The third best thing about Heaven (if you're a boy)

In family worship last night the kids had some questions about what Heaven would be like.

I excitedly brought up some of the greatest things about the world to come. "There's no sin, no pain", but before I could mention the ultimate benefit of Heaven, my oldest son interrupted, bursting out with this, "And there's no bathtubs!"

That caused the other boys' eyes to grow large with wonder and expectation. I expect Eli is now working on his next song, "Amazing love how can it be, no need for bathtubs in Heaven for me!"

Trinity Hymnal now on-line

Here's the link to a listing of all the hymns in the Trinity Hymnal. You can also click a button to hear the tune.

This will improve our family worship time!

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. Here's an example: family worship in Halloween costumes. I must be becoming a liberal (theologically speaking).

Bedtime routines

Pastor John Piper recently answered a question on how he handles spiritual training in the home. It's short and good, especially this part:

"And then when we put them to bed, we tucked them in, blessed them with

The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace,
and joy, and hope, and love, and a good night's rest,
and someday a godly husband. (Talitha will always laugh when I say this last line.)

And then I sing a song for Talitha. And then I give her a big hug. There is a very definite routine that we walk through."

Read the whole thing.

A good tool for family worship

I've been impressed with this book as we've used it during family worship. It's an easy way to explain the answers to the Westminster Shorter Catechism and to read through the supporting Scriptures, too.

By the way, the author lives in this area (Mesa, Arizona) and, if she's able to come, would make a great speaker for a woman's retreat.

EGG hunt everyday

In this enjoyable audio from Ken Sande (author of The Peacemaker) on humility in marriage he describes his family's EGG hunt, where EGG is short for Evidences of God's Grace. Every day each member of his family is actively looking out for evidences of God's grace in one another's life. This would fit well in a daily family worship routine, where Dad would take the lead with remarks such as, "How patient you all were today when I came home late from work", or "How kind my boys were today to the girls", etc.

Daddy Adam, mommy Eve

I really have to video Faith doing her catechism, it's a hoot, but I doubt that she'll "perform" for the camera. The question we've been working on lately is "Who were our first parents?", which is to be answered with "Adam and Eve."

Faith is clearly puzzled by this one. She knows that I'm her daddy and Kristin is her mommy so why this talk about some couple named Adam and Eve? The expression on her face when she parrots the answer makes me want to know what she's thinking. "Is Adam a different name for Dah Dah (her grandfather)?"

I wonder what she'll do when she meets someone named Adam or Eve!

Crazy for the Catechism

A couple of nights ago I was home with just Faith and Zeke; leading them through family worship reminded me of our earliest parenting days worshipping at home together with very young children. It was very different than our practice today.

My earliest memory of teaching Eli about God must be from when he was around 2 or 3 years old. The Sunday school curriculum included the First Catechism and simple Scripture memory and we would work on that through the week. Bath time became the main memory-work time. Later we added the ever popular "Candy Game".

The Candy Game is played by setting out a row of Smarties with a lollipop at the end of the line. For each catechism question answered correctly Eli could advance down the line eating a piece a candy. I saved the lollipop for something big like reciting a brief version of the 10 commandments with me or the Lord's Prayer, etc.

At another church it was common to play Catechism freeze-tag. When frozen you'd be asked a question from the First Catechism and couldn't be unfrozen until it was answered correctly. We Presbyterians are crazy for the Catechism. But I'm fully convinced that this is something worthy of being crazy about.

Family worship has been on my mind a lot lately. The busyness of life is a constantly encroaching threat to a time of daily worship together. Avoiding turning family worship into an empty rite is another threat. I look forward to sharing some final thoughts on this subject with those at church when we finish our current book study, Thoughts on Family Worship, this week.

Family Preparations for the Lord's Day

This will be my last post on family worship for a while, and in it I'd like to give some thoughts on how to prepare as a family for the Lord's Day.

Let's start with the goal. As a family we should look forward to going to the Lord's house. Each of us should arrive at the worship service primed and longing to express our adoration of Him. Two problems to fight against: going to worship "spiritually empty" or unready to worship, and secondly just going through the motions during worship (which is not worship at all). Here are some ways to combat both those problems.

