Family Worship is a gift and an opportunity to lead your family to Christ - Donald Whitney Book Review

What experience do you have with family worship? Does the idea of family worship stir up feelings of guilt in you? What’s holding you back from establishing a pattern of family worship?

Don Whitney is a Professor of Biblical Spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he tells the story of a time when he once asked a classroom of 115 students if they grew up in a home where family worship was practiced. Only seven of those 115 said yes. He then asked if any of his students had visited a home where family worship had taken place, and zero students raised their hands. If seminary students who are passionate about Scripture at a biblically faithful theological institution had never experienced the joy and blessing family worship before, how can we expect our future pastors and ministry leaders to practice and teach the discipline of family worship? It is to this context that Dr. Whitney writes his book, Family Worship. 

Without being guilt or works-driven, Whitney builds a biblical and historical case for practicing the discipline of family worship in the home, starting today. Whitney traces the idea of worshipping God day-to-day in one’s home from Abraham in Peter during the times of the Old and New Testaments, to the thoughts of Don Carson and John Piper today. In every context, he finds that “Here [the home] is where the reformation must begin”, as families take time out of their already busy schedules to come before their God together.

Read, pray, sing, start today. Whitney is clear that there is no magic formula or certification you need to begin a routine of family worship. It is not even necessary for the person who is leading to prepare anything beforehand. All you need to get started worshipping God as a family is a Bible to read and songs to sing. His overall encouragement, which I so agree with, is to not let anything back from worshipping God as a family today. You may experience feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, but give all of those to Jesus and take a baby step toward the direction of family worship today!

I would recommend this book to anyone with a family!