Our faith is one that believes that God is worthy of our worship every single day.
Considering that we spend a large part of our lives in our homes, what does it look like to worship God together as a family?
Verses like Romans 12:1 remind us that worship isn’t just about our times of singing on Sunday mornings. True worship involves and requires our whole lives!
In our home, as we’ve been considering how to be more intentional in our worship to God together as a family, we set up six pillars of families worship in our home.
Singing
Throughout the Word we are commanded to sing to God!
The thought of singing in our homes might be an intimidating at first to those families that do not consider themselves to have musical talents. But the truth is that praise is one of the most natural things we do as humans. We can’t help but to exclaim about the things we enjoy! Also, it’s easy these days to hit that play button on your favorite worship song. No musical talented needed! Just a heart ready to praise a God who is worthy.
We want to sing together as families because we want to enjoy God together.
Praying
Prayer is a humbling act of dependence.
Our kids need to see our dependence on God. When they’re young, kids tend to see us parents as heroes. It’s good for them to see us bow the knee in humility to the one true Hero because the truth is that we will let our kids down at some point. But God will never let us down.
Through praying together we lay down a path for our kids to follow so that they know the way to the Father on their own. Through prayer we acknowledge the One who rules all of us.
Learning
We are all about discovery in the Martin home! God gave us our brains and the ability to grow, why not learn and grow together?
The Word reveals God to us and so we want to read the Bible and meditate on it together.
While learning the Bible is a core and essential element to our worship together, we also want to learn about the world around us because according to Psalm 19, all of creation also reveals God to us if we’ll pay attention and listen.
Learning can be challenging, but it can also be fun. Our aim is to create a culture where we enjoy learning together because almost everything around us points us back to God and knowing is a part of loving. To borrow from an author we like,
”To know Him is to love Him.” – Jen Wilkin
Serving
Giving up our lives for the sake of others is a way to reflect the image of God and the Gospel. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that God made us. He gave us all the gifts, talents, and experiences that we have. God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others. There is good work that God has prepared for us to do.
We want to work as a team. We want to learn how to serve one another in the family with our various gifts and talents by asking, how can I contribute to the family? How can I encourage, strengthen, and help the family win? These are all questions each family member can ask.
But as a family, we also want to look outward and consider how God might want to use our team unit to be a blessing to the world around us.
Having Fun
Author Tedd Tripp wisely said, “the things we do together provides context for relationships.”
As a parent, one of the things I want more than anything is to have in influential voice in the life of my kids. When I make a point to enjoy my kids and have fun with them, when I show interest in their interests, when I simply get on the floor and play with them, I’m showing my kids that they have a place to belong.
Our fun together creates context for the serious parts of our lives, including our faith.
Loving Each Other
In John 13:35 Jesus tells us that the world will know us by how we love each other. That means when we are learning how to love each other well, we are glorifying God and displaying Christ to the world. Loving each other is an important part of our worship!
We live in a culture that seems to think that loving another person is easy and as natural as breathing. 1 Corinthians 13 shows us the real need to be intentional about how we live out love. Family relationships are one of the best places to grow in love.
I could say much more about each one of these pillars and how they contribute to our worship of God together as families. We’re excited to explore these in greater depth with our growing community in coming months and years. In the meantime, if family worship is something you want to be more intentional about in your home, don’t over complicated. Just get started!
Jonathan & Emily Martin are singer-songwriters and worship leaders that met and started their
