Five Tips for Family Worship

1. FIND A TIME that works well for your family, a time when everyone is together. Settle on a time that will become as fixed a routine for your family as getting dressed or brushing teeth. Settle on it and guard it. Put the phone away during family worship. The text or phone call can wait. Instead of being enslaved to technology, let it serve you.

 2. KEEP IT SIMPLE. There is no reason to make family worship long or complex. Try to keep it as simple as these three elements: Scripture reading, catechism, and prayer. Family worship does not need to be a lengthy Bible study.

 3. GET STARTED! To borrow an old slogan from Nike, “Just do it!” Don’t procrastinate and put it off. Each day your children get a little older. Redeem the time given to you.

 4. BE CONSISTENT. If you miss a day (or two or three), don’t throw in the towel. Get back on track and go. Too much is at stake to give up.

 5. PARENTS NEED TO BE SUPPORTIVE OF ONE ANOTHER. Satan is against you in this, so be prepared. He wants you to pick at one another during family worship. He wants you to become frustrated and to quit. He wants you to leave the Bible and catechism book on the shelf and reach for the TV remote. He wants wives to be resistant and husbands to be lazy. So, encourage, support and be respectful of one another as you engage in family worship.  

Family worship is a joy, but it takes work. It usually requires some rearranging of our priorities in daily life. And if you are getting a late start with your kids, it will probably be met with some resistance. But it is so worth it! Just think of the spiritual benefit your family receives after many years of daily Bible reading, catechism memory, and prayer. Every year, you make your way through the Holy Scriptures. Every week night, you read and pray the Word into your hearts. Each week, you and your home are being sanctified. All this, without registering for any conferences or driving to any weekend retreats. It is the best spiritual supplement to regular attendance of the means of grace at the local church.