# Encouraging families in their family worship



## StevieG (Jun 13, 2022)

I was wondering if anyone who is in leadership in their church has experience of trying to encourage families in their congregations to commit to times of family worship at home? I'm thinking both of discussion the importance of why we do it and also helping with the practicalities of actually doing it. 

How did you go about starting the discussions? 
Were there specfic resources that you found helpful?
Did you make up your own plan to help families work through the Bible together?
If yes to the last question, did you make it tie in with what it being taught on Sundays or something different?
Did you take a Sunday after church (or another time) to bring families together and try to model it with the group?
This is something that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't really been talked about in my church before. I'm hoping to try and start working towards helping develop this in my church over the next few months and maybe have a plan in place to run with by September if possible.

Thanks in advance.

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## Polanus1561 (Jun 13, 2022)

Is there a formal exhortation to parents to raise their children in the ways of God during infant baptisms? That would be the 'start of the discussion' (which they confessed)


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## Jake (Jun 13, 2022)

I know this is not exactly what you're asking for, but my denomination has a couple of resources which may be helpful:

* A Directory for Private and Family Worship which is being finalized: http://arpchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Directory-of-Private-Family-Worship-2021.pdf
* A published list of helpful resources for the task: http://arpchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Resources-for-Private-and-Family-Worship.pdf


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## Jack K (Jun 13, 2022)

As with most changes being made in a church, it helps to have several layers of teaching and resources that pile up over time. Be patient, and look for multiple ways to bring up the topic and help families dive into the practice. This should not be one effort you launch and run for a while, but rather an ongoing effort you persistently weave into all of church life.

The topic should be addressed from the pulpit in the church's normal course of preaching. There doesn't necessarily need to be a single sermon about family worship, but the main preacher should have it in mind and bring it up as he sees opportunities. If it isn't being supported in the church's preaching ministry, families will tend to think it's optional or is one person's pet project. In your case, this means the first person you need to sell the idea to is your pastor.
At the same time, bring it up in the church's other teaching. Especially if the church has men's groups, make it a big theme within those groups. Dad is typically the family member who will be most resistant or feel most threatened by the idea of starting family worship. So, especially bring the matter up to dads in manly settings. A common mistake is for a church that has a children's program to assign the person who runs stuff for kids to the task of encouraging family worship. But dads tend to respond better when the most visible effort comes through channels seen as more manly: from the pulpit, in men's groups, over a beer with the pastor, or whatever fits your church's vibe.
Include a take-home, family element to tie in with church teaching wherever you can. If you have children's or youth lessons, include a take-home paper for the parents (handed to dad if possible). If you preach a sermon, create simple family discussion questions or follow-up study. If you're starting a sermon series, make an at-home follow-along booklet. And so on. Many people won't use these. But the mere fact that these resources are always around will help communicate how important this sort of thing is. Creating such resources often feels time-consuming, but by investing _your_ time you signal to families that family worship is worth _their_ time.
Be personal. You're asking families to make a lifestyle change, and that's a big commitment. Such changes are helped along by one-on-one encouragement. Develop mentors who can spend time coming alongside the newbies, and be one yourself. Mentoring doesn't have to be formally structured, but some intentional and personal mentoring often helps parents get started.
Create the occasional setting that gets parents and kids learning, discussing, and praying aloud side by side. Modelling a "this is how you do it" family-worship demonstration probably is a bad idea, since families need space to do what works for them rather than a template given to everyone alike. But something like a whole-family Sunday school class, with teaching that engages everyone and times to discuss and pray as a family or alongside another family, can help break the ice if a family doesn't usually do these things together. In some families, kids seldom see their parents diving into the Bible, discussing spiritual things, or praying. A planned event where this happens can help everyone in the family get more comfortable with it, paving the way for it to happen regularly at home.
Make sure you have many helpful resources available, at many different levels, so parents can pick something that works for them. Some resources will tie in to other church teaching, and some will not. Some you will create yourself, and others you won't. It is usually a mistake to try to find the "best," most robust resource for family worship and then present it as _the_ Reformed way to do it, or _the_ way our church should do it. This creates pressure and results in scared or discouraged parents. The best resource is one the parent (especially dad) feels good about and wants to use, which means there will be huge variation from one family to another. You want to have both super-easy ways to start (for those who will never start otherwise) and super-rich ways to go deep (for those whose family worship has become stale, or for dads who already know everything and have stopped learning alongside their kids). Some families will feel more comfortable using a resource created by you, but others will be either too arrogant or too intimidated to ever use a resource created by you. Accept this, and communicate that there are many good ways and good resources for family worship.

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## Romans922 (Jun 13, 2022)

Your presbyterian, talk to your Session.


