In my previous article in this brief series, I established the biblical and theological foundation for the practice of family worship, noting the great need for it in our day and the great blessing it ought to be in the ordinary life of Christian families.
In today’s article, springing from a few thoughts from Jason Helopoulos’s wonderful resource on this topic, A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home, and adding more of my own, I will offer some caveats as to what family worship is not. This will have established the theoretical, or foundational, thoughts on the topic (in the style of Van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology). Lord willing, in the third article, I will offer some practical suggestions for implementing family worship along with a recommended list of resources for parents and families to help them get started or reestablished in the habit.
What Family Worship Is Not
We need to be clear about what family worship is not. Family worship can be abused and even turned into a tool for abuse, so we must guard against both dangers. Borrowing from Helopoulos’s book, coupled with some further thoughts, here is a quick rundown on what family worship is not.
Not a Replacement for Corporate Worship
Family worship is not a substitute for gathering with the church. Perhaps some people you know have abandoned corporate worship in favor of “home church” only. This is a serious mistake. Corporate worship with the full body of Christ is essential, and it is commanded (Heb 10:24–25). Family worship is a wonderful supplement, not a replacement. Skipping the Lord’s Day gathering of the saints to stay home around the kitchen table does damage to the spiritual health of the family, no matter how good one’s intentions.
Not the Worship of the Family
Tangential to that, it is not worship of the family. It is certainly not ancestor worship, as my poor friend was confused about (see part 1 of this series). But also it is not meant to promote the nuclear family at the expense of the church. While in our day there is no shortage of attacks on and loathing for the biblical or nuclear family, we must be on guard against errors from multiple directions.
On the one hand, we absolutely must promote the idea of the family and Scripture’s teaching on this matter (especially given our covenantal framework and theology and the promises of God) in the face of our generation’s wickedness, the propaganda of liberalism, and the sexual revolution. On the other hand, we must guard against the temptation to carry a good and right emphasis too far. The notion of the family must not be promoted to the denigration of the Christian’s commitment to the church. Some fathers become so focused on family worship that they withdraw from serving the church. Their love for their family is admirable, but it becomes misguided when it pulls them away from the body of Christ. The result is that both their family and the church suffer.
True family worship does not turn us inward. It produces worshiping families who love God and, in turn, love others. As we grow in love for the Lord, we naturally grow in love for our neighbors (Matt 22:37, 39). The two cannot be separated.
In the past I have encountered Christian families who had such an elevated view of the nuclear family that it trumped everything else in their Christian life and priorities. That is, they refused to participate in any aspect of the life of the church outside of Sunday morning worship—refused to come to Sunday school, refused to come to any fellowship events, refused to ever come to Wednesday night prayer meeting. When asked why, they would respond, “We are doing things as a family during that time. We do family devotions then.” There might be legitimate reasons one could put forth for not participating in such auxiliary ministries (such as distance from the church building), but in this case these were folks without any legitimate hindrance.
One might doubt the sincerity of some of these folks’ claims, knowing the other details of their weekly schedule, but for those who were sincere, this is a good base impulse but one that is wrongly ordered. Doing worship and devotions together as a family is a very good thing. But so is participation in the life of the church body, including discipleship opportunities outside the worship services. One can do family worship before Sunday school or maybe on Sunday afternoon after returning home. But it should not be prioritized at the expense of the life of the assembly of the saints. To some degree, our individual Christian lives and our family Christian lives ought to be subsumed under the larger pavilion of the life of the church because it is the primary venue through which God deals with and relates to us as his people—not the only venue, but biblically it is the sphere of primacy.
I realize I am preaching to the proverbial choir here (regular readers of The Heidelblog are likely to be committed church members). But there are people with these tendencies in many of our churches, and it is good to be aware of these things so that we are all better equipped to engage with these issues should they arise.
To be clear: No one is saying that you have to be at every scheduled event of the church or you are a dirty, rotten sinner. No, people get sick. There are certain seasons when not everyone can be at events and gatherings (due to the needs of infants, for instance). Sometimes people have work that prohibits them from coming on Wednesdays. We all understand that. We certainly do not want to exhaust people. But life together as Christians in the church is immensely important.
A Brief Excursus: The Church Family Needs Every Family
On the contrary, far from turning it overly inward or making the immediate family more insular, family worship will serve to saturate the souls of the household with the truth of Christ’s Word. And part of that truth is how indispensable is the life of the body—how much every Christian needs the various parts of the body in the local church.
To give but one example, our single people and young couples need the fellowship of our Christian families. It is important for our Christian families not simply to live for themselves but to be actively involved in the life of the congregation, supporting the work and ministry of the church as best they can, as they are able. This is one of the things the congregations that I have been a part of have done really well.
