There's three components I've come to see from scripture in family worship. That is song, singing praise to God, obviously reading scripture or scriptural books like Pilgrim's Progress, whatever. And then supplication, praying for each other, praying for your church needs, praying for the needs of Christendom, missionaries, our nation, as it says in 1 Timothy 2, our leaders and so on. Those three components I find are vital. Now, what we do at a very minimum in my home is we pray together. We could always pray. Then if we better prepare, we could pray and read God's Word together. If we have a little more time, we add scriptural books, like, as I said, Pilgrim's Progress and other such books. And I'm able to involve my kids with that. But we also try, when we have well-planned times, singing praise to God. So singing, and then scripture, and then supplication is really the ideal time.
And to not be caught up in the legalism is key, because if you put yourself in a spiritual straitjacket, you have to have these three S's, then you feel you failed. And it becomes by rote, robotic, and discouraging, and legalistic. But I find as a father is flexible, he is elastic or resilient, and he could go with the flow. Maybe just prayer tonight, maybe, oh, tomorrow, maybe just scripture and singing. What we find is that there's much more encouragement and people stay at it more faithfully. And I believe, again, it will strengthen your family. 10 years from now, your kids may not remember what you spoke about last night, but they will remember that the Word of God was central, that prayer meant something, and that as a family, you worshiped God.
Family worship is a daily spiritual appointment that every Christian family should seek to make. If you read Deuteronomy 6, it says that we are to talk about the Word of God when we stand up, when we sit down, as we go our way, go by the way in our home and everyday life. It's an atmosphere, it's a culture, it's an environment that the head of a home, a believing father, is to create by walking with God and discipling his family.
Family worship, I think, is one of the greatest preparations for public worship. As a family is consistent and flexible, and the father resilient during the week, the family is better prepared to offer worship to God on the Lord's day. We have to understand that if we are not turning over the soils of our hearts every day, then we'll have nothing truly to offer to God with unprepared hearts. That's the folly in Ecclesiastes is to not guard your steps when you enter the house of God.
Of course, to have family worship without private worship is simply ridiculous. I mean, private worship, our devotional life, is what prepares us to have something to share and to interact with in family worship. So I have found through the years as I've studied Psalm 78:1-8, again, the same admonition, as I have remembered the great statement of Joshua, "As for me and my house, we will worship the Lord," Joshua 24:15. We see there's a determination of God's people. God commanded Israel, we're commanded in the church to worship God, to offer worship to him in spirit and truth as often as we can, ideally shooting for each day.
And the benefit is simply amazing. I've seen in my own church and people I've taught in different venues that family worship might be the great missing tool in modern reformation where there's so much more that can be accomplished in family worship than in just one sermon per week in your local church. It makes us better hearers on the Lord's day, better worshipers.
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