Covenant Family Worship: A Guide to Family Worship

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word…

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

-Ephesians 5:25-26; 6:4 KJV

Family worship is one of the most tremendous blessings of the Christian home. As a father, having the family gather around the table, around the couch, or around the bed, to worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the highlight of my day! Family worship should be a daily practice in every Christian home, but it can be hard to know where or how to begin. If you have no idea where to begin or feel like your family worship is stagnant or forced, I’ve created The Covenantal Family Worship Guide. 

This little guide is what my family uses for our family worship. It is shaped much after Covenant Renewal Worship. When we gather before our Covenant King, we are renewing our covenant with Him, or more accurately, He is renewing his covenant with us. Covenant Renewal Worship is a liturgy rooted in the Reformed Tradition and is done usually in a corporate setting. I have shaped family worship in this way to help bridge the gap between what happens on the Day of the Lord and what should be happening in the home. Our homes are where the most important work we will ever do in teaching our families to worship, love, and fear the Lord happens.

The guide I’ve created is an amalgamation of parts from the Book of Common Prayer, The Theopolis Family Worship Guide, and other Reformed Liturgical resources. I’ll include links below to download your own guide to use in your homes, as well as links to the sources I used in creating it. 

Greeting

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:2)

Call to Worship[1]

Use a passage of Scripture for the Call to Worship. This communicates to your family that it is God who calls us into worship, not Dad or Mom. Having either a set Scripture or rotating Scriptures will help you, your spouse, and your children to memorize Scripture, too.

Confession of Sin

Christian adults have a hard time confessing their sins; we need to teach ourselves, our spouses, and our children how to confess our sins. We sing “Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God (Psalm 51:10-12),”[2] followed by kneeling and silently confessing our sins, and then a short corporate prayer, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.” 

The reason our family sings for confession is two-fold. One, it's teaching my children to sing God’s Word, but it’s also teaching them to come boldly before the Throne of Grace, to obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). We do not come to God in shame and guilt, we come in the mighty name of Jesus Christ!

After our family has confessed our sins, I will proclaim pardon over my family, assuring them that in Christ, all their sins have been forgiven.[3]

Sursum Corda[4]

One of the most frustrating parts of family worship can be when we see our children “checking out.” The glaze is coming over the eyes, and we are tempted to get angry with our children, which is immediately followed by guilt for yelling at our kids while trying to worship the God of all grace. I’ve learned that responsive reading keeps my children engaged. We need to teach our kids to be active participants, we are worshiping after all! My children love when they hear me say “Lift up your hearts!” because they get to yell back, “We lift them up to the Lord!”

Once again, there is a two-fold reason for this. One, it keeps the family engaged. Two, from a theological standpoint, this is an appropriate response to forgiveness. We’ve confessed our sins, God has forgiven us in Christ, and has given us His Holy Spirit to strengthen us in the Christian battle. Therefore, we lift our hearts to the Lord.

At this point, our family, with lifted hands, sings the Doxology. We lift up our hearts by singing praises to our Triune God.

Scripture Readings

If you haven’t noticed, but up to this point, your family is already digesting Scripture. They are greeted with Scripture, called into worship by Scripture, and confess their sins with Scripture. Holy Scripture is the meat of family worship, and reading the Scriptures to your spouse and children is the climax of family worship. 

Practical tip: Let your wife or one of the children read the passage(s) of Scripture. Dad has been leading the show up to this point (and rightfully so) but once again, let the family participate and actually worship.

Our family practice is to read/chant a psalm and read a passage of Scripture. Dad explains (briefly) what the passage means, gives application, and moves on.[5]

Prayer Time

We choose one thing to pray about during this time. It can be a family in your church, your pastors, or something personal, but keep it to one thing. Family worship should be happening all the time. You don’t need to pray through an entire church directory every time you gather together as a family. We end our prayer time by singing the Lord’s Prayer.[6]

Practical tip: Let someone else pray. This helps teach yourself, your spouse, and your children to pray out loud in front of others.