Starting as soon as possible in the week get the songs and Scriptures for the coming Lord's Day. Sing the songs as a family. Then read the words of the songs and meditate on them. Find the gems in them before Sunday worship! Know these songs so well so that when you sing them together on Sunday you are ready to exult God with them. As far as possible memorize the whole song so you can sing from your heart more freely.

Read the Scripture as a family before the service pointing out the key words of the passage and assigning themes for each child to listen for and report on after worship. If possible memorize the Scripture passage that will be preached on.

Plan ahead of time logistically. Set out clothes and Bibles the night before. Have the Sunday meals ready on Saturday so that there is less household work to do on the Sabbath (we order out on Saturday evening and get enough for Sunday, too). Get up early enough so that you have time to prepare yourself for worship physically and spiritually. Listen to God-glorifying music that stokes your affections as you drive to worship, etc.

I hope these ideas will help you call the Sabbath a delight.

Serve the Lord with gladness

One other element of family worship to keep in mind is the importance of joy. Is Bible reading drudgery? Is catechism and Scripture memory no more encouraging than making out a grocery list?

Surprisingly, some parents have the capacity to keep doing family worship for years without the least bit of joy. They're usually doing it to impress others in the church. I'm know because I think I'm one of them. I remember the sudden and painful realization that my leading of family worship was absent of joy when I visited another family whose father radiated joy when he spoke to his children about Jesus and the gospel. He made grace sound amazing, Christ sound great, and the Bible a dear gift. I found out later the verse he has in mind as he leads his family in worship is "Serve the Lord with gladness", from Psalm 100 I believe.

Not only will children detect a parent's hypocrisy in leading family worship without sincerity, but it is also dangerous to their salvation. They are likely to dismiss the faith as something that doesn't satisfy, as just one more thing their parents are doing to get them to behave. So, as we lead our families, let us remember to serve the Lord with gladness!

Beyond skinned knees and loose teeth

A third element of Bailey family worship that I wanted to write on is our time of prayer.

Little kids' prayer requests naturally gravitate towards personal, physical needs: skinned knees and loose teeth, etc. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose, but as parents we want to see our children grow up into mature Christians. So it's good if we can enlarge the horizons for prayer beyond themselves, especially beyond their external wants.

For our times of family worship we have daily and weekly prayer items. Daily items include what we read in the Bible that day, a family from church, one member of the Bailey family, one extended family member, one missionary we support, and special requests/needs from others. Once per week we pray for one country of the world using Operation World (a great missions resource).

I have gone back and forth on having the children pray for some of these items. I think it's best to do it, but it can be a little hard to work out.

Eternity in our children's hearts

This is the second in a series on Bailey family worship through the years.

Last time I touched some on memory work and young children; I'd like to continue on that theme.

We have always mixed catechism and Scripture as both are important for memorization. Catechism gives the big picture summary of revelation (ex: What is God?, What happens when we die?, etc) where Scripture memory provides the actual revelation to them.

Over time we have developed a system of short-term and long-term memory work which we go through each night in family worship and some on Saturdays. The short-term work consists of weekly Bible verses that we all learn (parents set the example!). On Saturday mornings the children recite that week's verse to me individually.

The long-term memory work consists of hymns, creeds/catechism, and Scripture. Over time each child memorizes a couple dozen hymns/psalms (one stanza usually) and we rotate through a couple of these each evening in family worship. Then, depending on which day of the week it is, we also recite together truths that we want our children to always know throughout their life:
Sunday: Psalm 23
Monday: Psalm 121
Tuesday: The Apostles' Creed
Wednesday: 1 Cor 13:4-7
Thursday: 10 commandments
Friday: The Lord's Prayer
Saturday: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A #1

I struggle to find time to keep fresh on the Shorter Catechism work, but most Saturdays I have the children recite all they know to me and we also review a few questions every evening during family worship. One controversial decision I've made is to pay them for their memory work (an idea supported by American puritan Cotton Mather). I pay $1 for each new answer recited from the shorter catechism (word perfect) and $0.25 for each review question answered correctly.

