Family Worship III: The Elders in My Home

Family worship, as I have stated before, begins with a strong Corporate worship on the Lord's Day. Families need to be trained in the proper methods of worship by the Elders of the church for the edification of the home. Worship needs to be taught to the congregation since the natural man tends to worship that which is created instead of the Creator when left to his own devices.
I have a course this semester, taught by Dr. Joel Beeke entitled, Ministers in Ministry. We have many great works to read in the course including Spurgeon, Bridges, Logan, and Murphey. All of the books deal with Pastoral Theology but this one deals with some more current theological trends as well.

Armstrong has a paragraph that is written in passing that I would like to share with you concerning family worship:

"In addition, we must teach God's people to discipline their minds in worship, so that wandering thoughts will not disrupt them during their worship. However, if such thoughts do invade their worship, we must teach them that their response must be, 'bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name'. Finally we must faithfully instruct the whole assembly on how to implement and maintain daily private and family worship times in their homes. In so doing, we will teach them that their preparation for the next Lord's Day begins Monday morning and continues throughout their week, in both private and family worship. One of the many great ways that daily family worship benefits public worship is in helping God's people to sing out with joy. A mark of a congregation's God-centeredness in public worship is how they sing from their hearts." (p139)

Notice that the the first line says, "we must teach God's people.." The we mentioned is the ministry. This is your ruling and teaching elders. It is their responsibility before God to teach the congregation how to worship privately.

Discussion Points:
-Have your elders ever taught you how to conduct family worship? Have they questioned you on your practices?
-What model would elders use to implement family worship in the home?
-If this is not being taught by your congregation what are some tactful ways to bring this to their attention?