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## jwithnell (Jun 13, 2022)

Jack K said:


> As with most changes being made in a church, it helps to have several layers of teaching and resources that pile up over time. Be patient, and look for multiple ways to bring up the topic and help families dive into the practice. This should not be one effort you launch and run for a while, but rather an ongoing effort you persistently weave into all of church life.
> 
> The topic should be addressed from the pulpit in the church's normal course of preaching. There doesn't necessarily need to be a single sermon about family worship, but the main preacher should have it in mind and bring it up as he sees opportunities. If it isn't being supported in the church's preaching ministry, families will tend to think it's optional or is one person's pet project. In your case, this means the first person you need to sell the idea to is your pastor.
> At the same time, bring it up in the church's other teaching. Especially if the church has men's groups, make it a big theme within those groups. Dad is typically the family member who will be most resistant or feel most threatened by the idea of starting family worship. So, especially bring the matter up to dads in manly settings. A common mistake is for a church that has a children's program to assign the person who runs stuff for kids to the task of encouraging family worship. But dads tend to respond better when the most visible effort comes through channels seen as more manly: from the pulpit, in men's groups, over a beer with the pastor, or whatever fits your church's vibe.
> ...


As a pew-dweller I see this as spot-on.

Rather than seeing worship at home as a program to start, approach it as normative: "In your family's prayers tomorrow, would you consider praying for ..." or "During your family devotions this week, you should consider revisiting this text ..." or "My family was really blessed last week as we learned xyz hymn or psalm."

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## Jake (Jun 13, 2022)

Romans922 said:


> Your presbyterian, talk to your Session.


I think it's a fair question for a student for the ministry to be reflecting on beyond just their own Session's input.

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## Romans922 (Jun 13, 2022)

Jake said:


> I think it's a fair question for a student for the ministry to be reflecting on beyond just their own Session's input.



Reflecting sure. However, he is saying this isn't really taught in the congregation. So go to the Session and say, "Look it seems this is required in Scripture, but this doesn't seem to be taught here. What's going on?" Start there and move from that. I.e. before possibly stirring up division in the church, go to the Session and seek wisdom.


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## ZackF (Jun 13, 2022)

StevieG said:


> I was wondering if anyone who is in leadership in their church has experience of trying to encourage families in their congregations to commit to times of family worship at home? I'm thinking both of discussion the importance of why we do it and also helping with the practicalities of actually doing it.
> 
> How did you go about starting the discussions?
> Were there specfic resources that you found helpful?
> ...


I'm not an elder but only a father. Encourage families to do something. Don't address the issue of no family worship with a notion of having to adopt perfectly elegant family worship. Over time a family's practice will expand but even if the whole enchilada isn't possible every day, try not to miss it all together. If I'm not home to do it, my wife at least reads passage of the bible and prays with the girls.

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## StevieG (Jun 14, 2022)

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying. Thank you for taking the time to engage with this question.

@John Yap Yes, parents and the congregation are charged with helping to raise a child in the faith at baptism, but the answer generally comes back with people don't know how. Rightly or wrongly that is sadly the default position of many people I know, not just within this church. 

@Jake These look like that could be helpful, thank you!

@Romans922 I appreciate the encouragement to remember the spiritual authority and respect the session deserves, this is a project that I have been asked to undertake as part of my time training in the church. It doesn't seem like anyone has really considered the question up until now, other than acknowledging it is something to be encouraged. Apologies if I didn't give enough detail in my original post.

@Jack K thanks for the thorough response, there is a lot of helpful advice here to consider. I agree, the idea is to work towards making this simply a natural part of family life, which will need to look at least slightly different for each family at the different stages of family development, so some flexibility will always be needed. The hope is to show that this isn't something that is a burden to be ticked off as we go, but a joy and blessing that can be done in simple yet deeply edifying ways that grow families closer to Christ.


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## Jack K (Jun 14, 2022)

StevieG said:


> I agree, the idea is to work towards making this simply a natural part of family life, which will need to look at least slightly different for each family at the different stages of family development, so some flexibility will always be needed.


Added note: Even more than stages of family development (like the ages of the children), what to recommend depends on the level of _spiritual_ development of the parents specifically. A wise shepherd may know there is a particularly lush pasture many miles away, but he will not try to lead his sheep there in a single day. So, get to know your sheep and consider how far each is able to travel. Encourage each to advance a gentle day's journey, which will depend on their starting point. Get them into the Word and prayer however that is accessible to them, so that those who are starving begin to be fed.

Edifying family worship does not come first of all from the richness of the content, but rather from confident and eager parents who keep walking forward in faith—who begin feeding on whatever they can reach, and keep at it. Encourage those parents by pointing them to resources that engage them and feel doable, so that the parents stick with it. In time, they will reach even tastier pastures.

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## Andres (Jun 15, 2022)

I am a RE. We discuss the expectation of family worship in new member's classes before families join the congregation and then revisit the topic during annual home visits. Of course, it comes up regularly during sermons and other points also. Basically, it's known in our congregation that is it expected of families and we give instruction on how to do it

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