Family Worship: A Guide to Help Our Families Create a Rhythm of Worship at Home-

When you hear the words “family worship,” what feelings arise? A parent with young children may smile, remembering a sweet prayer their child offered just yesterday. Another may feel guilty because family worship hasn’t happened at home in a long time. Still another may feel frustrated because, despite their efforts to set aside time for family worship, it always ends with someone being sent to their room.

Parents of teens or adult children may recall a meaningful conversation that came from their time spent worshiping together. Or they may feel ashamed because they were never able to develop the habit of family worship, and now it seems too late.

Singles, widowers, or the divorced may feel longing, wishing they had someone to worship with at home.

There are so many feelings surrounding this simple idea of worshiping God with the people in our homes, perhaps because it points to both our heart’s desire to worship our God and the brokenness that invades every home and every person.

As we recognize our feelings about family worship, it is important to first remember why we worship at home. We were created to worship God (WSC 1). While we worship Him in all that we do, the rhythm of setting aside time each day to purposefully know the LORD and worship Him is a pattern we see throughout Scripture (Deut. 6:4-9, Josh. 24:15, Ps. 78:1-7, Eph. 6:4).

In 1647, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland approved the Directory for Family Worship to instruct families in their home worship and to unify the whole church body. As Lowell Ivey writes in An Introduction to Family Worship, “The ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland wisely recognized that the ministry of the Word must begin in the church, flow out of the church into the home, and flow out of the home back into the church.” By His Spirit, God uses our worship at home to unite us to Him, to each other, and to our entire church body.

Once we understand why we worship at home, we can begin to work on how to worship at home. Worship at home was never meant to replace our corporate worship together on Sundays. Instead, it flows from our worship together on Sunday and then back to our gathered worship the following Sunday. Using the simple pattern of READ, PRAY, SING, we can look back to the Scripture read and preached on Sunday and look forward to the Scripture that will be read and preached the following Sunday. We can pray for the needs of our church family, our community, our world, and our household, and praise God for His provisions and care for us. We can also sing the songs we sing in corporate worship, teaching children the words and their meanings. Through family worship, we recenter our daily lives and grow together in Christ.

And for those of you experiencing guilt, shame, frustration, and disappointment about family worship, here are some ways to get started.

1. Throughout your day, share with your family what you love about Jesus. As you openly share your faith, the habit of reading, praying, and singing together will become more natural.
2. It is never too late to start a habit. Don’t give up just because your children are in high school, or even because you are empty nesters.
3. This isn’t about perfection. There may be crying children or busy schedules, and if today falls apart, His mercies are new every morning. Focus on God, not on your ability to worship Him. His steadfast love and faithfulness will draw you to Him. When we are His, we can’t help but worship Him. Even when it doesn’t go as we intended, the Holy Spirit is interceding for us.
4. You don’t need to be an expert. Read, pray, and sing together. This is what God’s people do. When questions arise, feel free to admit you don’t have the answer.
5. Family worship is church family worship, not families-with-children worship. If you do not have a family at home, you can ask another church family if you can occasionally join them, or ask a family to come and join you. Church family worship unites the church body and can be a wonderful form of hospitality.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture,
and the sheep of His hand.

Psalm 95:6-7

Teach Us to Worship has created a template to help churches connect their Sunday worship with at-home worship. If you would like more information, please contact hdirkse@pcanet.org.