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In our culture there are many things that society tells us makes a man—can he earn a healthy salary? Does he own a house? Drive a truck? Wear stylish clothes? Popular with women? Bench press 250? You get the idea. Sadly, some of these same criteria infect the church. Scads of men measure their identity by a host of different things, many of which have nothing to do with Scripture or godliness. In my judgment, one of the biggest failings for men in the church is their unwillingness, sloth, or inattentiveness to leading their families in regular family worship. How often do you lead your wife and children in reading the Scriptures? How often do you spend time catechizing your children?
Historically Reformed churches have acknowledged two forms of worship, private and public. The most common form of public worship occurs on the Lord’s Day where the church corporately gathers together to read the Scriptures, pray, sing hymns and psalms, and listen to the preaching of the word. The second form is private worship. Private worship often consists of reading the word, prayer, studying catechetical documents, and even singing hymns and psalms. Sadly, however, private worship is something that many Christians fail to perform, and this is especially the case with male heads of household.
One of the regular things I encountered in my pastorate is husbands and fathers who did not practice private worship for themselves or lead their families in it either. It was no surprise, then, that their families were disinterested in the word, did not know their Bibles, and often seemed lost at church. In a word, their fathers were not leading them in exercises of private worship. While we can certainly debate what makes a man a man, one of the most crucial elements, I believe, is the head of household’s responsibility to exercise his role as prophet, priest, and king of his home. Keep in mind, these categories apply to all believers, to anyone united to Christ, but I’m addressing how fathers and husbands should exercise them as it relates to their wives and children. How can your children know of the importance of prayer if they never hear you pray? How can your family know the importance of confessing sin if you never confess your sin in prayer with them? How can your family know the importance of the word if you never spend time to read it to them? A godly man will lead his family in private worship because he is a man after God’s own heart and he wants his family to draw nigh unto Christ so they too may zealously seek the heart of God. If you don’t model this for your family, they might not see its importance. In the end, while we all must account for our own conduct, husbands and fathers will have to give an account as to why they failed to be godly men and lead their families in private worship.
I definitely have my failings regarding private worship, but my goal is to lead my family in private worship on a daily basis. I keep things simple: we read one chapter from the Bible in the mornings at breakfast. We’ve read through numerous books of the Bible—one year we repeatedly read through the book of Romans, other years we’ve read through various Old and New Testament books. Two years ago we read through the New Testament, now we’re reading through the Old Testament. My goal is, by the time my children leave my home that I will have read the Bible out loud to them at least twice. In the evenings we go over two children’s catechism questions a week—it’s short, but very manageable. We can get through the whole children’s catechism in roughly three years. One area of weakness for us is singing, but that’s largely because my daughter’s bedtime routine prevents us from singing together regularly, but we’re definitely making strides to incorporate better singing into our times of family worship.
In the end, husbands and fathers, man up! Lead your families in worship. Don’t delegate your God-given role as a husband and father to your wife. Don’t abdicate your responsibility and hope that your children will pick it up from church. Pray that you will be a man after God’s own heart and that you will in word and deed model this for your family so that they will be people after God’s own heart.
