I've come to see three components of family worship from Scripture: singing praise to God, reading Scripture or scriptural books (like Pilgrim's Progress), and supplication—praying for each other, for church needs, for the needs of Christendom, for missionaries, and for our nation and its leaders, as 1 Timothy 2 instructs. These three components are vital.

At a minimum, in my home, we pray together. With better preparation, we pray and read God's Word together. If we have more time, we add scriptural books like Pilgrim's Progress. I involve my children in this. We also have well-planned times for singing praise to God, reading Scripture, and supplication.

It's key to avoid legalism. If you put yourself in a spiritual straitjacket—thinking you have to have these three elements every time—you'll feel like you've failed if you don't. It becomes rote, robotic, discouraging, and legalistic. I find that as a father, flexibility is crucial. Be elastic and resilient, going with the flow. Maybe it's just prayer one night, or maybe just Scripture and singing another. We've found this approach much more encouraging, and it helps people stay faithful. I believe it will strengthen your family ten years from now. Your kids may not remember what you spoke about last night, but they will remember that the Word of God was central, that prayer meant something, and that as a family, you worshipped God.

Family worship is a daily spiritual appointment that every Christian family should seek to make. Deuteronomy 6 says we are to talk about the Word of God when we stand up, when we sit down, and as we go by the way. In our home and everyday life, it's an atmosphere, a culture, an environment that the head of the home, a believing father, is to create by walking with God and disciplining his family.

Family worship is one of the greatest preparations for public worship. When the family is consistent, flexible, and the father is resilient during the week, the family is better prepared to offer worship to God on the Lord's Day. We must understand that if we are not turning over the soil of our hearts every day, we'll have nothing truly to offer God with unprepared hearts. That's the folly described in Ecclesiastes: not guarding your steps when you enter the house of God.

Of course, to have family worship without private worship is ridiculous. Private worship, or a devotional life, prepares us to have something to share and interact with in family worship. I have found through the years, as I've studied Psalm 78:1-8 and remembered Joshua's great statement, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15), that there is a determination among God's people. God commanded Israel, and we are commanded in the Church, to worship God, to offer worship to Him in spirit and truth as often as we can, ideally shooting for each day.

The benefit is simply amazing. I've seen in my own church and among people I've taught in different venues that family worship might be the great missing tool in the modern Reformation. There is so much more that can be accomplished in family worship than in just one sermon per week in your local church. It makes us better hearers and better worshippers on the Lord's Day.