A Simple Liturgy to Family Worship 

Catechism: (2 minutes) 

  1. The etymology of the word Catechism is to teach orally. We are to teach the faith to our children and spouses. By doing a couple questions a day, one can learn many important Biblical truths.As Presbyterians we have access to wonderful summaries of the Christian faith:
    1. Simplified for children, but educational for adults as well
      1. This book can be purchased here: https://westminsterkids.com/products/1025662484527
        1. The catechism can be viewed free here: https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-kids-catechism/
    2. The Westminster Shorter Catechism
    3. The Westminster Children’s Catechism

Scripture: (3-5 minutes)

  1. Read scripture each day to your family.
  2. Buy a family Bible if you can and engrave your name: “The Taber family”, to make it special.
    1. Read through the New Testament as a family. 5-10 verses a day will get you a long way over the course of time.
    2. Read through the Psalms or Proverbs. 
    3. If needed and especially for children, have a simple explanation of what you just read even if you key on one topic from the scripture you just read. 
    1. Ideas:

Sing one hymn or praise and worship song: (1-3 Minutes)

  1. Ideas:
    1. Purchase a Trinity Hymnal
    2. Sing one of the songs from the prior weeks Worship Service
    3. Sing the doxology or another commonly known song

Prayer: (2-5 minutes)

  1. Ask your children for prayer requests
  2. Have time for your children to pray aloud in a group petition.
  3. Pray for any unbelieving children and family members. 
  4. Pray for your church and Pastor
  5. Pray for your Government 

 

The Necessity of Family Worship

If one reads the Bible from cover-to-cover, they will find a common theme amongst God’s people: forgetfulness. God’s people are forgetful. We often beg God to do a great thing for us and then when he does, we quickly forget his great work. It is a rinse-and-repeat theme throughout scripture and reflected in God’s people today. 

Consider the Israelites in their deliverance from Egyptian Slavery in the book of Exodus. God by way of Moses tells the Israelites in Exodus 6:6: “Therefore say to the people of Israel: “I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm…” 

God not only does this, but of course does it in a way that only God can, by unveiling the miraculous as he uses Moses to part the Red Seas as the Israelites make their way out of Egypt. In the nick of time, as quickly as Pharaoh changed his mind and decided he might like to keep God’s people in captivity, God unleashed his mercy on his people by parting the Red Sea and his wrath by closing it back over the Egyptians. His people were free at last from the yoke of slavery. 

Not long after, the book of Numbers records that God’s people wanted to overthrow Moses’ leadership and “go back to Egypt” (Numbers 14:4), despite the promise by God to bring his people into a land that “flows with milk and honey”. The Christian must confess, we are not so different from the Israelites. We are forgetful. We forget God’s providence over our lives. We forget the mercies he bestows upon us. We forget the times we have cried out in prayer for deliverance and God quickly delivered us. If it is true that we forget so easily the anecdotal, lived experience, how often do we forget to take God at his Word? How frequently do we forget scripture and truth?

God designed three primary spheres/realms to grant Christians peace and stability in the World. Of course, by our falleness we have corrupted all three. The spheres are: 

  1. Family 
  2. Church
  3. Government 

The focus of this paper is on the family. It is my estimation that the Church, specifically King’s Cross Presbyterian Church, should equip the Christian to live faithfully in all three realms. To accomplish this in the family unit, this is best done by equipping the Father/Husband to lead in the home spiritually through devotion, prayer, scripture reading, and singing. It is the Male that has been given authority by God in the home to lead his family (1 Timothy 3:4).However, there are homes in which men are either physically absent or spiritually absent. In that case, we can read into Timothy’s story that it was his mother and grandmother who taught him the faith. A woman could gain the confidence of her husband and convert or mature him by leading when he abstains or abdicates. The Apostle Peter makes this same argument:

“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives..” (1 Peter 3:1, ESV)

Ordinarily, men are called to lead. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5:“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself with splendor, without spot or wrinkle…”

Christian men are called to a high standard, one that involves washing your bride in the Word of God just as Christ has washed us. 

Moreover, Christian parents are called to a high standard on rearing covenant children in the faith: 

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

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.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-8, ESV)

Thus, if we are to equip Christian children to live in a world that seeks to fracture the family, force upon us a secular worldview, and draw children and adolescents into sexual impurity, we must take heed of the command from Moses to teach our children at all times. We cannot leave the teaching solely to the Christian Educator, the Pastor, or Sunday School Teacher. Instead, it must start in the home. 

Moses records that it is to be frontlet between our eyes. A frontlet was an ornamental piece of clothing worn on the forehead. Educating our children in the faith is so instrumental that it should be as if the command were never out of our eyesight. It should be as if it were tattooed on our hands.