In a previous blog post, I shared some resources that my husband and I use to train up our tiny disciples. I wrote the “Resources for Tiny-Disciple Makers” back in May and already our family has switched some things up. In this blog post I’d like to specifically share how we do what we call “Family Worship” in our home. While we had mealtime & bedtime routines previously that incorporated discipleship, we only recently began a formal “Family Worship” time. And by “formal” I mean only that it has a formal name; it is 1,000% informal when it comes to setting and attire. 😆For context our children are ages 3, 2, and 1. 💗💙💙From the start, I think it’s good to point out the importance of being flexible; each family is unique and needs to find what works best for them in the particular season they’re in. Besides being flexible, keep it simple. Read. Pray. Sing. That’s it. The End.
Harrison Family Worship goes like this…
Dinner is over & cleaned up. Usually we take a walk afterwards or maybe it’s bath night. It’s about 6:30-7:00 pm at this point. Our babies go down for bed around 7:30 on a typical night, so family worship for us is during the “wind down” part of the evening. Since we do snacks before bedtime, we’ve begun incorporating that into family worship time. The kids choose a snack & are told to choose a seat in the living room. That’s their “spot” for the rest of family worship time. We bought little New Testaments for our 3 and 2 year old to take to Awana Club at our church. They often request to have their Bible with them during Family Worship. {Snacks keep little mouths full and bibles keep little hands busy. 😉#ProTip} As everyone is getting settled, I turn our TV to the YouTube App and pull up our “song of the week” so it’s ready to go when we get to that part. Chris starts by reading a Psalm to us. Before he begins he always says, “This is God’s Word.” And Willow & Tate have begun to chime in on the “God’s Word” part 🥰Let’s be real: some Psalms are short & some are long. Some nights the snacks & Bibles work as intended, other nights chaos ensues despite our best efforts. Chris usually reads the whole Psalm but if it’s bordering pandemonium, he simply says, “okay, well stop there for tonight & finish Psalm 33 tomorrow night.
Next we move onto the New City Catechism. I discussed this in greater detail in my previous blog. We used to listen to the kids’ songs that went along with the New City Catechism questions at breakfast time and then go over a question each night at dinner time. Trying to get 3 littles to eat is a feat on its own, so we pivoted and discovered it goes much better for us to have a separate “family worship time” rather than cram mealtimes with too many extras.🙌🏼 Chris reminds us of the previous night’s question & answer. “Last night our question was, ‘What is our only hope in life & death?’ And we learned the answer was, ‘That we are not our own, but belong to God.” Tonight’s question is, ‘What is God? Answer: God is the Creator of everyone and everything.’ Since we have so many of the songs memorized at this point, we might sing the song together. (You could listen to the song together on the app or YouTube.) We might repeat the answer a few times together. If you’re new to New City Catechism, maybe do one question per week. This is our second time through it; we went much more slowly the first time. Chris concludes the catechism portion by reading the “prayer prompt” that goes along with that night’s question; this is all included with the amazing New City Catechism app on kids mode! 👏
We end Family Worship time with our “song of the week”. Our church sings mostly Sovereign Grace, City Alight, or the Gettys music and Chris and I love those artists too for the richness of their lyrics and the modern sound. One of us picks the song of the week; it might be our current favorite, a new release, or one we just heard at church. We’ve also learned some old hymns. I pull up a YouTube video of the song for us to watch and sing along with. The video holds the kid’s attention and the lyrics help Chris & I learn it. Throughout the day or at bedtime, we try to sing parts of that week’s songs to the kids. It’s amazing to hear how many songs Willow knows now and when we get in the car she asks for “grown-up songs”. 😉Tate doesn’t sing yet but from the very first night we did “family worship” we were amazed at his reaction to the music. He could’ve been wallowing all over the couch, crushing his snack into crumbs, or poking his sister every time daddy turned his head just minutes before, but when that song starts playing he gets SO still and watches the entire thing. It’s the sweetest! 🥰If it’s an upbeat song, Willow might show us some of her dance moves. Crew crawls quickly to the TV stand, pulls up, waves his hands, & starts clapping & dancing too. Willow & Tate sometimes mimic the hand movements they see the song leader doing or their daddy as he worships. All good stuff.
