Lean in. We’ve heard it before. We’ve been asked to do it before. We want to seize the opportunities we have before us and go for it.

God has called each of us to lead our families in discipleship at home—to preach and teach the Bible to our family (Ephesians 6:4); to be a discipleship center (Genesis 18:19); to impress the hearts of the next generation with a love for God (Deuteronomy 6:5–7); to pass on faith (Psalm 78:1–8; Deuteronomy 32:44–47; Ephesians 6:4); and to teach spiritual lessons to our children (Proverbs 1:8, Proverbs 7:1, Proverbs 23:23–26).

We began looking at family worship more intentionally after hosting Dr. P.C. Mathew from Urban India Ministries. He taught us about becoming missional families and one element of that is becoming worshiping families. We identified six areas that we can be utilizing to worship at home (these are put forward by Dr. Rob Rienow of Visionary Family Ministries)—Bible reading, singing, activities, catechism, discussion, and prayer. 

Individuals and families can “Lead In" to the calling God has for us to learn and teach the faith and His Word in our homes. The goal is to follow God’s design for discipleship happening at home first then being reinforced at church. Imagine families who previously didn’t know what to do together in the area of discipleship, jumping in together and worshiping regularly at home. Imagine families bonded as they could only be through the Word of God. Imagine kids during Sunday morning worship excitedly exclaiming, “My dad taught me about this!” “We did this in family worship!” “We talked about that this week!” Imagine adults already digging into the texts for Sunday and being all the more encouraged by what the pastor is preaching and teaching on those texts instead of entering “cold.” 

Each week, resources to worship at home incorporating all six areas around the lectionary texts and allowing for faith conversations prior to each Sunday’s corporate worship service are available by signing up here. Resources will come directly to your inbox.