadly, but worship is sort of my niche and had a real burden for this topic of family worship for some time.

02:47

My wife and I, Becky, we have four kids, 15, 13, 6, and 4, and so we're putting a lot of these things into practice in real time, and I've written a book on the topic and speak regularly at conferences on this.

03:04

It seems like this is a topic a lot of young parents are really more and more interested in, so I'm glad to be able to engage in the conversation.

03:13

Yeah, that's good to hear. I'm sure at home you've probably got a great chorus going with that many kids, huh?

03:19

Yeah, oh yeah. We love to sing, and it's a lot of fun. Well, maybe,

03:25

Scott, you could start us off just by defining what is family worship. I don't know that it's necessarily intuitive what we're even talking about when we're talking about that kind of concept, and so what does the word mean?

03:37

What does it mean as you're using it, and maybe what does it not mean? Yeah, so really it can refer to two things, and I use it to refer to two things.

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In fact, in the book, my book is titled Let the Little Children Come, and the subtitle is

03:54

Family Worship on Sunday and the Other Six Days Too. So there's really two things we're talking about here.

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Most of the time when people are talking about family worship, they're referring to some time during the day, during the week, where the family gets together for a time of worship together, simple

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Bible reading, prayer, and singing. But then the other emphasis that I often talk about and try to encourage parents to think through is that even on the

04:23

Lord's Day, in our Lord's Day gatherings, parents making it a priority to be leading and instructing their children.

04:30

I'm a big advocate of welcoming the children into the corporate worship gathering as well rather than sending them off into some sort of, quote -unquote, children's church.

04:39

So it really can refer to both, and when I talk about it, I emphasize both. But typically when most people talk about family worship, they're referring to the gathering of a father and a mother and the kids at home during the week at some time during each day.

04:54

So you just put children's church in quotes. Maybe you can explain for those who aren't understanding why you did that, why you put it in quotes.

05:05

Yeah, well, I put it in quotes because I would say there's really no such thing.

05:11

There is the church. I'm a Baptist, so I would say unregenerate children are not members of the church in that sense.

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But they do have, I believe, a God -ordained benefit of being in Christian families, of being in this community of the church, and therefore we ought to bring them into the church in terms of the gatherings of the church for the benefit of their souls.

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I understand the motivation, and it usually is somewhat good of having this sort of separate gathering for children.

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But I think it really derives from a gross misunderstanding of the nature of worship, of the nature of evangelism, and of the nature of discipleship.

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So I would say let little children come. Let them come into the gathering.

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That's the best thing for their own spiritual development. That's the best way to lead them to Christ. But that's not enough.

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We also have to, as parents, be leading our children in worship each and every day to regularly form and shape their minds, their wills, and their hearts through the

06:26

Word of God, through prayer, through song, and those sorts of things. Sure. Well, what do you think, as it relates to just the topic question, do

06:33

I still have to do family worship now that our church has hired a youth pastor? How would you respond to that kind of question, and what would be your response at that level?

06:45

Right. So first and foremost, it's important to recognize the biblical directive that's given to us in the

06:55

New Testament to the church, but also clearly exemplified even in various Old Testament contexts, is that the primary responsibility for the discipleship, the evangelism and the discipleship of children is their parents.

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Fathers, bring up your children in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, Paul says.

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In the Old Testament, this was very clear. In fact, just after the Shema, the great statement of faith for Israel, the

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Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You find this commandment, these things, you shall talk with your children by the way, you shall put them as signs upon your doorposts.

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The point being, it is the parent's responsibility primarily to be nurturing and cultivating the spiritual life of children.

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Now that does not discount the role of pastors. And one of the dangers of an emphasis on the family and on family discipleship and family worship that you sometimes see in some of the family integration movements, not all, but in some of them is such an emphasis on the family with actually a neglect of the church.

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And what I advocate is that both are God ordained and both work together.

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It is the parent's primary responsibility to nurture their children, but as parents, we cannot do it alone.

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We need pastors. We need one another in the body. And so that's why I emphasize family worship on Sunday and the other six days.

08:33

It has to be all -encompassing. So is there anything wrong with having perhaps one of the pastors of the church who is specifically focused on helping to equip parents to disciple their children?

08:48

No, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But the problem is we've so programatized the church to where we have a pastor of senior adults and a pastor of mid -adults, empty nesters, and a pastor of 30 -somethings, and a pastor of youth, and a pastor of this and that, when in reality, pastors ought to pastor the whole flock.

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Again, that doesn't mean a pastor can't have a specific focus. But the other strong biblical argument

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I would make is that children and youth are not discipled best when you segregate them off into their own little peer conclaves.

09:29

Children and youth are best discipled in a multigenerational context. Our children need older, mature, wiser people, not only their parents, but other godly people in the church, to invest in them.

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My children need the older folks of our congregation. And frankly, the older folks of the congregation need my children.

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This is how God designed the body to be functioning together. And it's instructive even in Ephesians where Paul is addressing parents.

