Family Worship

Ligon Duncan with some good words about family worship:

But above all, there is the enemy of idealism. You have this picture of a Puritan family sitting around the table attentively and reverently reading the whole book of 1 Chronicles at a sitting, singing half the Psalter from memory, and praying for ninety minutes, and then you look around your table and your wife is rolling her eyes, your two-year old is throwing left-over spaghetti around the kitchen, your eight-year old is making faces at her sister and your teenager would rather do calculus. Don’t let the gap between the ideal and the reality stop you! Those unattentive children will grow up and thank you for persevering, and the memories of a father who loved them enough to make that kind of an effort will etch a permanent affection in their hearts.

What the heck is family worship anyway? When I first heard this term I pictured a Dad with an acoustic guitar leading his family in a rousing version of Shout to the Lord. This may or may not be the case. My understanding of "family worship" is that it is simply leading your family together in experiencing the various means of grace (Bible reading, prayer, worship through singing, Bible memorization, etc). We do our family worship time at bedtime and it usually consists of reading from this book or this book and praying together.