A trend that many people have observed in the church is the widespread loss of the younger generations. The data from Pew Research says that Protestants lose nearly two people for every one person they gain from religious switching.1 The Bible reminds us by way of many examples that losing the next generation is one of the greatest looming dangers at all times. You might consider the difference between Joshua and Judges, or the difference between David and his grandson Rehoboam.
It remains such a perennial problem that, rather than fretting, God prescribes an active disciplined resolve to swim against the current. He doesn’t just want his people to obey, but he wants them to teach their children to obey:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut 6:4–7).
Notice then the great duty God puts upon the community of believers. He commands them to love him and then diligently teach their children to do the same. In a similar fashion Asaph says:
“He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Ps 78:5–7).
God not only commands the parents in these ways, but also the children, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Exo 20:12). In what better way could children honor their parents than by keeping covenant with the God whom they were raised to serve?
In all these ways God addresses the danger of covenant breaking and prescribes an active solution. Most of the church throughout her history understood this. John Chrysostom encourages it several times in his extant sermons, with my favourite example being on a sermon from Genesis, “Let us take all this to heart, then, dearly beloved, and on returning home let us serve a double meal, one of food and the other of sacred reading; while the husband reads what has been said, let the wife learn and the children listen, and let not even servants be deprived of the chance to listen. Turn your house into a church; you are, in fact, even responsible for the salvation both of the children and of the servants. Just as we are accountable for you, so too each of you is accountable for your servant, your wife, your child.”2
Family religion is the great missing link in American religious life, and aside from a handful of Dutch Reformed traditions, it has fallen on hard times in the reformed world until very recently.
At Ruah this is one discipline we harp on regularly. We are a young church with young families and very young children. There is not a single person in our church currently who grew up in a family that practiced family worship, and so there is no time like the present for us to chart a new course for our own children.
Getting Practical
At the core of family religion is the practice of family worship. The Westminster Confession says, “God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and truth; as in private families daily, and in secret each one by himself.”3 The same authors also commended to us a certain rhythm for how to practice family worship, “First, Prayer and praises performed…Next, Reading of the scriptures, with catechizing in a plain way.”4 So then the constituent elements are reading, discussion, catechesis, prayer, and singing. Each head of household should seek to institute family worship with these components on a daily basis in the home.
Reading, Discussion, Catechesis
Each family should read daily together. We have a Bible reading plan that is paced through the whole Bible over the course of 4 years. That equates to essentially one chapter a day with some margin for missed days. If you have no plan for what to read I recommend you start there.
The scriptures should be read well, as J. W. Alexander warns, “Half its meaning, and almost all its effect, are sometimes suffocated and lost, by a sleepy, monotonous, stupid, careless, inarticulate, drawling.”5 After the reading there should be straightforward discussion, plain application, and some related catechesis. For example, if you are in John 1 you can discuss the ways that John portrays Jesus, what those descriptions mean, and then use a catechism question, “How could Christ suffer? Christ, the Son of God, became a man so that he could obey and suffer in our place.” (First Catechism, Question 50).
Pray
After the discussion it would be appropriate for there to be a brief prayer. We can thank the Lord for his sustenance and ask him to apply his word to our hearts and the hearts of our children. It might also be fitting to ask for any prayer requests and pray for those as well.
Sing
In relation to the verses being read, or the discussion that was had, there should be some musical response. Tertullian describes the Christian marriage as a relationship where, “between the two echo psalms and hymns.”6 If you are in John’s gospel you may consider singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, or “Shine Jesus Shine”, or “The LORD By His Word Has Created (Psalm 33C).” If you are newer to singing perhaps you use the Gloria Patri or the Doxology as a mainstay before you get more adventurous.
Be Brief
On note must reign above all the rest with regard to family worship. For it to be a sustainable habit it must be a realistic habit, and there is no greater advice than to be brief.
“The length of the domestic service is worthy of attention. It was the fault of our forefathers to make it insufferably long.”
— J. W. Alexander, Thoughts on Family Worship, 194.
Family worship should not ordinarily exceed 10 minutes in length, so there must be intentionality to teach our children, but not do it in such a way that they are worn down.
Prepare
If these duties are to be carried out well then there must be intentional preparation on the part of husbands and wives. Husbands must study ahead so they are able to offer insights, application, or explanations of passages which may be unclear. This can be done in the course of personal Bible reading. If you are a husband make sure you avail yourself of good resources—like the Family Worship Bible Guide—and set yourself up for success. Wives should also read ahead and consider how they might reinforce the lessons from family worship to their children during the day. Perhaps they bring those core ideas up during a nap time, or pray them over the child as they go to sleep in the evening. There will need to be intentional effort on the part of both parents to arrange schedules in such a way that family worship is a logistical and practical reality in the home.
Invite
A final practical note, especially in modern culture, would be to open up your home to others. Tara and I have made a habit of inviting people over for dinner and doing family worship with them, but if I am being honest, we have not made the inclusion of others a regular part of our family worship. So families, consider your church family. If there are any people in the church who do not have a spouse, seek them out, and seek to include them in your family worship.
If you have an established habit of worshipping in your home, this might mean a fixed time of day where there is an open invite. This was the habit of many forefathers in the faith, including Corrie Ten Boom’s family. She describes their habit and their inclusion of others, “Father stood up and took the big brass-hinged Bible from its shelf as Toos and Hans rapped on the door and came in. Scripture reading at 8:30 each morning for all who were in the house was another of the fixed points around which life in the [house] revolved.”7 Toos and Hans were included in the Ten Boom family’s habit of worship, and we would be well served to follow the model of that faithful family.
Conclusion
If you do all these things, then remember you are not only obeying scripture, but you are blessing your children with a spiritual inheritance. To practice religion in the home, to make our households into little churches, is the prescribed manner to address the loss of future generations. As we do these things let us never forget that, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps 127:1).
So raise your children in the faith. Teach them as you rise, as you eat meals, as you tuck them in at night. Let their habits of life be formed to prioritize their chief end—glorifying God and enjoying him forever.
Discussion Questions
Do you have a current practice of family worship? If yes, what does it look like?
What is one area of family worship you are trying to grow in?
Do you open up your home to guests? Have you sought to include others in family worship with your family?
If you are unmarried, what does applying family worship look like for you? How can you prepare now for the future? Are you able to practice family worship now?
John Chrysostom, Eight Sermons on the Book of Genesis, 105.
WCF 21.6.
Directory for Family Worship, Paragraph 2.
J. W. Alexander, Thoughts on Family Worship, 212.
Tertullian, To My Wife.
Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place, 14.
