Family Worship

Yesterday I read a chapter from the book "Give Praise To God: A Vision For Reforming Worship" on the subject of "family worship" and found it very convicting as I think towards the future. Here are some things J. Ligon Duncan and Terry L. Johnson had to say about worshiping in the home:

...The family is God's divinely appointed "small group" discipleship program. The Family is the first place that God appointed for teaching and learning about God and godliness. Children are to be instructed (Gen. 18:18-19; Deut. 4:9; 6:6-8; 11:18-21; Prov.22:6; Eph. 6:4), guided in the way of life (Prov. 1:8; 6:20), and disciplined both directively and correctively (13:24; 19:18; 22:15; 23:13-14; 29:15, 17). Family worship is important (Ex. 12:3; Josh. 24:15), and in the New Testament the household was the basic unit of Christian commitment (Acts 11:14; 16:15, 31-33; I Cor. 1:16). Indeed, a man's performance as spiritual head of his family was a major factor in assessing his fitness for church office (I Tim. 3:4-5, 12; Titus 1:6) Nothing can replace or substitute for the family's failings in these functions.

Now much of this chapter's exhortation was in regard to raising and discipling children, but as they remark later:

...we ought to be disciples ourselves. We must love God if we want our children to love God. We must be disciples if we want out children to be disciples (Ps. 34:1, 4, 11)

The family worship time I will have with my children in the future will be an outflow of the worship times that Jess and I build in our home NOW. Reading scripture together, praying together, and SINGING together (remember Pastor Greg's sermon on Psalm 96?) are important habits to build into your family's worship times in the home, and I would pray that God would give me (and all of us!) the discipline to start those habits now, and prepare me to fulfill those leadership responsibilities as a husband and a father.

-Paul