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Who does he address next? He addressed his children. That letter meant to be read in the corporate gathering of the church.

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The assumption is they're not off with the youth pastor. They are in the corporate gathering of the church.

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So, yes, absolutely, you need to disciple your children. You need to worship with your children, even if your church has this pastor whose primary focus is on the youth of the church.

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What do you think are some problems with the every age, every stage, program -driven, segregated church model that is so characteristic of megachurches and really is the expectation

10:37

I think many people have with what a church should be doing? Just a side note,

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I can't tell you how many people have come to our church and then they ask the question, what does your church have for whatever demographic?

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And then the vast majority of pastors feel, which is odd, but they feel a little bit intimidated by the way that's framed, as if they're put immediately on the defensive, as if the corporate worship service is somehow not for them.

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But then what are some problems do you think that develop from that? There's two primary reasons for that that are problematic, because in both cases, it is secular psychology and secular philosophy that has impacted the church.

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So one of them is, I think, purely negative, and one of it is good motivation, but poorly informed.

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The purely negative is this sort of just pragmatism and entertainment mentality that has just infused modern popular culture, certainly in America, and so it has infused the church too.

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And again, that's kind of on the really pessimistic side, where parents are just looking for something to entertain their kids.

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They just want a church where they can, and I've even heard parents talk this way, they want to be able to come, and they want to be able to just relax and enjoy the fellowship and even enjoy the teaching without having to worry about their kids.

12:07

They want their kids to be babysat with, yeah, with some Christian content, but they're really looking for the program.

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So that's really the worst one, the sort of pragmatism and entertainment culture. The better one that's really not better, but I understand why it exists, is we have come to adopt a very secular philosophy of education and discipleship.

12:31

The modern philosophy of education that certainly has impacted, well, both modern public education and even modern traditional

12:42

Christian school education is this sort of lockstep graded program where you group kids together by their age and they go through a system.

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It really literally is almost like a conveyor belt. Like you put these kids on a conveyor belt and they work through the system and you plug them out the other end and they're educated, which is a very secular philosophy that came from John Dewey and some of these other secularists who really were basing their philosophy of education on Darwinian evolution.

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It really was the natural outflow of that. Previous to Dewey and these secular education philosophers, education wasn't done that way.

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You think in terms of either the parents are educating their children or even in sort of the one room schoolhouse model where all the ages are together, there's a benefit to that.

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The older kids are able to impact and influence the younger children. The younger children are learning from the older kids and also the older kids are feeling a sense of responsibility to set a model for the younger kids.

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That was what school looked like even outside the home. And even more than that, again, the biblical model of even education broadly and certainly discipleship is that the older teach the younger.

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The younger need to model themselves after the older. And that doesn't work when you just group kids together in this certain age demographic.

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They might have one or two adults. What they need is many more. They need to be exposed to maturity in order to become mature.

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Children who remain only in their little peer groups with little adult interaction tend to remain immature much longer.

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And that's true socially, but it is also true spiritually, which is why you see both exemplified and even clearly commanded in the

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New Testament that these multi -generational settings is where true discipleship takes place.

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It's amazing to think about that because you have 38 -1 and other commands, give or take in the

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Bible. Basically, when you segregate out every age and every stage in the way that we're describing, it seems like what you do is you create a culture of self -centeredness in a lot of ways where the vast majority of people feel like they have no responsibility to members outside their own either gender or age demographic.

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It's no shock that the idea of the Titus II older women teaching the younger women, functionally it doesn't exist in the vast majority of churches.

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It's just simply not happening. And then not only that, you have all the SPC problems that have arisen by virtue of you create all these new categories.

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You have a youth pastor that really isn't held to any of the... You create the title. You call him a pastor, but he's not held to the standards of any of the elder qualification.

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The same thing with a lady's quote -unquote pastor. You create this position and you give pastoral responsibilities to some lady as far as that's concerned, and then she's not held to any of the standards as well.

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So it seems to really make a mess of just the whole idea of a pastor, create all this consumerism, and then create a bunch of entitled people who really feel like they're in it for them first and foremost with little to no connection to the...

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It's such a new phenomenon that, again, springs from more of the consumerist mindset of our culture where you've got these target demographics and everybody's closed off into their own...

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It's really connected to the intersectionality kind of stuff that's happening in the social justice world.

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It's like you find your own little identity group and that's where you stay.

16:47

Growth does not happen that way. Growth happens when we have a multi -generational, multi -gifted body that is all benefiting one another.

16:58

That's what you see in a passage like 1 Corinthians 12. Yeah, and I just want to speak to the truth of that because Tim knows this.

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Our church really does try to put an emphasis on letting the children be in the worship service, for example.

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And then throughout the week, the regular worship meetings that we might have on Wednesday or whatever, those often include, basically, let the little children come.

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Let them come in and sit with us and they can play. And the expectation is they're going to make noise and there's the potential for them to be distracting.

