Family Worship

Over the last two weeks Sonya and I have read a booklet about bringing the gospel to covenant children (very convicting) and one on the duty of family worship both by Joel Beeke.

We also bought a family worship resource book by Terry L. Johnson which has everything you might want for family worship:

1. Bible reading plan
2. Children’s Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism
3. Bible memory verses (with leading lines)
4. Family Psalter/Hymnal
5. Creeds (Apostles, Nicene, Westminster)
6. A great section on constructing family prayer ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication)
7. And a bunch of other useful stuff
   

We are not at full blown worship but are using the following elements:

1. Prayer of invocation – one of the girls asking for God to bless our time of devotion
2. Reciting the Apostles Creed or 4-5 questions from the Children’s Catechism
3. Bible reading and discussion - we are covering the life of Elijah (I Kings 17 – II Kings 2)
4. Assign reading for the next devotion
5. Then we construct a family prayer using the ACTS model. The girls, daddy, and momma make requests and suggestions to meet all the ACTS elements and Sonya records them in a prayer journal. Then I lead the prayer that the family has constructed. We end it together with the Lord’s Prayer.
   

The whole thing takes about 30 minutes and the girls absolutely love it. We have started out by committing time each Tuesday and Saturday night for the worship/devotion and will expand as the Lord leads. What a blessing!