The Benefits of Family Worship for Children and Parents
The benefits of family worship are real. Every day your children hear God's Word read and prayed over, and you hear it with them. A new heart is not one of those benefits, because only God gives it, and I want to be honest about both sides.
Is ten minutes a day worth the effort? This is what I believe family worship does for children and for parents, what it cannot do, and why it is worth keeping up year after year. It is worth it because of the One we meet in His Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The benefits of family worship for children
A child who takes part in family worship hears the Bible every day and begins to know it by heart. The psalmist says, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). A verse learned in childhood stays with a person.
Children also gain a pattern of prayer. They hear their father and mother speak to God in plain words, and they learn that He can be spoken to at any time. They gain a safe place to ask questions, because the whole family is listening to the same Word. And they hear the story of the Bible in order, chapter by chapter.
Paul writes, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). God uses the hearing of His Word as the ordinary way He brings people to faith, and family worship puts His Word in front of our children every day.
The benefits of family worship for parents
The parents are changed too. When you read the Bible aloud to your family every day, you hear it yourself. You hear what you are teaching. You also have to say sorry in front of the children when you were short with them that morning, and that is where your children see what repentance and forgiveness look like in a real home.
Parents also gain a daily moment to pray for each child by name, and to listen. A child will often say things in family worship that they do not say at other times, and a parent who is listening can know how to pray.
What family worship cannot do
Family worship cannot save anyone. Reading the Bible with your children does not make them Christians, and sitting through devotions every night does not mean a child is saved. The Bible says, “I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6 to 7).
That should make us both humble and hopeful. We are the ones who plant and water, and the growth is God's. So we keep sowing, we keep praying, and we keep calling each child to repent and believe for themselves, trusting the Lord, who is good and whose Word has power. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”
Being faithful over many years
Jesus told a story about a farmer who “went out to sow” (Mark 4:3). The farmer scattered the seed, it fell on different kinds of ground, and the results were different. The farmer's part was to sow. Only the Lord can make a heart receive the Word. You can read it in the session for Mark chapter 4, with questions your whole family can talk about.
The benefits of family worship are rarely seen in a week. They show over years. A parent who keeps going on the dry days, when the children are tired and the reading feels flat, is sowing in the way Jesus described. Isaiah 55:11 tells us what God's Word does when He sends it, “so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please.”
Where the benefits lead, to Christ
The greatest thing family worship does is put the Lord Jesus in front of us every day. Christ died for sinners and rose again, and everyone who turns from sin and trusts in Him is forgiven. We tell our children that plainly, we call each of them to repent and believe, and we ask the Lord to give them new hearts. Family worship is the means we use, and the salvation is His.
Common questions
Is family worship important for every Christian family?
God commands His people to teach His Word to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6 to 7). Family worship is the ordinary way a family does that every day.
Will family worship keep my children from leaving the faith?
We cannot promise that. Some children raised with faithful family worship walk away, and some never return. Parents are called to be faithful, and the outcome is in God's hands. The Lord saves whom He will, so keep praying and keep the door open.
What if my family is not very good at it?
Nobody is. A short, plain session that you keep every day does more good than a polished one that never happens.
Begin small. Pick a chapter and read it with your family tonight. The Family Worship App is free, as a ministry of Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church, and if you would like to help other families do the same you can give here. May the Lord give you and your children a love for His Word that lasts.