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But in my experience, really more than anything, I find myself just being encouraged, even when there's little babies screaming and crying, just because I think it reminds you so much of,

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I think, number one, what it takes to raise children as Christians the way that God has called us to.

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And so it reminds me, hey, I have a young kid. There's other people who are pursuing being fruitful and multiply just the same way that my wife and I are.

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And it's fun to think about, hey, there's these little humans that we are trying to teach them the truth about God, knowing that that's our only hope for salvation.

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And that one day, Lord willing, they're going to grow up and believe the same things that we do. And they'll be singing right alongside us, and some of them are even now.

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And so that's always been really, I think a lot of people kind of view those things as sometimes, you know, you kind of side eye the parent in the service.

18:53

I try to tell people that the little squeaks of the kids and little cries, I mean, that is the sound of life in this church.

19:00

That should be an encouragement. Exactly. And what you said a moment ago, too, about our children learning the songs and singing with us.

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It's so important because we bemoan the quote -unquote generation gap and the fact that we lose our young people, either when they're transitioning from childhood to teenage, which that's even a made -up concept, or from adolescence to adulthood, we lose them.

19:26

Well, it's largely our fault. We have fueled the quote -unquote generation gap.

19:31

I think about my own children. We joked about having a good chorus of kids at home.

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I mean, I've got a 15 -year -old son who doesn't know it's not cool to sing. I mean, he's never known anything different.

19:44

Right. And I see in other contexts, other young boys or teenage boys, and they don't like to sing and it's not cool.

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My son doesn't know any different because he's never been in a segregated group where there was negative peer pressure in that sense.

19:58

Right. You raise your children and you teach them. I mean, my kids from birth until now 15, it's not like I chose little kiddy -diddies for them when they were children.

20:13

They were singing, holy, holy, holy, and I sing the mighty power of God from the time that they were two years old. And kids can do it.

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And so if they grow up with that, they naturally love it so that there is no, yeah, you get to adolescence and they've got the hormones, and they get the attitude and all of that.

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That's just human depravity. But we don't help it when we don't teach them when they're young to appreciate the heritage of the church, the theology of the church, the practices of the church.

20:42

And it's even worse when we sort of encourage the immaturity and the generation gap by segregating them off into their own little groups.

20:50

Right. And even my almost two -year -old, she's around kids that are much older than her, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, all the time.

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And I think I really have seen just how much of an impact that has on her, even at a very young age.

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You wouldn't necessarily think it would, but then it really does because they see everything.

21:15

And I think it is good for them to see other people who are not their mom and dad. Yeah. And learn to interact with them.

21:23

Right. I mean, the joke or the quib is homeschool kids or kids who are protected or whatever, they're socially awkward.

21:34

Well, no, they're not really socially awkward. They actually learn how to interact with adults at an early age. So, I mean, my kids are by no stretch of the imagination perfect, but my 15 -year -old son can hold an intelligent conversation with an adult.

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Because again, I've brought him with me to men's meetings at church and we have conversations and read together at home.

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And so that's all he's ever known. And again, I see other kids who are more segregated in other church contexts and they don't know how to put a sentence together and have a conversation with an adult because they just never been forced to do it.

22:13

Right. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the maturity and discipleship of our children. And again, that happens best when they are as much as possible with mature people.

22:24

Right. Yeah, I think a lot of people, they think that they're not mature. And part of it is because they're not as worldly.

22:34

They don't know all the inside jokes that all the pagan kids know. And they're not basically speaking in late speech or whatever, online slang.

22:45

Yeah, they're not as worldly. That's really what it is. That's what it is. I'm always excited when I watch my kid listening to theological sermons and basically whispering over to me the things that he finds to be puzzling or strange and what is being communicated.

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And I take that as a source of encouragement for me that somehow he gets to see, not just being critical, but then when he is listening to a pastor who isn't really speaking what's true, he can identify it and he can see it.

23:16

But one thing I wanted to ask you, Scott, when you talk about family worship, what are some of the things that people hear you to be saying that you're not saying?

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What are the misunderstandings they have about what you're talking about? Some of the conclusions they jump to?

23:32

So you're talking about what we've been talking about in terms of in the church or in the home?

23:38

Both. So when you bring up the subject of family worship, you start talking about it. What are some things that people just hear you to be saying you're not quite saying or fears they have about the topic in general?

23:48

Yeah. I don't know if there's anything that they think that they hear me saying that's not accurate.

23:54

The pushback that I sometimes get, and I will say, if there is any pushback, it is typically not from the younger family with kids.

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It's usually from the baby boomer generation or maybe a little younger, interestingly. And usually it's things like kids need to learn at their own level or we can't expect kids to understand the depth of what's happening in a corporate worship service and that kind of thing.

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That's usually the line of argumentation or pushback that I'll hear. And again, that's rooted in a faulty secular

24:36

Darwinian theology of education, really. We don't give our kids enough credit.

24:43

Kids can grasp a lot more than we often recognize. I remember there's this one case when my eldest was probably five and I was preaching and he was sitting in the pew, probably drawing in his bulletin or something.

