It’s happened to all of us. We sit down to do family worship together, everyone takes their seats or places, and someone asks, “So what are we doing?” An adult starts feverishly flipping pages in a Bible or a children’s bible looking for something to read and discuss, something new but not too obscure. The adult flips to the back cover, then flips pages in the opposite direction, kids start to squirm and shut down, or worse, they begin to unravel. When the text is finally decided upon, it’s read out loud, and some questions are asked, but there’s no real point or direction to them. We muscled through it, but somehow it felt less than we’d hoped for. It felt like a chore and not a shared grace.
If you wait to decide WHAT you will do for family worship until you sit down to do it, you waited too long. A little planning ahead makes family worship painless, reliably predictable, and more purposeful for everyone.
Here’s a DIY template you can use to plan family worship on your own.
What BIBLE text will you read: Careful - not too much or too little. Should intuitively be a complete story or teaching. AND pick something you can read ALL WEEK! You don’t need a new passage each day! Sloooow down. Soak in the text for a while. Plan once for the ENTIRE week.
Where is the GOSPEL in this text? This is the point! The gospel is life and relief and rescue, and without it, we are just law-keepers. Law-keeping is exhausting and withering. So look for the gospel - where do we see our insufficiency and the sufficiency of Jesus hinted at, or glimpsed, or declared in this passage? You should be able to state it in ONE sentence that can be repeated all week to close your discussion.
What QUESTIONS do you want to ask from the passage (maybe TWO each day) that lead to the gospel? Start with the simplest questions first. Build in complexity through the week. For YOUNG worshipers, stick to the simple questions and repeat them all week. Repetition is good pedagogy.
Are there verses in this text you can use each night to begin your time of PRAYER together? Write out your introduction into the prayer time. It’s not a sin, and spontaneity isn’t more spiritual, it’s just more spontaneous, and sometimes it’s more sloppy and stammering. And by the way, sloppy stammering prayers are okay, too. Our prayers aren’t more effective through eloquence.
What will you SING? Maybe you can think of a song that fits closely with the text, or maybe not. Maybe you just want to sing a verse or two of a favorite song. Have lyrics ready and printed beforehand!
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