Family Worship - David Ward

19.5.2009

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FAMILY WORSHIP

The Precedent of Family Worship | David L. Ward

FAMILY WORSHIP The Precedent of Family Worship

by David Ward on May 19th, 2009 The    

Precedent Priority Practice Pitfalls

of Family Worship.

Before discussing the precedent of family worship we should define what is meant by the term. Family worship is the gathering of a household to turn their attention to encountering and responding to God together. It is the regular practice of believers gathering in the place where they live to read and apply God‘s Word, sing His praises, and pray together. It is a practice that is constantly under attack from our suburban lives. We face the unspoken pressure to fill our schedules so that we might measure up to those around us and live productive lives that serve and honor God in various ways. But far too often we buy in to the world‘s definition of productivity instead of remembering what Jesus taught Martha in Luke 10.

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord‘s feet, listening to His word.

But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, ―Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.‖ But the Lord answered and said to her, ―Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.‖ This encounter demonstrates our tendency to get so busy accomplishing our own ideas of how to serve God that we neglect our basic priority to hear from God. And it‘s in our times with God that we allow Him to re-adjust our priorities and redefine what serving Him should look like in our lives. Martha‘s attitude is applicable not only to private worship but also to family worship. We can allow our family lives to become so busy that we are distracted from what the Lord is calling us to do – faithfully show and teach our children what devotion to Jesus should look like in our lives. Consider the command we are given in Hebrews to ―encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‗Today,‘ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.‖ We cannot live the Christian life from day to day alone and should take full advantage of the Christian communities God has placed most of us in – our household. Whether that means a married couple with no children yet, a couple with young children, older children, an extended family living together, or simply friends who are roommates, many of us have other Christians around who we can encourage and be encouraged by.

Think of your household as a kind of ―extended family‖ – family worship isn‘t just for immediate families.

While the Bible does not have direct teaching on the frequency, nature, and extent of family worship, it has plenty of examples both directly and by implication.

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FAMILY WORSHIP As James W. Alexander put it in his book Thoughts on Family Worship, ―There are some duties so plain that they are rather assumed than commanded in the Word of God.‖ Consider Adam and Eve, the first humans, who must have worshipped God as a family.

The same goes with Noah, who if he publicly worshipped God at all on the ark must have done so with his family. When God commanded Jacob to build an altar at Bethel he obeyed by including his family as well (Genesis 35:1-3). When Joshua charged the nation of Israel to be faithful to their covenant with God he declared his commitment to serve (worship) the Lord along with his household, not just by himself. (Joshua 24:15) When King David returned from blessing the nation in public worship he blessed his household in like manner. (2 Samuel 6:18-20) In the New Testament we have the example of Cornelius, the devout Jew who converted to Christianity with his household after hearing Peter preach the gospel. Cornelius was ―a devout man who feared God with all his household.‖ (v. 2) When Peter arrived Cornelius declared that they were all ready to listen to the message from God (v. 3) and when they heard it, they responded together in faith and were baptized. Cornelius‘ conversion was a family affair!

Family worship also played a prominent role in Church history particular during the time of the reformation and even today in some reformed denominations. During the reformation many of the local churches worshipped in a foreign language and taught an unbiblical gospel, that of salvation by works. If children were to hear the message of salvation through Jesus‘ blood they could only hear it at home. The ―divines‖ who wrote the Westminster confession of faith in the 17th century (and the similar London Baptist Confession which is our statement) thought it important enough to include in the statement itself. Of private and family worship they wrote: God is to be worshiped everywhere, in spirit and truth; as, in private families daily, and in secret, each one by himself; so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected, or forsaken, when God, by his word or providence, calls thereto.

May —

we

as

reestablish

the

precedent

of

family

worship

for

future

generations!

Next week we will discuss the priority of family worship, that is, how and why it must rank highly on our list of God-given priorities.

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FAMILY WORSHIP The Priority of Family Worship

by David Ward on May 26th, 2009 The    

Precedent Priority Practice Pitfalls

of Family Worship.