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I would have never even known that he was listening, but I asked a rhetorical question in my sermon and he just answered out loud because when dad asks the question, you're supposed to answer, right?

25:13

And you would have never known. But kids do. They do listen. They do grasp things more than we give them credit for.

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But then here's another element that we haven't talked about yet. And that is another effect of a secular

25:29

Darwinian philosophy of education upon even the church is that we've come to define discipleship as something purely about the intellect.

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And if discipleship is only about the intellect, then it's true. A two -year -old can probably not comprehend 99 % of what the pastor says or the lyrics of the hymns or the prayers or the scripture readings or anything.

25:57

But we forget from a biblical perspective, yes, there is absolutely an intellectual component to discipleship.

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At some point, that child has to understand that they're a sinner, that they need a savior, that Christ died for them, etc.

26:09

There is an intellectual component. And that's true of discipleship as well. But a lot of what discipleship is is the forming and shaping of our hearts.

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And that actually can happen with a child before the formation of their mind.

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And so a lot of what happens in family worship, whether it's in the context of corporate worship, or whether we're singing and reading to our children from the time that they are in our arms at home, is, yeah, they're not grasping intellectually what's happening.

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But their imagination of who God is, of what worship is supposed to be like, the seriousness of what we're doing, the reverence, the fact that mom and dad are enthusiastically engaged in what is happening, even the songs themselves, all of that is imprinting itself upon the hearts and the consciousness of our children.

27:12

And really preparing them to be able to one day intellectually understand.

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We're shaping their conception of God, their conception of worship, their conception of reverence and love and praise and all of these sorts of things.

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That is being formed within them far before they're even intellectually capable of understanding the preaching or the scripture reading or those sorts of things.

27:39

So if we recover that biblical concept of what it means to be a follower of God, what it means to be a disciple, that it's more than just intellectual, that also helps us to recognize how much we are impacting our children.

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And the opposite can happen too. We can actually counteract the truth of the gospel down the road by forming our children to expect that church is about entertainment and fun and self -gratification and all these sorts of things.

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So that's why we need to be careful of what's shaping our children from the time, even

28:19

I would sing to my children in the womb. I mean, you never know what they can hear.

28:25

Our children are being shaped. And we know this is true even just empirically. A child is born and they already know their mother's voice.

28:32

They already know their father's voice. They've already been shaped by those sounds. And that's the kind of thing that we need to be considering even first for our children before their minds are even capable of intellectually comprehending the truth of the gospel.

28:47

So we talked a lot about the different ways that churches in the modern age have really sort of,

28:56

I guess, hindered the family's understanding of their responsibility for worshiping together as individual families as well as a corporate church family.

29:10

So what would you say are some solutions? Let's say you have a pastor come along and he recognizes, hey, there's a problem in our church.

29:21

Sure, we meet together and we worship together, and that's great. But when people go home the other six days, they're not worshiping together.

29:33

What do I do? What would you tell that pastor? Well, first and foremost,

29:39

I would encourage the pastor to just start teaching on it and encourage the families in the church about the importance.

29:47

But I would also very quickly emphasize the importance of just coming right out and saying, this does not have to be something elaborate.

29:59

You don't have to preach an hour -long exegetical sermon every day. Yes, right. I mean, if you gather, especially if you've got young kids and you just gather them together for 10 minutes and you read a short passage of scripture and you sing a song together and you pray, that is powerfully formative.

30:20

As your kids grow, you can do more, but it doesn't have to be legalistic. It doesn't have to be this sort of chain, this weight of responsibility.

30:31

Like you said, you don't have to preach an hour -long expositional sermon. You're just helping.

30:36

It's more about the regularity of it. You are just trying to get the word before your children regularly.

30:45

You're trying to teach them the hymns of the faith, teach them what it means to pray, to model for them the importance of this, the significance of it.

30:55

I would stress it is more important to be regular than it is to be long.

31:02

There are evenings in our home, we might have some soccer practice or something, a long day or whatever, and we don't have time for a long, even 20 minutes.

31:13

At very least, I'll say, hey, let's just get together and sing a song and pray. Just something so that there's just this regularity and that's formative for your kids.

31:24

That's what I would emphasize. Start teaching about it, but emphasize right away, don't make this a burden.

31:32

Just read a passage of scripture, pray, and sing. If you have a few minutes and your kids are a little older and you can talk about the passage of scripture, great.

31:40

If you can sing more than one hymn, great. If you can start learning a catechism, there are other things that you can do, but the most important thing is read the word, pray, and sing.

31:51

So, on that same topic, you're talking about consistency. You're basically saying, hey, it's good to as much as you can, day in and day out, whether it's an hour or it's 10 minutes, sit down with your family, read the word, pray together, sing together, all of these things.

32:13

As a father, let's say you miss a day or you can't every single day for some reason.

32:24

Are you failing at leading in family worship in that regard? Absolutely not.