Chris closes family worship time with a few quick prayer requests & a short prayer. And voila, we’re done! ✅All in all, it takes us about 10-15 minutes on average. Crew, our 1 year old, tries to mooch snacks off his siblings or grab Chris’s bible or phone when he’s not looking. I tend to set out a basket of toys or keep him occupied with a snack or bottle during this time. Chris pretty much leads the whole thing & quite honestly, by this point in the day, I’m almost brain dead so my greatest contribution is providing the snacks & pulling up the music video. 😂
I realize that’s a very detailed explanation of what our family does & that it might seem overwhelming. But again, I encourage you to think of “family worship” as three-fold: read, pray, sing. That’s it. You can get as creative as you want, but as long as you’re reading God’s Word together, praying together, and singing together, you’re being obedient to how Scripture says we should bring up our children. Be flexible as you go through some trial & error. Most importantly, keep it lighthearted! Was it a little awkward the very first night to be like, “okay, everybody in the living room. We’re going to start doing family worship time each night. Here goes nothing…” 🥴Sure it was. Did our kids look at us like, “what are we doing and why?” 🤔 Sure they did. But we made it fun and exciting! We’re sure to emphasize that this is a serious time, but not in a way that sucks the joy out of the room. It’s serious but it’s special. They feel grown up holding their bibles. It’s interactive because they join daddy saying “This is God’s Word”, they get to practice the catechism question with us, they suggest prayer requests, they sing or dance along to the song, etc. They’re practicing for “big church” but they’re also seeing on a daily basis that “big church” isn’t the only time & place that they see mommy & daddy read, pray, and sing about Jesus. That is SO important! 💯
A sense of humor goes a long way y’all. The first week we began family worship time, Willow called for us to come sit down for “family baptist church!” 😆 If this whol concept of family worship sounds idyllic let me just tell you that you have to go into this with realistic expectations and be quick to chuckle instead of quick to cry. Chris and I balance each other out here. Some days I’ve used up every ounce of humor in my body & I’m counting down the minutes to bedtime so I can recover in the silence. 😥 Other days, he’s the one that is running out of patience with their shenanigans. Several times, I’ve gotten SO tickled at how shambly the whole affair is that particular night that I start laughing so hard my eyes leak. It becomes contagious and the tension is cut and we’re reminded that they’re just kids. Some nights we couldn’t hear half of what Chris read or prayed because of a crying baby or fussy toddler. Family worship is very short on those nights.😅 By God’s grace we’ve never completely lost our temper or joined the screaming of the wild banshees because it’s kind of hard to do that when you’re reading a Psalm or listening to a worship song. There are nights we cut our losses & head for bed! But all too often there are precious moments & adorable faces that melt our hearts & make it all worthwhile 🥹
This requires a long-range perspective. It might not look like you’ve accomplished much in the first week but think about what could happen years down the road if you faithfully disciple your children everyday? Speaking of everyday, we don’t do family worship on Wednesday nights because we have church/Awana’s that night. If we’re out late at a friend’s house or something like that, we don’t do family worship that night. Otherwise, we do it probably 5 nights per week. Anytime we’re home and in a “typical” routine. The first time we missed “family worship” because we went to Wednesday night church or we got home late, we were tucking Willow in & she gasped, “We forgot family worship!!!” She was so upset we did a quick one in her bed 😅
Get creative and consider the ages and interests of your children when planning your family worship time. Maybe you want to call it something else besides “family worship”. Maybe your older kids can be included in naming the gathering. Read through one of the Gospels instead of the Psalms (we plan to read John next!). Read through a devotional book together. Instead of catechism questions, maybe you want to have a memory verse for the week. Read through the Bible in a year as a family. Choose a theme for the month like the fruits of the Spirit, names of God, or women of the Bible. We plan to focus on thankfulness during the month of November by choosing songs that incorporate that theme & focusing on praises during prayer time. We’ll pause the catechism questions in December to make time for our family advent devotion (we use the Jesse tree). Choose music that fits your family or church’s taste. Let teenagers submit bible study questions/topics that interest them to be covered in family worship time. Connect something from your Scripture reading with the song you sing or the sermon series at church. The options are endless! 💡
I can’t finish this post without HIGHLY recommending the following book: Habits of the Household by Justin Earley. I read it & discussed it with a friend and was SO inspired. Chris is currently making his way through it. Seriously, go add it to your Amazon cart now. So practical, so helpful. Much of the principles I’ve laid out here regarding our family worship time, come from this book, but the books covers so many other aspects of daily life and how to redeem the time in making disciples of our children.
Be flexible. Keep it lighthearted; serious but special. Be realistic. Keep it simple; shorten it when needed. Get creative! Read. Pray. Sing. Be faithful if you want to be fruitful.
Only By His Grace & Our Grit,
~Hilary
🎶Here are the YouTube links to some of our favorite family worship songs so far 🎶
Jesus Strong and Kind by City Alight
O Lord, My Rock & My Redeemer by Sovereign Grace music
Glorious by Sovereign Grace music
Christ Our Hope In Life and Death by the Gettys
My Worth Is Not In What I Own (At The Cross) by the Gettys
Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery by Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
The Night Song by City Alight
*This PDF highlights the benefits & structures of family worship and includes a TON of resources in a much more & succient, organized way than I just did.😆 Two books I can’t wait to read with our kids is Kevin DeYoung’s Kid’s Bible, The Biggest Story, and The Ology: Ancient Truths Ever New by Marty Machowski 😍🤓*
