Family Worship: Practicing Faith in the Home

 

Workshop Time:  1 – 2 hours

Participants:  Pastors, Christian Educators, Parents with young children.

 

There is no doubt that many Christians in this generation have lost the desire to set aside time for daily personal devotion.  The busyness of lives surely accounts for this phenomenon.  There has also been a loss of family devotional time as well.  This time together as a family is essential for several reasons.  First, it draws families closer as they explore together the lessons of the scriptures, pray together, and sing praise to God.  Second, it is a time for spiritual growth and development.  Third, it is a time for parents to pass on their personal faith history to their children.  Finally, it serves as a preamble to the gathering of the body in community on a common day of worship.  In this manner the hearing of faith stories in the home is foundational to spiritual formation in worship.

 

The purpose of this workshop is to provide pastors and Christian educators with the tools they need to inspire family devotional life in their congregation.  Participants will be given a basic four-fold model for lectionary-based home worship and will be pointed to resources that use various arts media to demonstrate biblical concepts.  They will then be able to train parents to plan and lead creative worship experiences in the home.  The primary goal for this workshop is to encourage an ongoing habit of individual and family worship that will make corporate worship more meaningful for both children and adults.  NOTE:  This workshop is also available for parents with young children. 

 

Biblical, Theological, and Historical Considerations

 

Foundational to the workshop is exploration of biblical passages related to the spiritual growth and development.  The focus is mainly on the family customs and culture intended for this purpose.  Highlighted passages are the mandates to train children in the ways of the Lord (Prov 22:6; 4:1-7), the charge to parents to be responsible for their child’s spiritual welfare (Deut 6:7, 11:19; Gen 18:19; Eph 6:4), and the child’s obligation to heed the advice (Prov 13:1, 30:11-17; Exod 20:12). 

 

The workshop explores various theological resources to gain perspective on the role of the home and the church in the process of spiritual formation.  Also discussed is spiritual formation as it concerns preparation for worship.  Related to that is the debate in the scholarly community over the integration of catechesis and doxology, the natural synthesis of spiritual formation and worship, and the means by which one might strike an appropriate balance between the two.  The workshop leader will discuss the discipline of both corporate and individual worship and explore how families might maintain that discipline during every season of the Christian year.  He will also look at how the church has encouraged personal growth and development outside the walls of the church, primarily in the family, throughout history.  We will also look at the concept of family altar in the early church and in contemporary life and Jewish family life and traditions.

 

 

Social, Cultural, and Ministerial Realities

 

Participants will be asked to consider their ministerial setting and congregational culture and share potential challenges that may arise when trying to implement a plan for family worship.  Large-group discussion will be encouraged.

 

 

Practical Application

 

Participants will be presented with various models for home worship based on a four-fold worship pattern prevalent in traditional worship design: Entrance, Word, Response, and Dismissal.  Participants will then work in small groups to 1) do creative brain-storming around using the arts to prepare people for worship; 2) plan a five- to ten-minute home-worship experience to present to the large group.

 

 

Typical Workshop Schedule

 

  1. Introduction, ice-breaker, and goals for the workshop (10-15 minutes)

  2. Biblical, theological, and historical considerations and discussion (20 minutes)

  3. Social, cultural, and ministry realities and discussion (20 minutes)

  4. Break (5-10 minutes)

  5. Small-group work (20 minutes)

  6. Large-group sharing and wrap up (20 minutes)