Are you interested at this point but wondering how to proceed? You may be in need of three kinds of reinforcement: first, you may need to be more fully convinced that this is something that you must do; second, you may need practical, "how-to" help in establishing a routine; third, you may need help in what to do and why. Let us explore these issues.

Reviewing the Reasons

Let us return now to the Biblical, theological, historical, and practical arguments for family worship as a necessary and important discipline for your family. The reasons may be outlined as follows:

1. Biblical—The original church was the family and the original worship was family worship. Undoubtedly this was true before the fall. Afterward, while there was yet but one family we read "then men began to call upon the name of the Lord" (Gn 4:26). Later, Abraham was directed to "command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord" (Gn 18:19). Job "rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of his children. . . ." (Job 1:5). The norm prior to the instituting of public worship under Moses was family-based worship. “The families of the Patriarchs were all the churches God had in the world for the time,” says Thomas Manton in his “Epistle to the Reader” of The Westminster Confession of Faith. However, even public ordinances once introduced did not supersede family worship. Families continued to be directed, to "teach [the commandments] to your children" (Dt 6:7). The Psalmist says that God commands fathers “that they should teach [the praises of the Lord] to their children,” and that each succeeding generation should “arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God, not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments” (Ps 78:4–7). As we move into the New Testament, Timothy seems to have been taught at home by his grandmother and mother (2 Tm 1:5, 3:15); Jesus encouraged the gathering of two or three (Mt 18:20); and parents are exhorted to rear their children in the "discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Eph 6:1–4). Among the early church fathers, both Clement and Tertullian strongly commend family worship, giving us some indication of the persistence of the practice in the earliest centuries of the church.11

2. Theological—David based his devotional practice upon that of the temple. The morning and evening sacrifices provided the pattern for his prayers, which he offered morning and evening, and to which he even applied the language of sacrifice (Pss 5:3 and 141:2; cf Ps 51:16, 17). We continue this worship pattern in the New Testament, like David, substituting sacrificial animals with "a sacrifice of praise . . . the fruit of our lips" (Heb 13:15). It is our Christian duty to worship God daily.

3. Historical—While the Medieval church held daily mass based on the preceding principle, Protestants moved daily worship into the home, where godly fathers served as "priests" in their homes. Thus the pattern in the best Protestant homes became that of daily private (personal) devotions and daily family worship. “What the liturgy of the hours was for monks of the Middle Ages, the discipline of family prayer was for the Puritans,” says Hughes Old. “The Puritans,” he continues, “whether on the Connecticut frontiers or in the heart of London, whether they were Cambridge scholars or Shropshire cotters, gave great importance to maintaining a daily discipline of family prayer.”12 For generations outstanding Protestant devotional writers, from Richard Baxter to Matthew Henry to Philip Dodderidge to Charles Spurgeon, have vigorously promoted it. We would be wise to heed and foolish to ignore their counsel.

4. Practical—There are a number of good reasons for having daily family worship as well:

i) It gives parents a daily opportunity to model humble dependence upon God;

ii) It ensures daily intercessory prayer on behalf of the family's needs;

iii) It provides a daily setting for reading and instruction from the Bible (see Dt 6:7ff);

iv) It provides a forum for reinforcing the memorization of the fixed forms of public worship (eg. Creeds, Doxology, Lord's Prayer, etc.); and

v) It draws the family together at least once daily, no mean achievement in today's hectic and fragmented world.

“The families of Christians should be little churches,” says Richard Baxter.13 Each day the family should assemble to offer God its praise, to hear His word, to give thanks for His mercies.

Getting Started

Do you wish you and your family were having regular family worship, but aren't? Wondering how to get started? We would like to make the following recommendations to help you along.

1. Remember, there is nothing to getting started like actually getting started. Doesn't sound helpful? We're making a point—like everything else that is valuable but requires discipline and sacrifice (losing weight, stopping drinking, getting an education, staying married, attending worship services), it finally comes down to doing it. Start! Do it!

2. Settle on a routine that will work most days of the week. For example, at the breakfast table, or at the dinner table, or at bedtime, etc. Let it become as regular and habitual as brushing your teeth. The older authors (eg. J. W. Alexander in Thoughts on Family Worship)14 strongly suggests a fixed time throughout the week, for example 6:30 each morning or 5:30 each evening.

3. Adjust for irregularities. If Monday and Thursday nights one of you is out, then have your family worship in the mornings on those days. Plan ahead and make this adjustment a part of the routine. Thus, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, family worship might be in the evenings. Monday and Thursday it might be in the mornings. Sunday it is at church morning and evening. This irregular schedule may not be as desirable as the fixed time, but it may be the best that can be done in today's world.

4. Persevere. If you miss once, don't despair, but don't miss twice, either. Persist and your routine will become routine!

Admittedly the matter of discipline and routine is neither common nor popular today. Yet Scripture urges us to “redeem the time, for the days are evil” (Eph 5:16). The Psalmist exhorts us to “number our days” (Ps 90:12). Time is a gift of God. We have been given a limited amount of it. Once it is past it is gone. Consequently sound stewardship requires that we make every day count that God gives to us. Such is only possible if we bring order to our lives and plan for our priorities. Life must be lived intentionally. We will never regularly do what we don’t set out intentionally to do. J.I. Packer’s summation of the Puritan (i.e., biblical) outlook on order in family life is right to the point:

Puritan teachers thought humane family life, in which Christian love and joy would find full and free expression, could not be achieved till the ordered pattern they envisaged—the regular authority-structure and daily routine—had been firmly established. Their passion to please God expressed itself in an ardor for order; their vision of the good and godly life was of a planned, well-thought-out flow of actives in which all obligations were recognized and met, and time was found for everything that mattered: for personal devotion, for family worship, for household tasks, for wage-earning employment, for intimacy with spouse and children, for Sabbath rest, and whatever else one’s calling or callings required.15

If this “ardor for order” is characteristic of us as well, we will find time for daily family devotions.

This article is taken from "The Family Worship Book: A Resource Book for Family Devotions" by Terry Johnson (ISBN 978-1-85792401-5) which is published by Christian Focus Publications (www.christianfocus.com) and is used here with their kind permission.

Terry Johnson is the Senior Pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, GA