Simple Steps for Family Worship — Part 2
We began a series on family worship last week to encourage Christian families in this vital but often neglected area. Family worship shouldn't be a burden to avoid, but a joy to look forward to each day.
In part 1, R.C. Sproul Jr. shared how his family addresses timing, what to do when you're with guests or away from home, and catechism memory work. If you haven't read it yet, please do. Today, he continues with the topics of Scripture memory, Scripture reading, and prayer.
Remember, this is not a "Sproul Jr. liturgy" that we all must follow, but a practical example we pray will be helpful.
Scripture Memory
Then we move on to Bible memory. We have a "complicated" system for that, too. Right now our family is working through the Psalms, so every day we recite one of the psalms we have learned and we work on a new psalm. Don't be overly impressed; we are only up to twelve. I don't know what we're going to do when they get really long. When we get to Psalm 119, then you can be impressed. But again, we use the same system. I say a verse or part of a verse, and the kids repeat it. My older kids make fun of me because I have my Bible open as I'm helping them learn these things, but they know many of the psalms by heart.
Scripture Reading
Then we move to Scripture reading. We have done our Scripture readings in different ways. Sometimes we read a book of the Bible. Sometimes, when we have a new child who is very small, we use one of the children's Bible storybooks. I want to give them a very basic understanding of the flow of Scripture. Right now we're going through one of those Bible storybooks where Jesus has eyes that look like Ping-Pong balls.
I read the story, then I give my sermon, and my sermons are typically twenty to thirty seconds long. I give the children some sort of lesson from the text. I want to bring the text to bear on their lives and mine.
This gives me an opportunity to practice the first corollary to the "R. C. Sproul Jr. principle of hermeneutics." Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation, and the R. C. Sproul Jr. principle of hermeneutics states that whenever you are reading your Bible and you see someone doing something really stupid, you must not say to yourself, "How can he be so stupid?" but "How am I more stupid?" The first corollary to this principle is that whenever you are reading a story in the Bible and you wonder who you are in the story, you are the sinner. If you are reading a story and there is more than one sinner, as in the parable of the prodigal son, you're both. So we read our Bible text and I ask: "Children, how are we like this person? And how are we like that person? And how am I like this person or that person?" That's the sermon.
Prayer
After the sermon, I take prayer requests. I ask, "Children, what would you like Daddy to pray for tonight?" Now, I encourage my children to pray. They pray before they go to bed. They pray at times during home-school. They pray on many occasions. But when we gather together for family worship, they don't pray. Why not? From the beginning, I have done the praying at family worship because I want to communicate to them—and, more importantly, to myself—the importance of the father's priestly role in the home. I am saying to them and to myself, "I am responsible, as the head of this home, to take you before the throne of God, to beseech the God of heaven and earth for your wellbeing."
In fact, when the children were younger, we even had a posture to help communicate this—again, more to me than to them. I would ask the little ones to come sit on my lap. I would take one on each leg, put my arms around the children, put my hands over their heads, and pray for them. I would ask God to bless them specifically. My son Campbell would ask every night, "Please ask God that we would grow in grace, in the fruit of the spirit, and in wisdom." God has blessed him with wisdom.
This series is adapted from material in R.C. Sproul Jr.'s contribution to Holy, Holy, Holy: Proclaiming the Perfections of God.
In the final installment next week, R.C. Sproul Jr. will discuss singing during family worship, and then address some objections.