Parents, it is no overstatement to say that worship is why God gave you kids. They were made to worship their Creator, and they don’t know how. You have been given the awesome responsibility to show them how to do the thing they were made to do.

Thomas Doolittle was raised in Kidderminster, England under the preaching of the Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter. Baxter would go on to encourage Doolittle to enter the pastorate, which he did. Doolittle preached all over London, including at a chapel he erected at Bunhill Fields. He even preached at the Cripplegate!

Amidst political and ecclesiastical turmoil, Doolittle preached a 34,000-word sermon (… wow) entitled “How May the Duty of Daily Family Prayer Be Best Managed for the Spiritual Benefit of Every One in the Family?” In the sermon, he exhorted the families of his congregation to the faithful practice of family worship with this warning:

“If in your houses, God hath not a church, the devil will have a chapel. If your houses be not nurseries for heaven, they will be breeding places for hell.”

In a previous post, I argued for the biblical mandate to conduct family worship. In this post, I want to listen to the resounding chorus of voices throughout church history that echo the biblical refrain for family worship. While some warn against the dire consequences of ignoring family worship, others celebrate the joys of a home gathered for the praise of God.

My hope is that, in reading through the examples and quotes below, you’ll be encouraged and motivated to start or restart family worship in your own home as so many of our spiritual fathers did before us.

Family Worship in Church History

The church history Lyman Coleman writes about the habit of Christians in the second century, saying,

“At an early hour in the morning the family was assembled and a portion of Scripture was read from the Old Testament, which was followed by a hymn and a prayer, in which thanks were offered up to the Almighty for preserving them during the silent watches of the night, and for His goodness in permitting them to meet in health of body and soundness of mind; and, at the same time, His grace was implored to defend them amid the dangers and temptations of the day – to make them faithful to every duty, and enable them, in all respects, to walk worthy of their Christian vocation… In the evening, before retiring to rest, the family again assembled, the same form of worship was observed as in the morning, with this difference, that the service was considerably protracted beyond the period which could be conveniently allotted to it in the commencement of the day.”

From the inception of the church, Christian families were given to family worship. The second-century church father Tertullian concurs, writing about Christian homes,

“They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another… Psalms and hymns they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord.”

These habits continued throughout the early church, it seems. However, family worship began to die out in the medieval period because of a lack of access to resources, a lack of instruction, and a lack of emphasis on the family unit.

Read More