Singing of Hymns and Psalms

I don’t know if you’ve caught on yet, but there is a lot of singing in this family worship guide. We sing our confession of sin, the doxology, the Lord’s Prayer, and chant (aka singing) a Psalm. Singing is glorified speech, and God is glorified with our singing. Scripture commands us to sing, “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” (Psalm 47:6). The God we worship is a singing God (Zephaniah 3:17) and has created us to be singing Images, so let’s sing! Have a song printed or pick a song out of a psalter or hymnal you have around the house.[7]

Collect[8]

As our family worship draws to an end, we like to end with a prayer from church history, which is called a “collect”. Collects have been a part of the Christian faith for a long time, and we are sitting on a vast treasure of them. For example, here is the “collect” for today, February 22nd, which happens to be Ash Wednesday:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made, and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[9]

After the Collect, pray and thank God for gathering your family to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.[10]

Benediction[11]

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.”(2 Corinthians 13:14)

 The Lord has called us into family worship. We have confessed our sins, lifted up our hearts to God in Word, song, and prayer, and the only proper response is for the family to give a hearty “Amen!”[12]

This all may seem like it would take the better part of your night, but it truly doesn’t. I timed it with my family and the longest it has taken was 20 minutes. Let’s stretch that to 30 minutes for argument’s sake, that’s an episode of The Office or Bluey. If you (and your kids) can sit through a TV episode, with or without commercials, you can worship the Father who gave His only Son to you and sealed you to Him by His Holy Spirit. God is your strength and portion forever and ever (Psalm 73:26).

This also may seem a little too in-depth at first glance, especially if you have young kids, but doing this repetitively will be such a blessing to your family and their understanding will grow every day. We are called to wash our family with the Word, and family worship is a good time to do just that. We can wash away the angst and exhaustion of the day during our time of family worship and hearing our little ones (my youngest is four) recite Scripture is a blessing and balm for any bad mood! Your family will be singing the same songs every time you gather, which will lead to memorizing them and being discipled by them. Your family is learning to humble themselves and boldly come to the Throne of Grace to confess their sins. They are lifting up their hearts in worship to the One who has forgiven them of all their sins. They are communing with the Father who loves them, the Son who died and was risen for them, and the Holy Spirit who comforts them. In family worship, you and your family are growing in the grace and knowledge of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). 

I’ve attached The Covenant Family Worship Guide here and below. It will be updated in accordance with the liturgical calendar. This guide contains the Scriptures and Collects for the Lent season, the next season will be Eastertide. Print it out and put it in your Bible. Print out a few copies for you, your spouse, and your children. Feel free to download and change it to fit your family, or leave it as it is. 

Some last words: If you are new to family worship, it will be awkward at first. That’s okay. Push past the awkwardness. Do it for a week, I promise you the awkwardness will be gone. Don’t give up. Fight the good fight. Run the race. Worship with your family in Spirit and in Truth!

Download the Covenant Family Worship Guide

1 For picking Scriptures, I use the Scriptures (Opening Sentences) in The Book of Common Prayer (2019). They have passages for all the Liturgical Christian year (Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ordinary, Etc.).

2 Singing Psalm 51 is taken from the Theopolis Family Worship Guide and from the worship at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL.

3 Taken from the Theopolis Family Worship Guide.

4 “Lift Up Your Hearts,” taken from typical Covenant Renewal Worship liturgies.

5 I personally read lectionary passages from Sunday (pulled from the Revised Common Lectionary Year A 2022-2023.pdf (vanderbilt.edu)), spread out through the week. So, our Scripture readings are relatively short, hence my children can follow along and aren’t overwhelmed by boredom (not that Scripture is boring!).

6 See my article “Sing the Lord’s Prayer.”

7 My family and I use the Cantus Christi 2020, a Psalter/Hymnal, that can be purchased here, Cantus Christi 2020: Psalter & Hymnal - Canon Press.

8 Find Collects in The Book of Common Prayer (2019).

9 The Collect for Ash Wednesday; February 22, taken from The Book of Common Prayer (2019).

10 We personally use the prayer of St. Chrysostom, taken from The Book of Common Prayer (2019).

11 The same God who called your family into worship is the same God who sends your family out to worship.

12 We sing the triple Amen: “Amen, Amen, Amen.”