Family Worship and Parenting The Bible contains everything we need to know about how to live life this side of eternity for God‘s glory (2 Peter 1:3) but doesn‘t go into specifics for many of the details of our lives. This is the case with our job as parents – God has not given us many specifics about what‘s involved in raising children such as what their education in the world is to look like, what standard of living we should seek to give them, what kinds of skills they should learn, or what kind of schedule infants should be on. So when He does give specifics we should take great care to seek to be obedient in these areas. Deuteronomy 6 :4-9 is one of those passages: ―Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.‖ God commanded His people to believe that God is one, to love Him, and to teach the knowledge of and love for God to their children. The goal in this teaching is that our children will treasure God, not just know a list of Bible facts or be able to recite the books of the Bible or memory verses. Your children need to see the relevance of the knowledge of God to your family‘s circumstances and that can only happen through YOUR teaching in YOUR home. Notice that God says we should teach our children about God in various circumstances. While we may not be called to implement the specific cultural practices of Deuteronomy (tying Scripture to scrolls and attaching it to your body), the command to get God‘s Word into our lives throughout the day remains the same. This passage shows us that we should not only be gathering for explicit reading or teaching from God‘s Word but we should also talk about the Lord throughout the week in a more organic way. Neither setting makes the other unnecessary. Listen to what Don Whitney says in the book Family Worship in the Bible, in History & in Your Home, commenting on the command in Ephesians 6:4 to ―bring up [your children] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord‖: When do you do this? Yes, you do it when you bring your children to church. Yes, you do it when you converse with them about the things of God from time to time. Yes, you even do it some by example.

But binging children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is not accomplished unintentionally and incidentally. Yes, it should and will happen throughout the day at unplanned, serendipitous occasions, but it should also happen purposefully.

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FAMILY WORSHIP Without some regularity and structure and purpose, it is one of those things that we assume we are doing but never actually do. Consistent, father-led family worship is one of the best, steadiest, and most easily measurable ways to bring up children in the Lord‘s discipline and instruction.

Family Worship and the Christian Life There‘s yet another reason that family worship should be a priority in our lives, even if we don‘t have children or we live with friends or extended relatives. The Christian life is not meant be lived in isolation from other Christians. Consider the command in Hebrews 10:24-25: ―let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.‖ And in Hebrews 3:12-13: ―Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‗Today,‘ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.‖ Our best allies in fighting against our sin are those who are the closest to us. People that live with us or work with us see us more often than anyone else and know the intimate details of our habits, our attitudes, how we handle money, food, etc. If they know the Lord and have the Holy Spirit, these people are those best equipped to restore us when we are caught in a trespass. (Galatians 6:1) And very often we are so blinded by sin that we don‘t even know we‘re caught in a trespass! Additionally, those who live with us are uniquely able to pray for us and can help us obey God‘s command to ―confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another‖ (James 5:16).

Conclusion If you had a stranger stay in your home for a week would it be obvious that you were a Christian family? Let me challenge you to make gathering together around God‘s Word a priority. I won‘t give you a specific schedule or frequency because God doesn‘t; I will, however, suggest that a goal for us to work towards would be to gather once daily. Even if the Father can‘t lead worship much during the week because of travel or work scheduling, he can have his wife or older son lead. But perhaps your first goal can be to meet once weekly, on a certain day of the week. Over the years our daily practice of family worship has waxed and waned but we have always, by God‘s grace, been able to remain faithful to gather for a family worship service on Saturday nights to help us prepare for Sunday. Since the world sees Saturday night as the primary social time of the week, it has meant saying no to lots of party invitation or other special events, but as I look back over the years this ―sacrifice‖ was well worth it. All of us look forward to Saturday night worship and it is built into the Ward routine now. So consider making family worship a priority in your home.

Not only does God command that we gather to help one another remember and cherish Him, but there are immense practical and spiritual blessings to be found in this practice! — Next week we will examine the practice of family worship by giving guidance for how to structure the time, what materials to use, and tips on when to do it.

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FAMILY WORSHIP The Practice of Family Worship Posted by David Ward on June 2nd, 2009 The    

Precedent Priority Practice Pitfalls

of Family Worship.