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I mean, there is rarely a week that in our family, we have family worship every single day.

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We typically don't on Sunday because we have a Sunday evening service and we get home late. We typically don't on Wednesday because we have a

32:43

Wednesday evening service. And then there might be another evening where something happens. No, I would just say, make it a regularity, but it is not this sort of legalistic burden.

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And it's important to say this too. It's not like this is family worship, this 10, 15 minutes, 20 minutes or whatever.

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This is this sort of magical time. And then you don't think about the things of the

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Lord any other time during the day. I mean, you should be seeking for all sorts of opportunities to pray with your children, to engage your children in spiritual discussion, to be looking out when there's a conflict.

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Don't see it as just an annoyance for the day, see it as an opportunity for discipleship.

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So, it needs to be a holistic approach to the evangelization and discipleship of our children.

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We're not just handing it off to a youth pastor. We're not just handing it off to a Sunday school teacher. We're not just thinking 10 minutes of magical worship time every day is going to do it.

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All of those things together are going to be what leads our children to Christ.

33:53

So, when you mentioned the family worship on the Lord's day and the other six days of the week, you don't mean that you better get in those six days or your children are going to be heathens now.

34:08

Yeah, because again, it's not just about that formal 15, 20 minutes. I have a lot of resources and recommendations in my book and just things simply like rituals or practices or traditions that you start with your family at mealtime.

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For instance, we at dinner will pray and we always sing the doxology together as a family.

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There's just little things you can do, whether it's during certain seasons of the year, birthdays.

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In our family, when our kids turn 13, we make a big deal about coming of age, having a coming of age dinner and ceremony.

34:50

So, it's thinking more than just a magical 20 minute worship time six days.

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Even the days that we don't have a formal family worship time, there are other opportunities during the day where we're making sure to engage our children spiritually.

35:07

It seems like there's formative discipleship and there's corrective kind of discipleship.

35:13

And so, some of what you're talking about is just like you're talking about managing conflicts and that those are discipleship moments to teach them how to pursue biblical reconciliation with each other and those kind of concepts along those lines.

35:25

And so, if they have a bad attitude, dealing with that bad attitude in a biblical way, if they speak to their mom in a disrespectful way or you, there's a corrective kind of element of discipleship that I think a lot of people aren't putting into that broader category.

35:44

You know, you can almost treat family worship as if it's just a little magic pill that's going to fix everything, but there's a lot of other things that are doing.

35:51

But what would you say would be some formative means of discipleship beyond taking them to church?

36:02

And then also having the routines that you, life -giving kind of routines and events that you're talking about.

36:11

Can you think of any kind of types of formative kind of discipleship that you would insert into the week, if you understand what

36:22

I'm saying? Yeah. So, I mean, one thing is just reading to your children, reading to your children good, you know, at all ages.

36:31

But this became especially important for me and our kids as the older ones got older.

36:38

And it's almost more important then because I wanted to continue that and the sort of expectation that I was going to continue to read books with them and to them.

36:51

So even my 15 -year -old will read things together and it just opens up opportunities for conversation.

36:59

We'll read books on biblical manhood with my daughter on biblical womanhood, on thinking about future spouse, when they get to the age of the facts of life, you know, that opens up those kinds of conversations.

37:14

Bible doctrinal issues. We have an interesting situation because I've got 15 and 13 and six and four.

37:22

So there's that span between the older kid two and the younger two. Before the younger two were born, in our family worship time, we were able to start expanding that.

37:34

And like I read through Bruce Swear's Big Truths for Young Hearts with them, which is sort of just like a systematic theology for kids.

37:40

So just reading to your children. And that has to be intentional. I mean, it can happen sort of organically, but especially as life gets busy and the kids get older,

37:51

I just have to carve out, okay, this night I'm reading to Kate and this night I'm reading to Caleb and it's just every week.

37:57

Some weeks it doesn't happen, but at least, you know, it's intended to happen that way. And so that's regular kind of conversations that take place.

38:04

And then I just, you know, I mentioned just, again, just establishing habits in the family that can differ from one family to the other, but that are constantly bringing, you know, spiritual matters before them.

38:20

You mentioned the difference between, you know, formative discipleship and corrective. The corrective stuff that, you know, that just presents itself, right?

38:29

Putting out fires. Yeah, exactly. But sometimes parenting can devolve into just that.

38:35

Like leave me alone unless there's a problem. I'm a big believer in being proactive.

38:41

Like I know that this particular child has this particular weakness, so I'm not going to wait until it becomes a problem.

38:48

I'm going to find ways to address it or bring it up or have conversations when there's not a fire or establish routines or have a conversation and say, let's figure out like when you're about to flip into this attitude problem, you know, let's come up with some sort of way out, you know, that I can help you at that time.

39:11

And it's trying to help my kids understand I'm not like a judge waiting to punish you.

39:18

I want to help you. I'm trying to provide ways for you to succeed spiritually. And so being proactive when there's not the conflict,

39:26

I think is really important. And that kind of thing can come up even in a formal worship time.

