Family Worship

I picked up the book Family Worship by Donald Whitney recently, and much like the book on hospitality by Rosaria Butterfield, I know it’ll change my life forever. 

The book had been on my Amazon wish list for at least a year, and then when I got the book as a Christmas gift, it sat on my bookshelf until a week or so ago. The book itself is almost more of a long form pamphlet on the topic of family worship, something that Whitney advocates we start practicing in our homes each day.

Whitney starts out by setting the historical/Biblical background for gathering together in whatever household unit we find ourselves in: parents with children, married couple, friends etc. He does this by showing how the ancient Israelites were commanded to teach their own households about Yahweh. In a time when church communities did not exist, each family head was responsible for passing on the truth to the next generation. Then, he goes on to do nothing less than explain why our doing so in our own households will change the world.

But don’t take it from me, listen to some of the titans of the past talk about family worship:

“They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another….Psalms and hymns they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices.”  -Tertullian

“…every house should be a church, and every head of a family a spiritual shepherd, remembering the account he must give even for his children.” -John Chrysostom

“Abraham had in his tent a house of God and a church, just as today any godly and pious head of a household instructs his children…in godliness. Therefore such a house is actually a school and church, and the head of the household is a bishop and priest in his house.”  -Martin Luther

“I willingly appeal to the experience of all the hold families in the world. Who ever used these duties seriously, and found not the benefits? What families be they, in which grace and heavenly-mindedness prosper, but those that use these duties? Compare in all your towns, cities, and villages, the families that read the Scriptures, pray, and praise God, with those that do not, and see the difference; which of them abound more with impiety, with oaths, and cursing, and railings, and drunkenness, and whoredoms, and worldliness, and such; and which abound most with faith, and patience, and temperance, and charity, and repentance, and hope, and such. The controversy is not hard to decide.”  -Richard Baxter

“If you love your children; if you would bring down the blessing of heaven upon your families: if you would have your children make their houses the receptacles of religion when they set up in life for themselves; if you would have religion survive in this place, and be conveyed from age to age; if you would deliver your own souls—I beseech, I entreat, I charge you to begin and continue the worship of God in your families from this day to the close of your lives….Consider family religion not merely as a duty imposed by authority, but as your greatest privilege granted by diving grace.”  -Samuel Davies

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There are plenty more gems contained in this little book, as well as a ‘how-to’ guide for getting started with worship in your own home. 

Can you imagine how the life of the south side of Columbus would change if we saw the practice of daily faithfulness in our households as the greatest privilege granted by divine grace rather than a duty imposed by an authority?

Won’t you join me in this most noble of quests?