When to have a family worship time Lord willing these articles have been convincing you of your need to meet with your family or household regularly to worship God. When should you do this? Unfortunately there is no simple, pat answer that will be work for every household. Instead of trying to come up with a standard time of day that we all meet for family worship, it is more important for you find a time of day that works for your family and plan that time into your routine. Put it on the family calendar, the weekly agenda, or however else you plan your family life. Strive to plan a time when the whole family can be together, including Dad. Feel free to be creative with your time and piggyback it onto a meal, during driving time (as long as there is a reader who isn‘t driving or you can listen to the Bible on CD!), or while dinner is in the oven. If you need to have it at different times on different days of the week that‘s fine – again, you should do whatever will actually work for your family‘s particular circumstances. It might sound really godly to plan to have your whole family up, fed, and ready to alertly and eagerly worship God at 6:30am but that might be very unrealistic. Let me caution you against scheduling family worship during a meal. The mechanics of eating, passing food, and dealing with children during a meal will distract everyone from paying attention and really thinking about what is being read or taught. You also probably don‘t want to hear (or participate in) several people trying to sing while eating.

What to do in a family worship time Once a family has committed to gathering together to hear from God and respond in prayer and song and has come up with a plan for when to meet, the biggest challenge can be what to do. There are three key components of family worship: Reading, Praying, and Singing. Or, if you prefer alliteration: Scripture, Supplication, and Song. I like to refer to the order as ―read, pray, sing.‖ This happens to be the exact wording of the last line of the Family Worship Hymn which I‘ve written to be sung to the tune of He Leadeth Me: O God to whom all praise is due, Our family bows to worship You; We trust in Jesus‘ work alone To come before Your holy throne.

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FAMILY WORSHIP Come, Holy Spirit, now subdue All that distracts our hearts from You; Endear us to our glorious King While now we read, and pray, and sing!

Reading The goal of reading God‘s Word is to hear and understand from God what God is communicating about Himself, about Jesus, and about us. We should not neglect reading from Scripture directly, even if the readings are short or paraphrased because our children are so young. It‘s easy to get caught up in reading children‘s books about the Bible and neglect to actually read the Bible. For that matter it‘s easy for adults to do as well! There are many books designed for use in family worship or for devotions that are separated into short daily lessons. We have used these successfully in the past, especially books that offer a passage of Scripture or two to read in addition to the devotional thought. Once you have had practice reading Scripture and someone else’s devotional thoughts, you will hopefully be able to start giving your own devotional thoughts and will become a preacher to your little flock! Your ―sermons‖ should be age-appropriate and focus on helping everyone comprehend the meaning of the passage and applying it personally. I‘ve found it helpful to also explain how the passage relates to Jesus (when it‘s apparent to me). In my private and family worship I find it extremely helpful to start with a Psalm that I might learn and be reminded of how and why to praise God. Praying If you have time allow everyone an opportunity to pray. We have found two methods for giving our small children prayer requests effective: writing requests on index cards (or just drawing pictures of the request) and giving each child a concrete subject and number of requests to pray for. For example, we might go around and ask each child to choose a person that they want God to save as well expressing thankfulness for something God has done or some aspect of His character. We might help them start the request by saying ―Tell God ‗Thank you for being so…‘‖ or ―Say ‗God, please save…‘.‖ Practice saying the Lord‘s prayer together. This is an important prayer that will help all of us remember what to pray for and serve as an effective outline for our extemporaneous prayers.

Singing Even if you are not musical do not neglect to sing in your family worship time. The Bible is replete with commands to sing His praises and to sing to one another about the great things of God. If your embarrassment over not singing well hinders you from singing you might actually be teaching your kids that our reputation or image is more valuable than the things of God! It is a wonderful sign of humility and devotion to God when you sing from your heart even if it sounds bad.

That being said, if you can‘t sing very well I recommend the use of recorded music or an instrument (if someone in your family plays one). You can find many hymn tunes on the Internet (cyberhymnal.org is a great resource) and you could use other CDs of worship music. If the worship leader can‘t sing very well you might appoint a spouse or older child, someone with a stronger sense of melody and range, to lead the singing.

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FAMILY WORSHIP Save handouts from Sunday with lyrics and sheet music for the songs we sing in Gathered Worship and sing them in family worship time. I‘ve found it very helpful, both for singing with non-readers and when we don‘t have lyrics available for everyone, to sing in a call and response fashion; I sing a line of a hymn then the rest of the family will repeats it.

