The Westminster Standards and Family Worship

I first learned about family worship from the relatives of my Dutch wife. Observing families The Netherlands read the Bible, sing and pray together, after the evening meals, set me on a new course for life. It has been a joy for our family to read, hear and discuss the Bible after evening meals and this time has been one of the places our children have learned to pray. It is important that children learn to pray and not only listen to the parents pray. This is a safe environment for learning.

An ideal document for family worship is the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In the new book called "The Westminster Standards for Today" , there is an excellent essay by Rev Chad Bailey called "The Westminster Standards and Family Worship: Maintaining True Religion in the Home". Chad humbly and clearly explains the blessing of such historic practices and the book is worth the price for this essay alone.

We must pray for the joyful recovery of family worship in our own generation. Family worship must never replace involvement in the church and fathers must not absent themselves from public worship services by excusing that they are stopping at home to catechise their children. Children belong to the Lord and the church has its place to instruct children, beyond the family structures, to support, encourage and disciple children under the oversight of elders and parents.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" Ephesians 6:1-4.

' “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates' Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

Let us pray with faith for a global recovery of family worship for covenant parents and children, for the glory of God!