In one of my sermons this past summer, I referred to what are called “intentional Christian communities.” These are groups of Christians who move into a house together (or homes on the same street or in the same apartment building), who tend to hold many possessions and tasks in common (shared groceries and meals, babysitting coops, etc.), and who structure their days in an intentionally Christian way through Christian worship and Christian service to others, while usually holding regular jobs as well. Very often the group of Christians who live in the house together come together not only for meals but for morning and evening prayer and, perhaps, for Bible study or other spiritual disciplines. It is very much like monastic life, just in the midst of “the world” instead of separated from it. The new intentional Christian communities are different than monasteries, however, because on Sunday mornings (and other times for mission work) they step outside of the home and gather with the covenant community of believers for worship, discipleship, and fellowship. This is intentional Christian community, and I believe that families—whether that is the traditional nuclear family, a single parent home, grandparents raising children, an empty nest couple, a multi-generational home (the most common form of family in history until recent times), or more than one family living together—are called to be intentional Christian communities as well.
Families are already a community or at least they should be. In most families there is already shared property (“our house” and “our groceries”) and hopefully there is some sense of shared purpose, although usually that could use some clarifying. There is very often a hierarchy (parents in charge) and there are rules (do your homework, home by ten, etc.) But how often, I wonder, in speaking of Christian families (whatever form they may take), is the community of the family intentionally Christian? Should it be? And if it should be, would it be that difficult to lead my family in the direction of being an intentional Christian community?
Well, I believe that I’ve already made the case in the past few weeks’ blog posts that a family of Christians should be an intentional Christian community. Does this mean that we don’t have to be involved in a local congregation anymore? No, it does not mean that. What it means is that on Sunday mornings (and some other times) the church is a gathering of the big family of the covenant community. During the rest of the week, however, for those who live in families, it is the little church of the family that is operable. Remembering that Jesus seems to have viewed family as being a possible obstacle to discipleship when the family stands in the way of one of its members following Jesus, I still believe that a family can be the ultimate training ground and cradle of unconditional love that can do more than any other aspect of the Church to spur its members on to discipleship in Jesus and a living and active role in the larger covenant family of the Church. As many people have experienced, when the family’s religious practices and their lifestyles and ways of treating one another do not match, then the family can be the ultimate obstacle to discipleship in Jesus and a living and active role in the Church. A great football coach once said, “Discipline without love is harassment.” Coming from one of the toughest coaches of his era, that’s really saying something. How many parents have harassed or abused their children to a point where they cannot experience the gospel as anything positive? A great number to be sure. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t operate our families as intentional Christian communities. What it means is that we must do it prayerfully, humbly, with the compassion and unconditional love of God as made manifest in Jesus Christ, and motivated by as pure a heart as the Holy Spirit can grant us. In other words, don’t avoid doing it just because it has been done wrong; do it right.
Over the past several weeks I have been making the case, based on the Scriptures, church history, and the findings of both large studies and anecdotal ministry experience, that it is the responsibility of parents to raise their kids to be mature Christians. The local congregation helps in doing this, but in this particular area of life the congregation plays a supporting role to the parents’ leading role in what amounts to evangelism and discipleship training with their own children. It has been my observation that families that do not provide additional worship and discipleship in the home very often raise kids that are either nominal Christians with little commitment to the community of faith or raise kids that end up not being Christian at all. Don’t get me wrong; living as an intentional Christian community (family worship, discipleship training, and service to those in need) does not guarantee that our kids will become mature lifelong Christians who are invested in the life of a local congregation. Nothing can guarantee that. However, when family worship and discipleship training are done in consistent, heartfelt, gentle, and loving ways that are matched by the everyday example of discipleship in the parents, it raises the chances exponentially of us raising kids that become mature lifelong Christians who are invested in the life of a local congregation. As Mark Devries, a contemporary Presbyterian youth pastor in Nashville, writes, “Research now shows that parents who simply talk about faith in the home and who involve their children in serving alongside them can actually double and sometimes triple their children’s chances of living out their faith as adults.”