39:32

Or, you know, I'm reading a passage of scripture and there's something in the text and I think, oh, this is perfect for what

39:38

I know, you know, such and such a child is probably going to be struggling with the next couple of days. So now's the time to talk about it and bring it up.

39:46

It just, it takes intentionality. And I mean, you know, parenting is hard work.

39:52

There's no way around it. It's difficult. Every child is difficult.

39:57

What works with one child does not necessarily work with another child. What works with one child might not work with that same child five minutes later.

40:05

You know, so we just as parents have to just acknowledge that and, and, and just realize this is, these are gifts that the

40:13

Lord has given to us. Not only, you know, that we can impact them in their own sanctification, but it's sanctifying for us.

40:20

And it's something I continually have to remind my wife as I get the texts about, you know, struggles that are happening in the home during the day, you know, cause she homeschools them.

40:29

So she's with them all day. And I just, we have to remind ourselves, okay, this is for our good too.

40:36

You know, this is helping us and sanctifying us. So just that kind of positive mindset and recognizing the beauty of what

40:43

God has designed is really important. You said family worship. Harrison, I'll ask this real quick and you can get the next one.

40:52

But you said family worship on Sunday and then the other six days of the week. What are some strategies you have to try to connect those two worlds so that they're not just fundamentally distinct kind of arrangements to where you just go do the one, you know,

41:08

Sunday and that has no correlation to anything that's happening with the rest of the week? That's a really important question because I think that you have to connect them together.

41:17

And in fact, families who struggle most on Sunday with their kids, just behavior and paying attention and sitting still,

41:27

I immediately know nine times out of 10, they're probably not worshiping intentionally during the week.

41:33

Maybe you could speak fully to that too. Yeah. And this is where,

42:05

I mean, you guys are church leaders. I just encourage pastors as much as possible to help the families in their church by, you know, publishing ahead of time.

42:18

Here's the sermon text for Sunday. Here are the songs we're going to be singing. Here are the scripture passages we're going to be reading.

42:25

Because then what we do as a family, what I encourage other families to do is sometime during that week, and maybe even just all week, that is what you're focused on in your family worship.

42:35

You're singing the songs that are coming up on Sunday. You're reading the scripture passages that are coming up on Sunday. Because kids are always going to be more engaged if they recognize what's taking place.

42:47

And so if you've been singing this particular song all week, and then lo and behold, it's in the service on Sunday, your kids are going to be more engaged in that.

42:56

If you're reading the scripture passages and maybe identifying some key ideas, and so they're listening for those things already when the sermon is preached, it's going to help them.

43:06

So, for instance, here in our church, our pastor who organizes and plans the worship, he sends out, usually midweek, a family worship guide that includes all of the hymns and scripture for the following Sunday.

43:20

The encouragement being that families will utilize that during the week. And other practices that might be specific for a given church, whether it be doxologies or common things that are done on Sunday, I encourage families to incorporate them during the week.

43:41

Because not only are they spiritually beneficial in and of themselves, but then they're also connecting the children to what's going to be happening in the service on Sunday.

43:51

One of the things in my experience talking to people is they want to be able to have family worship time, especially the fathers.

44:03

They feel like they need to be doing that. But they get caught up thinking, well,

44:09

I don't know what that actually looks like. I know a lot of the people I knew, they never grew up with, a lot of them didn't even have

44:16

Christian parents, and so they didn't grow up being taught or shown how to lead these things or really what they even looked like.

44:24

So it might be helpful, Scott, if you could just take a moment and just kind of walk through for us, what do you try to do with your family when it comes to family worship?

44:34

So maybe describe one of the shorter, you mentioned a 10, hey, we've got other things that are going on today.

44:41

We're really busy. We've only got 10 minutes, but let's make the 10 minutes count. And then what would you make a,

44:47

I don't know how long you try to aim for if you're not pressed for time, but however long that type of family worship session is, how would you structure that?

45:01

It has evolved even in our family over time, just as the ages of the kids changes.

45:07

Like I mentioned, it sort of evolved and expanded when the kids, when our two older ones got older, and then we sort of backed off things when we had the two younger ones again, which actually was really beneficial for the older ones as well.

45:18

So, yeah, if I'm really pressed for time, we will just, so every night, regardless, we pray, and then we sing, there's an evening prayer, all praise to thee, my

45:33

God, this night, that actually the praise God from whom all blessings flow, that text was originally from that evening prayer.

45:41

So every night, no matter what, at minimum, we will pray and we'll sing that together as a family.

45:46

That's kind of the shortest, if we just have any time at all. And then typically now, our practice now is we sing a hymn.

45:56

So we have a hymnal, we have hymnals in our home, every kid, every person has a hymnal.

46:03

And that has changed over the years too. Like during a certain period, we sang the same song every day of the week, because I wanted them to learn the hymns and learn to memorize some of the standard important hymns.

46:20

Right now, we're just singing right through the hymnal. So my daughter has a bookmark.