The Duration of Family Worship Just like the time of day of family worship, there is no universal guideline for how long the worship time should be. It will naturally vary depending on your schedule or the age of your household. With small children 5-10 minutes might work well (all the while using the time to help train your kids to sit and pay attention for a longer period of time). Now that I have some older kids who can sit still, pay attention for longer periods of time, and meaningfully interact with what I‘m teaching, I have found that 30 minutes is what is required to read a Psalm, sing a song or two, read Scripture and/or a devotional, talk about what it says, and pray. Some days because of poor planning or other distractions our time is cut short and we don‘t get to every element. Always remember that even spending 2 minutes together in prayer or reading a Psalm is better than nothing! So if you are in a hurry ask yourself if you can‘t spare just a few minutes before rushing out the door.

The Gospel Lastly, I challenge you to remember the gospel, even in your planning and executing on having a family worship time. For some of us, particularly fathers who have never been faithful to have family worship times with our families, an article like this can kick start out guilty consciences and seem to set a standard that we fear is impossible to keep. Well, in one sense you‘re right! Next week we‘ll look at the pitfalls to family worship. If left to our own natural tendencies we would all veer away from having regular and meaningful family worship. For some of us that might mean not having it at all, for others it might mean having it ―religiously‖ but without true humility, transparency, or relevance to our daily lives. Before you commit to having a worship time please first commit to prayer for it. We need to humble ourselves under God‘s mighty hand, beg for the Holy Spirit‘s work in our hearts to motivate us to act, and acknowledge that without God‘s enabling our family worship times would fail abysmally!

May God be glorified as we grow in the area of family worship.— Our fourth article on family worship will consider some of the typical pitfalls you can expect to encounter when trying to start or continue the habit of family worship.

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FAMILY WORSHIP The Pitfalls of Family Worship

by David Ward on June 9th, 2009 The    

Precedent Priority Practice Pitfalls

of Family Worship Family Worship is a Discipline In the book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Don Whitney, the author spends the first chapter exploring the nature of discipline and reiterates the Biblical call to ―discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness.‖ (1 Tim 4:7) In an age when many of us (especially my generation) have not been raised in a disciplined home or had a disciplined lifestyle instilled in us, discipline in any area can be challenging, whether it is finances, home maintenance, or spiritual disciplines like private worship. Family worship is like private worship: if we aren‘t convinced of its value and don‘t plan for it to happen, chances are it won‘t happen very often. Until you form a habit and your time begins to feel like a natural part of family life, meeting together for worship may be difficult. You may be easily distracted by the urgent needs of the day that you are ―neglecting‖ by taking time for family worship.

Your children may have a hard time sitting still and may not understand when and how to ask questions. Your schedule may get pushed back because of tardiness with dinner or Dad‘s arrival time and you might face the temptation to put family worship off another day. Take heart – as you and your family persevere in the discipline of family worship it will get easier and more enjoyable.

A second pitfall accompanies any spiritual discipline – that of falling into the rut of doing the duty without delight, going through the motions only because you know it‘s right and not because you truly enjoy it. You might be tempted to think that if you don‘t feel excited about family worship going through the motions will be mere hypocrisy and conclude that you shouldn‘t do it at all. First off, consider the folly of believing that avoiding family worship will actually improve your heart‘s disposition towards it. Second, consider the opportunity you have to humble yourself before your children and admit your spiritual dryness, then seek God in prayer to revive your heart together. You will only be a hypocrite before your children if you feign enthusiasm for God‘s Word when it is not there. Third, consider the fact that your family worship is acceptable to God only through the finished work of Jesus. You will never be warm enough to make worship count or to make it effective in your life or the lives of your children. God desires that you come to the table of family worship as you are – often weak, stuck in a rut, or distracted with the cares of this world. God may very well use your time of family worship as one of the means by which He warms your heart again.

Family Worship does not Make You (More) Righteous A third pitfall that you might face once you establish a habit of family worship is an attitude that begins to look down on other families who have not lived up to your new standard of righteousness.