Our belief in all this is that we're laying a foundation in their lives--not with hay that will rot away over time, but with that which will last into eternity.

Books, bathtubs, catechisms, and chairs

This is the start of a new series of posts on how we developed a family worship practice with our children; I plan to start from the very early years and work my way through chronologically. I had planned to do this in Sunday School during our study of the classic book Thoughts on Family Worship, but I don't think we'll get back to that book for a while so I'll give my own thoughts here instead. Also, I don't plan to spend time on the why of family worship; for that, see the book I just mentioned (or Ps 78, Eph 6:1-3, etc).

My earliest memories discipling our children involve books, bathtubs, catechisms, and chairs. I'll take them in that order. Among our favorite books for very young children are The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, and the Read-Aloud Bible Stories by Lindvall. The second book is good at not showing images of Christ (the first does, I believe). Kristin may remind me of others and if so I'll add them in the comments section. Also, Kristin has been effective in teaching our children when they're little to sit still and fold their hands when being read to. This has paid dividends in corporate worship.

I'll take the next two together. Bathtubs are a great place for teaching and reviewing memory work with a child (a captive audience). We started with the First Catechism and some basic memory verses. Actually I abbreviate some of the answers in that catechism so that even a 2 year old can show progress. Faith can give the answers to the first three questions. And I try to explain some concepts along the way, too, at their level. "Glorify God" means showing others how good God is, etc.

The last topic for this post is chairs. I remember when the children were very little having them sit in chairs during family worship. At first family worship only lasted for a few minutes and it was really us training them more than a time of the whole family worshipping together. We would line up the dining room chairs in a row and have them sit still while we did catechism, singing, or prayer. As long as we had a consistent time each day to do this, and we got off the sofa, we would see improvement little by little in our children's ability to sit still and participate.

Other points I want to mention in future posts on this series: joy in family worship, singing and music, long-term and short-term memory work, prayer lists, Bible reading, liturgy, Sabbath, missions, guests, and hypocrisy. I look forward to your observations, too.

Teaching children to have daily devotions

We're gearing up for the new homeschool year which will start in a couple of weeks. Most of our supplies are in (more great books!!). The new thing this year will be to train Eli and Grace to have daily devotions. I plan to use this approach:

[H]ere is a priceless suggestion from pastor and homiletics professor Mike Bullmore, on how to teach your children to read the Bible.

When each of his children turn eight, Mike buys them a journal. A nice one. Then he tells them, “Tomorrow, we are going to have devotions together and do something that I hope lasts the rest of your life.” The next morning, he has the child begin reading a chapter a day in the Bible, starting in one of the gospels.

To help them meditate on what they’ve read, Mike has them write two simple sentences in their journal. One begins with the word “God” and one starts with the word “I.” Each day, Mike reads what his children wrote, a practice which gives him a unique window into their soul.

Once his children fill up their journal, they go on a special date with Daddy to buy a new one.

HT: Christ-centered children

Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children

In a short space this booklet persuades parents to take up their role in discipling their children and gives practical and specific ways to go about it. I was convinced that I need to make several changes to our way of doing family worship and reminded of the importance of godly models.

Our church plans to provide copies of this booklet to our congregation.

Oh, the books that would be written!

In family worship last night we finished reading through John's Gospel. It closes with an expression of love to Jesus, that if the disciple attempted to record all that Christ has done not even the world itself would be large enough to contain the books that would be written.

After this reading my 7-year old daughter Grace asked me, "Daddy, how can I believe in Jesus?" Is that not a question that every Christian parent loves to hear? It shows a softened heart, good soil for the gospel. I gently reminded her of the great work that Christ has done in rescuing us from the punishment of our sins. I encouraged her to always trust in what her Savior has done for her and to love Him with all her heart.

What is this blog but another disciple's attempt to record a small fraction of the wonderful things that Jesus has done?