46:25

She lets us know what number we're on. So we'll sing a hymn, then we'll read.

46:31

And that has changed over the years right now. My strongest recommendation in terms of a children's

46:39

Bible is by Catherine Vos, the children's story Bible.

46:45

It was just reprinted by Banner of Truth. And it is excellent.

46:51

It is faithful to scripture. Much of it is actually quotation from scripture and then just commentary in a story form.

47:02

It's very, very good. And what I really love about it, I'm a big, I don't like pictures of Jesus, second commandment violation things, and there's none of that in there.

47:12

So it's really, really good. So we're reading through that right now, but we've read other paraphrases of scripture.

47:21

And then when the kids were really young, some other children's Bibles and that sort of thing.

47:27

But even I would say, read a chapter of scripture, read a half of a chapter of scripture.

47:33

Again, it doesn't have to be long. And then we have a catechism that we work through as a family.

47:40

Again, it's just a question and answer format, and it's helping to teach them theology. So a number of years ago,

47:47

I developed a 52 week catechism. So there's just one catechism a week. And we just rotate through that.

47:52

And I'm just trying to get into the memories of the kids, good theology. Then we will sing another hymn.

47:59

So we typically sing two hymns in the evening. Then we have a time of prayer. And what we're doing right now, and this is a fairly new thing, is we're going through our church directory, because we've only been here in our church now for a year, trying to learn families' names.

48:14

So this is a good thing to do. And it's also, of course, good to pray for the church. So we're just going alphabetically, and we'll show the picture to the kids, and we'll kind of talk about the family a little bit.

48:23

Sometimes, again, depending on time, I'll just pray. Sometimes I'll assign a particular, either a person in the family we're praying for, or something that's going on in our lives.

48:35

Each family member will pray. So that would be kind of, if we have a longer evening, we would do that.

48:40

And then after we pray, we sing that evening prayer together. So that's kind of our long version.

48:46

But really, I mean, maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. It's not long at all.

48:52

Not too much. What are some suggestions you might have for families who do have younger kids, and then the younger kids are just totally not accustomed to the kind of thing that you're talking about?

49:04

As a father in particular, do you have any suggestions for how you can keep it from being kind of a negative, disciplinarian time where you're just reining in the unruly kids and keeping it to where it's something they—and it's not all about fun, obviously, but you want it to be something they don't dread as a disciplinarian moment.

49:30

I would say start small, start short. Make it so that you know it's going to be successful.

49:38

So if you've got really little kids, just plan in five minutes, read a verse, sing a song, pray, and celebrate.

49:44

Because you don't want it to be about entertainment or quote -unquote fun, but it is an important thing to make it something that they really look forward to, that they see as something delightful.

49:59

Use it as a cuddle time. Make it a—again, it's not sitting in pews formally, stiffly.

50:07

My youngest sits on my lap, we cuddle, we read. And then, especially with my younger two, when

50:15

I'm about to read every night almost, I'll say this, okay, I want you to listen because I'm going to ask you a question.

50:21

And so they're listening, and I'm—with the four -year -old, it's usually who died on the cross, something really simple that I know she's going to answer.

50:31

And then with the six -year -old, I'll try to think of something from the reading, and he's usually good about listening.

50:37

So just, again, you want to pave the way to success so that they really love this time.

50:47

And just start short, and then just keep an eye on things, and gradually add as they grow older, and stretch their attention span, stretch their abilities.

50:58

And things like singing, kids love it. So don't just read 20 minutes, definitely read the scriptures, definitely pray.

51:12

Prayer is important, but singing is going to help them be engaged too. So yeah, just start short and gradually increase things.

51:21

So not necessarily the beatings will continue until morale improves type situation.

51:27

Yes. Yeah. I mean, there are times where discipline has to take place, but this is one area where I really try to be proactive to make sure that this is going to be a really successful thing.

51:44

I'm not waiting to catch them in sin and then punish them.

51:50

I want them to succeed. I know we're coming up on time here, but I do have one more question for you.

51:58

And that is, so for the parents, especially the father, but I think the mother as well, what would you recommend in terms of how they can prepare for that time with their family, where they're going to lead and worship?

52:15

Yeah. Well, I mean, there are things you can do, but I think in answer to that question,

52:20

I would, you know, I would try to like not make a father feel like he has to do this five hour sermon prep.

52:30

The prep, I mean, the only prep I do is just planning ahead. Like, okay, I know we're going to sing to the hymnal, so I don't have to worry about that.

52:37

And, you know, we're reading through this book right now. So if I'm nearing this children's Bible, so I'm nearing the end,

52:43

I'm starting to think about what are we going to do next? I on occasion will read a prayer, a

52:48

Puritan prayer or something. So I have that ready, you know, next to me. So that's the only prep that I do.

52:55

The other thing is there are so many good resources out there that can help.

53:03

I think one of the fears sometimes with fathers is my kid's going to ask me a question about the text and I won't know the answer to it.