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FAMILY WORSHIP Any family habit or lifestyle choice that easily distinguishes you from other families, at least on the surface, can become a breeding ground for this kind of thinking. In subtle ways you may begin to talk about family worship a lot to other families, pressuring them to perform like you are, or speak or think negatively about families that are not disciplined in this area. While there is nothing wrong with reaching out to other families and talking to them about how to excel in this spiritual discipline, the motive of our heart must be their good, not for them to discover how good we are in this area and then feel bad that they don‘t measure up to us. If we are having regular and meaningful family worship we must humbly recognize it as a gift of God and not a result of our own ingenuity, commitment, or talents. God alone grants growth in grace and if your new discipline of family worship is feeding your pride you should consider whether your growth is not really growth in grace but growth in face (as in ―saving face‖ or your reputation).

Family Worship is not Enough A fourth pitfall is the belief that if we are having family worship times we can check off our responsibility to teach our children about the Lord. I think it‘s very easy to begin to think this way because a family worship time is so measurable; that is, it is scheduled and able to be checked off. Is Deuteronomy 6:7 so easily measurable?

You shall teach [these words] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

This depicts a lifestyle of worship where you are speaking about the Lord and His relevance to your lives in all kinds of circumstances, not just gathered around your table for family worship. Unless you can connect the knowledge of God to your everyday circumstances you are not being faithful to teach your children about the Lord. Both family worship and worship ―along the way‖ are vital parts of what it means to be Christian parents.

Family Worship Must be Gospel Centered A fifth pitfall to family worship is the tendency to drift away from the gospel. We do this by a lack of transparency about our own sin and daily struggles with our children. Parents can begin to view family worship as existing only for the good of the children and see themselves as being too advanced in the knowledge of God and godliness to really need that time. The gospel is the message that we are hopeless sinners in need of God‘s grace every day and family worship should be a time to celebrate that, not avoid it. We avoid it by making family worship impersonal and distant – more concerned about the knowledge of God than the love of God. We also avoid the gospel by focusing on morality without the cross. While the Ten Commandments are important to read and study as a family, we must continually remember that Jesus is the only one who has ever been faithful to them and he obeyed them for our sake.

The freedom that comes from remembering that Jesus‘ obedience becomes ours is what must motivate our morality. And we must remember that as we grow in obedience we never add one iota of merit to what Jesus has already merited for us. This theme becomes real when you share your weakness, failures, and sin with your household and proclaim that you need Jesus as much as all of them. When you discuss obedience be honest about how you struggle to obey the command and look to Jesus together.

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FAMILY WORSHIP Difficulties Dealing with Children A sixth and final pitfall to family worship is the difficulty in managing your children during this time – both young and old! For smaller children you may be tempted to think that they don‘t ―get anything‖ out of your family worship time since they don‘t understand as much as you do. You may also become exasperated because family worship with small children is also a training time – training them to sit still and pay attention in submission to their parents. Accept the fact, going into your time, that family worship with small children will be filled with distractions (even discipline) and will not be as fluid and focused as your own private worship. And be assured that your children are aware of more than you think they are. Even the discipline of sitting still around the table instills in them a deep sense of the priority of worshipping God and gives them the physical skills of attentiveness that will help them have more meaningful worship times as they grow older.

Having family worship with older kids (I‘m thinking of teenagers here) who have gained more independence can also provide unique challenges. If you are starting a new routine you will face competition from your children‘s own schedules and agendas such as sports or time with friends. Let me challenge you to start small, say once a week, and focus on making that time enjoyable and engaging; give everyone an opportunity to share and pray. Talk with your teens about their experience with family worship and listen to why they might be bored with it and why they might be so much more interested in other activities. The more you listen, the more you can help them identify idols that are competing with their love for the Lord. And it doesn‘t matter if your teens are believers or not – family worship is something that everyone who lives in the home can participate in just like our church-wide public worship services. Make it clear in a loving way that your family worship time is not optional. Again, you may need to work your way there with patience and encouragement. Laying down the law of family worship vs. grounding will certainly not endear their hearts to you or the Lord!

Conclusion I pray that this series on family worship has helped to kindle your enthusiasm and commitment for the practice of family worship, whether it is with your immediately family or those who live in your household.

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