When we were in college and eventually engaged, my wife and I really wanted to be members of a multigenerational church so we could benefit from the wisdom and experience of Christians of all ages and life stages. When we were at Grove City, there was a Presbyterian church plant that was very well attended and it was within walking distance of campus; the minister was a very fine man and preacher. But at that time, the church was nearly entirely full of college students. It was the same peers we were around the rest of the week, people whose biggest problem was their upcoming paper deadline or the fact that they got a B+ on their recent exam instead of an A.
So we deliberately sought out a church that was a little bit of a drive, but it had a good mix of college students, young professionals, parents, grandparents, newborn babies, and everything in between, and it was immensely beneficial to us. The amount of love and mentoring we received from those folks, the intentional way they cared for us and invested in our lives in hundreds of small and simple ways, made an immeasurable and unforgettable impact.
I suspect this is a real need in all our churches. Our young adults and teenagers, singles, and newlyweds need the love, influence, mentoring, and conversations with the parents and grandparents of our congregation and greatly benefit from them. This is just one reason why it is so important that our family units do not cordon themselves off from a fuller participation in the life of the congregation. The various parts of the body of Christ need each other.
Well, returning from that minor detour and encouragement, what else is family worship not?
Not a Burden
Family worship is a means of grace, not a heavy obligation. It should be a joy. If you miss a night—or even a week—do not beat yourself up. The important thing is to get back into doing it. If you drop the ball, pick it up again. However imperfectly implemented, worship is better than no worship. “We didn’t do it at all last week,” you may think to yourself. Well, you cannot relive last week and do it over. It is a new week now. Start fresh. Pick it up the next evening. God’s grace is not earned by perfect attendance.
Start simple and small. A short Scripture reading, a catechism question, a hymn or a psalm, and a prayer can be done in ten to twenty minutes. On hard nights, when everyone is tired and cranky, you might just read a short section of the Bible and pray. The goal is not perfection but faithfulness. Do not let it become a weight around your family’s neck.
Not a Time to Castigate
Family worship is not the place to rebuke or lecture family members. It should not be the time when Dad airs grievances or uses every passage to correct his wife and children. If there are legitimate grievances, address those issues before worship begins or at another opportune time outside of family worship. Our children should not dread family worship because “Here Dad goes again.”
Fathers, do not provoke your children to discouragement (Col 3:21). Keep the focus on Christ. There may be rare occasions when the family needs to confess a shared sin together or a passage of Scripture is very timely and applicable to something that the household is going through, but family worship should not become the nightly personal grievance agenda.
Not Just Christian Family Activities
Family worship is not the same as family game night or reading Christian books together. Those things can be good, but they are not worship. Family worship centers on the God-appointed elements of Scripture, prayer, and song. Keep these core elements central.
Not a Guarantee of Regeneration
Faithful family worship is a great blessing and a powerful means of grace, but it does not guarantee our children will come to saving faith. There are no foolproof formulas. We do not believe in ex opere operato the way the Church of Rome teaches: By doing the deed, we can somehow manufacture the results we want. There are groups out there that believe this and teach it. We need to be very wary of falling into that mindset. As it is in corporate worship, so it is in families. We teach, we model, we pray, and we trust our children to the Lord’s hands. Some will be Isaacs; some may be Ishmaels. But we believe God’s Word, we trust his promises, and we know that the sowing of the seeds of God’s Word is never wasted. God’s Word never returns void. Keep sowing the seed, keep pointing them to Christ, and rest in God’s sovereignty.
Concluding Thoughts
Family worship is a true gift from God. Keep it in its proper place, guard it from distortion, and practice it with grace and joy. In time, you will look back with gratitude for every evening spent worshiping together. I think perhaps this is one of the biggest takeaways from this practice.
My wife is an excellent cook, and there are a few fantastic meals that she has made that I can still remember. But I cannot tell you everything she has made on any given day—what she made three Mondays ago or eighteen Tuesdays ago. But I know that over the last fifteen years, I have been fed a steady and nourishing diet, for which I am thankful.
We adults likely do not remember every aspect of every sermon we have ever sat through (I preach the sermons, and even I do not remember everything I have ever said!), but there are those standout moments and sermons that leave a lasting impression on us. Our children may not remember every word uttered or every lesson discussed in the living room, but hopefully they will be able to look back over the years and see that regular faithfulness in the home: Mom and Dad loved me and they loved Christ, and we were regularly singing together and praying together and reading the Bible together, and that has left a lasting impression.
Having established the theoretical/foundational and theological basis for what family worship is and is not, I will return in the final article of this series to offer some practical suggestions for implementing the practice and recommend several excellent and helpful resources to that end.
Note
- Jason Helopoulos, A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home (Christian Focus, 2014).
©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.
You can find this whole series here.
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Sean Morris
Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.
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