Family Worship Isn’t a New Thing or a Fad

Our church is starting to use the New City Catechism with kids, youth, and adults. And it is a powerful tool to start or augment your family worship at home too. Is it a new trend for churches like ours? Nope!

1647 brought the Westminster Confession and Catechisms into the world. These doctrinal statements were a great gift to the church. But they are more than statements, they are tools. The Confession was intentionally designed with catechisms—teaching tools—to help believers know the truths of the Bible.

You might know all of that. But here is something that many don’t know: in that same year, 1647, the Scottish church approved “The Directory for Family Worship.” This short document was put together to help, encourage, and challenge families (especially dads) teach the truths of their faith in their home, in their “little church.” Here are some quotes from a modern version to give you a feel for what was being taught:

• Church leaders help families to grow in family-discipleship with resources, encouragement, and example. “The leading men and all the elders of the Church should stir up themselves and their own families to this practice. Not only that, but they should also agree to try and introduce family worship into all the families they have under their spiritual care.”
• Family worship has always been hard, but we are to keep pressing on in the face of all challenges. It is worth it. “The exercise of family worship should be sincere, and without delay, avoiding all worldly distractions, and hindrances, and in spite of any scorn from atheists and worldly men.” 
• Family worship isn’t rocket-science. The head of the family should “read the scriptures plainly to the family. After this, it is commendable that there be some discussion and application of what has been read.”
• In the church, we are called to help one another to faithfully care for the sheep that God has given to us to shepherd. “This common encouragement comes by instruction, admonition, and rebuke, as each exhorts the other to show the grace of God by denying ungodliness and worldly lusts; in living godly, soberly and righteously in the world; and by comforting the faint hearted and praying with and for one another.”

I won’t keep quoting (for now), but I want to make it clear that this isn’t a new thing or a fad. Our church is investing in family-discipleship in the same way that Christians have done throughout history. And you can be a part of the plan that God has used for family discipleship throughout history as well.