53:13

Well, number one, don't be afraid of that. In fact, you telling your child, you know,

53:19

I don't know, let's go see if we can find the answer or let's ask pastor on Sunday.

53:24

That is formative. I mean, that's beneficial for the kid. But there are resources to help.

53:31

Like, for instance, Reformation Heritage has a book called The Family Worship Guide that goes through the entirety of scripture, kind of highlights the key elements of each passage of scripture, discussion questions, really, really helpful.

53:48

I developed something similar called the Tune My Heart Bible Narratives Devotional Guide.

53:55

Again, was just some basic commentary. Like I tried to, in each of the readings, pick out a couple things that I thought might be raised as questions or might help in explaining what's happening in the text and then to some discussion questions and a brief summary.

54:11

So these are, there are resources like that, that are more and more becoming available as this issue of family worship becomes, you know, people are recognizing the importance of it.

54:23

So those are things, but if there was any preparation, I would say, get some of those tools. Family Worship Bible Guide, Scott Brown has

54:29

Journey Through the Bible that does something similar. My Tune My Heart Bible Narratives Study Guide.

54:35

Just get some of those things so that when you're reading through, you've got a couple resources that you can consult if you've got a little older kids and they've got some questions or if you want to explain something.

54:46

But I would just say, don't, you know, don't feel like you've got to do a whole lot of prep. Just get the resources so that they're at your fingertips.

54:55

But, you know, don't, don't feel like it's a burden where you have to do all this exegetical work ahead of time so that you're prepared to lead your family.

55:03

Again, just, just read the word, just sing and just pray. I mean, that in and of itself is going to be really, really formative for your children.

55:10

Let me ask one more and then Harrison, maybe you close this out and we'll go from there. But Scott, I think most people, if there's anything,

55:20

I'm listening to the conversation. I'm trying to see if I can respond to certain objections people might have.

55:27

What would be the case, and maybe as short as you can here, what would be the case for needing to add the singing component to it?

55:36

You know, I can imagine a lot of people basically saying, yeah, I'm with you on the, read the Bible to them every day, praying with them every day.

55:43

Sell me on the, on the singing part. I don't have a musical ear. And I'm glad you brought that up because that is another area where, where some families might be, feel a little intimidated.

55:53

And I would just to say, first, there are also resources there that can be helpful. And in fact, we're working on some things with G3 right now, where there can be some easily, you know, you click a button on your phone and it'll play, you know, audio for the songs.

56:08

And so there are resources available, but I think it's really, really important. At minimum, because it is one of the means of grace that God has prescribed for the, for the good of our souls.

56:20

Singing one another in psalms and hymns. Absolutely. And again,

56:25

Christianity is not just an intellectual thing. It is, it is about forming hearts and wills and minds for the

56:33

Lord. And God has given us music, not as entertainment, not as something secondary or unimportant, but as a necessary means for the formation of our hearts.

56:42

And so we, we must be singing. And this is one of those areas that if we don't sing at home with our children, they're not going to grow up learning to love to sing, learning the importance of it.

56:54

And so we're only paving the way for destruction and difficulty down the road. And then this is other, this is another one of those points where we're connecting to the

57:03

Lord's day. Sing the songs your church sings so that when you go on Sunday, your children are hearing things that they've learned at home.

57:11

And you're, you're, you're helping to give them a love for the church, appreciate the tradition and the heritage that's been passed down, the rich theology and the rich music that, that, you know, that has been passed down and the new things that are being written as well.

57:26

So I would say it's absolutely important. Do not skip over the singing. I get that some families might not be musical and might be intimidated, but again, there's no excuse anymore because there are so many,

57:38

I mean, even if you just go to YouTube and find the song and play it, you know, there, there are so many good, good resources out there to help you.

57:46

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Scott, you've been really generous with your time and coming on the show and answering all of our questions.

57:54

So why don't you just, as we're ending here, why don't you just tell everyone where they can find more of you?

58:00

Yeah, absolutely. So g3men .org is kind of the home base. It's where I blog.

58:06

My podcast is on there. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera. I mentioned Tune My Heart.

58:11

All of those resources are on G3 as well. So yeah, if you want to, the best place to find me is to go to G3 and I've got a page there that will send you in all the other directions to books

58:22

I've written and different resources as well. So I encourage you to check out g3men .org. Okay, great.

58:28

Yeah. And again, thank you for coming on and talking to us. I think this really is a pretty important aspect of, you know, of really the local church, right?

58:40

And unfortunately it's been neglected, I think, at least in my experience.

58:46

And so anything to help Christians, you know, feel like they're equipped to be able to do that is,

58:53

I think, really beneficial. It's an important discussion and thanks for hosting it. Yeah.

58:59

Well, like always, we also want to thank all of you guys who are listening, who support us each and every week and allow us to be able to minister to you guys in this way and equip you for the works of ministry.

59:11

So we thank you guys for listening and we look forward to having you on the next one. Amen. Amen.