You may already be leading your family in daily family worship. If so, I commend you and I ask you to keep reading anyway as you might get some additional encouragement and ideas from this post. If you think that daily family worship is unrealistic or a bad idea I will just go ahead and tell you that I think you are wrong. My hope is that you will keep reading as well so that you might see another side to the issue. Perhaps your dislike for family worship goes deeper than just thinking it is unrealistic. Maybe your parents piously led family worship each night after supper and then the rest of the time they beat you, molested you, neglected you, or called you nasty names. If that happened to you then I am very sorry for your abusive experience of parental hypocrisy. But I also would like to remind you that the problem wasn’t family worship; the problem was that your parents were not living the Christian life. You have the opportunity to do things differently with your own kids. You can be the parents who read the Scriptures, sing, and pray with your kids and who the rest of the time live a life of faithfulness to God and genuine love and peace toward your family. You cannot undo your past experience with family worship, but you can allow God to redeem it.
So let’s (finally) get to what family worship actually is. First I want to spend some time on the importance of family worship in the life of a Christian home and in the fulfillment of Christian parental responsibilities. Then we will explore what family worship actually entails.
Daily family worship was so important to the 17th Century Scottish Presbyterians that in 1647, as a part of the gatherings that resulted in the Westminster Confession and Westminster Catechisms, which have guided Presbyterians ever since, the assembly authored the “Directory for Family Worship.” As a part of this directory, pastors and elders were instructed that they were to enquire with families as to whether or not they were observing daily family worship. If they were found to be neglecting this parental responsibility the head of the household was to be admonished privately on the first offense, reprimanded by the session on the second offense, and on the third offense the head of household was to be barred from the Lord’s Supper as unworthy of partaking of the Sacrament. The assembly goes on to prescribe prayer that includes praying at least for the Church and for each member of the family, the singing of praises, the reading of Scripture, review of catechism, and discussion of proper Christian behavior toward one another and toward our neighbors. A major justification they give for this is that, among other things, daily family worship will grant the benefit that each member of the family will get more out of public worship on Sundays if they’ve been worshiping with their family on Monday through Saturday. While I think we’d all be in trouble if we started barring people from the Lord’s Supper for all the reasons that Presbyterians did back then, I offer us this historical perspective to show how important it is to worship as a family in addition to worshiping with the gathered congregation and to show that family worship is a part of our particular tradition as Presbyterians. Family worship has also been an assumed occurrence within the church throughout much of history. As I mentioned earlier, this is especially true within the churches that come out of the Reformed movement of the 16th Century, which includes the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Moving forward 300 years from the Westminster Assembly we find that in the 1947 Presbyterian Book of Common Worship includes morning and evening prayers for use in daily family worship in the home. Then in our current 2013 version of the Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church (USA) we find this guidance:
“When Christians live together in a family or in a household they should observe times of worship together. When it is possible to worship together daily, households may engage in table prayer (which may be accompanied by the use of Scripture and song), morning and evening prayer, Bible reading (as well as study, reflection, and memorization), singing psalms, hymns, spirituals, and other songs, and expressions of giving and sharing. Given the complexity of schedules and the separations incurred in daily occupations, it is especially important to cultivate the discipline of regular household worship (W-5.7001).”
Our current Book of Order continues:
“The parents or those exercising parental responsibility should teach their children about Christian worship by example, by providing for household worship, and by discussion and instruction. Children join in household worship by praying and singing, listening to and telling Bible stories, reading and memorizing, leading and sharing, and enacting and responding. Children should be taught appropriate elements of worship used regularly in the Service for the Lord’s Day” (W-5.7002).
You see, you don't have to be a Mennonite or a Primitive Baptist to have daily family worship. In fact, as I've demonstrated, it is expected (both historically and currently) of families within the Presbyterian Church (USA). "But nobody ever told me!" you say. Well, nobody ever told me either. I'm just figuring this out too. But now we know, and new knowledge always requires a response--acceptance, further investigation, or rejection. Something must be done with new knowledge. What will we do with the knowledge that, as Christians, as Presbyterians even, we should be running our families as intentional Christian communities?
I've given you the Westminster prescription for family worship, as well as the prescription from our current Book of Order. What might that look like in your own family? Is there something you could start soon? Next week (I promise!) I will describe for you how we operate our home as an intentional Christian community, what our family worship looks like, the joy we are experiencing from it, the growth we already see in our kids after just a few weeks, and what else we plan to do in the near future to add to our family's worship and discipleship. I will also share with you specific resources that I actually own and have tried.
Grace and Peace to All of You!
Everett
