Family Worship and A Church in the House Giveaway

We haven't always done family worship in our home, but we're learning that these can be some of the most precious times with our children. We have several devotional aids that we use some evenings. Other times, like tonight, one of the kids reads from the Bible or a Bible storybook. It's also a wonderful opportunity for the kids to share with Daddy the Bible passages they've been memorizing, which is so much more meaningful than my just telling him. They all pretty much memorize the same verses since they use the same plan (Truth and Grace Memory Books edited by Thomas K. Ascol), but it's interesting that they want to share different ones. Tonight Twinkle Toes recited Psalm 23, Measle said Psalm 8 by herself for the first time, Mr. Monk quoted Ephesians 4:25-32 and American Boy said Genesis 1:1 (might as well start at the beginning, right?).

I have to confess that we normally wait to have worship after we put Baby Lu in bed, but she was unhappy in her crib this evening, so I got her out and let her join us. I'm so glad I did. Big D built a fire tonight, at the request of the kids, and Baby Lu was good as gold on my lap while Twinkle Toes read from the book of Joshua. I think everyone enjoyed it even more than usual with her there. She was not a distraction at all.

Big D and I grew up in church, but the concept of daily family worship is new to us. Mathew Henry preached and wrote about the importance of family worship over 300 years ago!! There truly is nothing new under the sun! Scott Brown has edited this little book by Mathew Henry called A Church in the House, to make it easily readable. It's very compelling and practical, too. I have two copies that I want to give to readers of my blog who are interested in family worship. I'll draw the winners late Saturday night since we're leaving town Monday morning.

To enter the giveaway simply comment on this post about what you do in your time of family worship. You can give the format you follow or devotional aids that you've found helpful. If you've been thinking about starting family worship in your home and haven't yet or if you haven't really given it that much thought until now, comment about why you'd be interested in this book or what's been holding you back. Maybe you're like us and just didn't think about it until you heard how wonderful it is from someone who's already doing it.

Here's what we've been doing in our family worship times:

Big D or Twinkle Toes (she always wants to read!) reads a passage from the Bible or Bible storybook followed by Big D asking some questions to make sure the kids understood what we read. Or I read a chapter from Wisdom and the Millers: Proverbs for Children by Mildred A. Martin, followed again by a Q&A time to insure the kids got the message.

Next we sing some hymns. Big D loves picking hymns and teaching them to the kids. Two or three hymns later Big D prays for our family.

Then we either drill the kids on catechism or verses from their TAG books, or we allow them to choose a longer Bible passage they've been working on that they'd like to share with the family.

This only takes us 20-30 minutes and also is a nice way to send the kids off to bed, instead of going bed to bed for individual tucks and prayers. We've absolutely loved family woship, especially the kids. I'm so grateful that the Lord brought books into our lives like The Duggars Twenty and Counting and A Church in the House to encourage us to take the plunge. I know you won't regret it if you do!