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Leading family worship and being the priest of your household. How?

I recently finished reading a fantastic book on family worship entitled The Family Worship Book by Terry L. Johnson. It was a great help in providing the reasons and resources to begin a daily family worship time (including creeds, catechisms, psalms, hymns, etc.). And although I highly recommend it, even after reading this book I still felt at a loss as to how to incorporate this into our home.

My family has recently begun practicing a family worship time but I still have a gnawing feeling that we’re just winging it. A typical evening devotion with the family goes like this:

Reading a few pages from a Bible-based childrens book like this childrens book on Noah’s Ark and this childrens book on Pilgrim’s progress.

Then singing a hymn.

Reading from Foxe’s Book of the Martyrs

Then reading a chapter of the Bible.

Then prayer.

I have recently discovered that I am not alone in this quizzical inability to properly facilitate a family devotion time. So it is my intention with this post to ask for suggestions, tips, and pointers from DefCon readers who do family devotions. I hope that the comments on this thread can benefit you and your family as well as me and my family.

4 thoughts on “Leading family worship and being the priest of your household. How?”

  2. One thing, I suppose, is the ages of your children. I have 3 teenagers, so, they are able to understand and ask and answer questions much better now than in former years.

    As it is, at least you have a time of family worship, some families don’t have one. Well, not a biblical family worship.

    Some spend the evening watching t.v.

    I know I’m being critical. Should have a masters degree in it.

    But seriously, some spend more time in front of the tv that they do with the Bible.

    And God is watching this all the time. What godly fear do we have in order to do this?

    As the children have grown, the time and order of family worship has changed.

    Do you think you’ll be using books with pictures when they are in their teens?

    For us, we just us the Bible, nothing else.

    We also pray before and after reading the word.

    The thing is, however it is done, just do it done.

    That’s what God is looking at.

    God bless.

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  3. My two boys are 4 and 6. Mealtimes vary a lot depending on their mood, levels of tiredness etc. so sometimes it just doesn’t work out, sometimes it does.

    You seem to be doing better than me but I feel convicted to do better and want to learn practical tips or resources foe doing things better.

    We tend to have a Bible story and then – if things are going well they respond in prayer and I finish off with a closing prayer.

    I have begun to use an online children’s catechism – see
    http://diacrino.blogspot.com/2008/06/online-childrens-catechism.html
    and http://www.vor.org/rbdisk/proveit/html/intro.htm

    with my six year-old.

    Attention span is an issue (for the kids not me!) and timing – On a week day i get home, we have tea and then there may be a bit of time before the routines of bath and bed (7.30pm is target).

    Anyone out there with helpful advice would be much appreciated.

    Blessings to all trying to bring up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord!

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  4. Hey guys. Praise God that He convicts us to do what we would never normally do!! How important it is that our kids are gospel saturated, and theologically saturated. You can never say too much. I am a pastor and still struggle to have the time but we have been doing alright. One of the things that got my boys (2 and 4) interested is the children’s catechism (found in the family worship book by Johnson) was that I told them that when they learn to a particular point in the catechism that they will get a reward. They are so excited to do this and we have been doing it solid for about two months (not on Sunday and I have missed about 3 days) and they are on #9. Also for older kids the shorter Catechism is a great tool and there is a book that has six devotionals for each point on the catechism. It is called Training Hearts and Teaching Minds by Starr Meade put out by P&R publishing (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company) Each catechism has a question with an answer and each daily lesson is geared from scripture to illuminate the answer to the question. Hope this helps! website: http://www.prpbooks.com or email: sales@prpbooks.com

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