How to Plan for Family Worship

Family worship, family devotions, family time with the Lord, whatever you want to call it, is not an easy discipline to tackle. I’ve found that few things make men both more intimidated and more insecure of their parenting than family worship. They know they need it, and they want to lead in it, but they don’t know what to do or where to start. So, they end up not doing it, and then they feel insecure as a dad.

Super spiritual dad Daryl down the street does it, but you don’t think you could ever be Daryl. Let me encourage you today, you don’t have to be a super-dad for effective family devotions. You don’t need a seminary degree. You don’t need more time. And you don’t need to be Daryl. You only need to think practically and think resourcefully. To maximize family worship, let me encourage you to evaluate the time God has given you and the tools God has given you.

Making the Best Use of the Time

I used to be a warehouse manager of an art gallery. I would do a quick overview inventory about twice a month. I only checked the sales shelves and highest-selling products. About every 6 months, though, I’d do a full inventory. I’d count everything in the warehouse and evaluate our resources.

Let me encourage you to inventory your time. Look through your whole week in detail and see if you’re maximizing your resources. Count every day, every hour, and even every minute. Where your time is, there your heart is also. Perhaps you’ll find the reason you don’t practice family worship somewhat regularly is reflective of your entire schedule. If your inventory of time lacks regular Christian moments, family worship will undoubtedly be lacking as well. Let me give you a few practical thoughts here:

1. Sit down with your spouse. Look through the schedule together.
2. Tweak, don’t overhaul. You’re not looking for an hour of family worship every day. You’re looking for moments.
3. Plan for brevity. Relieve yourself of the pressure of over-zealousness and over-preparedness. You’re looking for 5–8 minutes in your schedule.
4. Identify consistent times. Eg. don’t have your family worship on a Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at different times. Plan for the same 5–8 minute window every day. Maybe the best time is right at the outset of dinner. Maybe it’s first thing in the morning before work. Maybe it’s a Facetime from your work break. Maybe it’s part of your bed-time routine. Whatever time you choose, choose the same time consistently.
5. Better late than never. Don’t be discouraged if you’re “behind.” God is patient and he honors our efforts. It would be better for your children to say “dad started family devotions in high school” than “eh we didn’t really do family devotions.” If your children are grown, it’s not too late! Ask them to read the Bible with you and shoot a text with your thoughts. Read a good Christian book with them. The fruit of God’s working through our labors doesn’t have an expiration date.

Making the Best Use of the Tools

You don’t need to read the church fathers, expound lengthy texts, or teach your kids systematic theology. God gave you perfectly sufficient tools. Let me encourage you to take Colossians 3:16 here.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

1. Read and recite the Bible. If you want the Bible to rule in your children you must regularly expose them to it. Read a few verses, pray, then call it a day. If you want to level it up, read and recite the Bible. Take Psalm 23 or the Lord’s Prayer (or anything else!) and memorize it with them. Take one or two lines a day, say them a lot with your kids. We even take turns making up silly hand gestures.
2. Sing with your kids. Kids love to sing and singing teaches us theology and the Scriptures uniquely. So sing! We usually sing one casual Sunday school song and a hymn. So singing day for family worship this morning was The B-I-B-L-E and In Christ Alone. Then we prayed, and called it a day.
3. Give thanks. We used to do “Thanksgiving Thursday” but we’ve switched it up. Now we do blessings or thanksgivings on Friday morning. This is so fun. We say things we’re thankful for about God, about one-another, about the week, about our church, or about whatever we’re thankful for. Even when it gets silly, thankful for dessert, or for pets, or for anything childish, our children are recognizing that everything about life is grace. Thanksgiving is a first fruit of grace living and orients us all to grace.
4. Pray and call it a day. Ask them each a request and then remind them of a need. Maybe pray for someone in the church or a family need or for one another. One of my greatest joys as a father is hearing my children pray. God hears them and delights in them. So we should encourage them to go before the throne of grace.

Here’s a sample schedule:

• Monday: Read a passage, ask how it helps us, pray.
• Tuesday: Memorize half a verse (different from Monday’s passage), ask how it helps us, pray.
• Wednesday: Memorize the second half of Tuesday’s verse. Say both halves together. Pray.
• Thursday: Thanksgiving, pray.
• Friday: Sing (keep the songs diverse from week to week), pray.
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Lord’s Day, pray on the way to church.

You should know, I’m writing this in a recent season of spottyness in our family worship schedule. I’m not nailing consistency of late. It happens. There’s grace to start new or to start over. Pick up the tools. It’s worth the work!

For more on Family Worship check out Zach’s “Help for Family Devotions” or Kris’s “Getting Started with Family Worship” articles.