How the Callaway’s Practice Family Worship

Due to the “stay-at-home” order during this Coronavirus pandemic, we have been around our families a lot more. Honestly this can be difficult, but it can also provide opportunities for us to grow in Christ. One of the ways you can take advantage of being with your family more is to have regular times of family worship together. Have you established a practice of family worship in your home?

I’d love to share how we, the Callaway’s, practice formal family worship in our home as an encouragement. Disclaimer: your time in the Word with your family does NOT have to look like this. I am simply presenting an example for you to see, use, and improve upon per your family’s needs.

Three Practices

There are three basic practices in our formal family worship time:

  1. Singing
  2. Scripture
  3. Supplication (Prayer)

Three Characteristics

A. W. Pink encourages these three characteristics for a family worship time:

  1. Reverently
  2. Earnestly
  3. Simply

Our Structure:

We have family worship times weeknights (when we’re home), after baths, just prior to bed, for no longer than 20 minutes. We try hard at being regular and flexible but here is how we structure our time:

  • Call to Worship: While the family is gathering in the living room, I start singing the Doxology (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”) and the family settles down and joins in.
  • Supplication: I pray a short prayer of blessing for our time together- that God would bless it and we would truly worship Him.
  • Singing: We pick a hymn/song to learn for the month. March has been “The Church’s One Foundation”. For each new verse, I read it and have them repeat it to learn it, then we sing a few verses.
  • Scripture: I read a chapter from the book of the Bible we are reading through. Currently, we are reading through 1 Samuel. After reading, I sometimes ask questions and/or make some application of the verses read.
  • Supplication: I close our time in prayer thanking the Lord for His provision and the lessons learned throughout our day, to forgive us of our sins, to give the children rest, and any other requests concerning our friends and loved ones.

After the final prayer, we might sing a short chorus from the final line of a hymn, (e.g. “Love so a amazing, so divine…”) and march the children off to brush their teeth.

Now, please don’t get the idea that every time we gather it is a little taste of heaven! We work through attitudes, fights, etc. But we have worked with our family for years and have grown and changed our structure as well. Just remember to be faithful and flexible and the Lord will bless your time!

Other Ideas for Family Worship:

  • Have the young ones act out the story after we read.
  • Have our readers take turns reading verses. Non-readers, repeat the words of the verse after me.
  • Take prayer requests and have our children pray.
  • Use a catechism such as “The New City Catechism” http://newcitycatechism.com/

Resources:

Here are a number of resources that may be helpful to you:

GOG and Ranger Joe
Grace Community Church is offering a weekly video with “Ranger Joe” and a download of daily devotional resources using the Generations of Grace children’s curriculum which we use. Find it here: https://www.gracechurch.org/children/posts/1900

10 Ideas and 10 Tips
Tim Challies wrote a blog a few years back called 10 Ideas and 10 Tips for Family Devotions in 2019. Find it here: challies.com

Getty’s Family Hymn Sing (Live)
Every Tuesday at 7:15 PM CT, join the Keith and Kristyn Getty (and their children) for a special time of devotion and hymn singing from their home in Nashville. Click here: https://www.gettymusic.com/hymnsing.

Books
Family Worship: In the Bible, In History, and In Your Home, Donald S. Whitney
A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home, Jason Helopoulos

“If we want to bring up a godly family, who shall be a seed to serve God when our heads are under the clods of the valley, let us seek to train them up in the fear of God by meeting together as a family for worship” (Charles Spurgeon)

Do you practice family worship in your home? What do you do for your time? What are some benefits you have seen in your family? Please comment below.

May the Lord bless your family worship time.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

One Comment on “How the Callaway’s Practice Family Worship”

  1. Thank you for this! Its helps to have different resources to be able to apply during family worship.

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