Our family views family worship as an integral part of our daily life.  To seek the Lord’s face morning and evening is a high priority.  My husband as the head of the home, leads our family and teaches us out of God’s word, day by day.  These have been times of rich blessing.  I would encourage you to read more of the benefits of daily family worship.

George Whitefield says “For has God given us so much time to work for ourselves, and shall we not allow some small pittance of it, morning and evening, to be devoted to his more immediate worship and service?”

A.W Pink says, “At least twice each day—in the morning and in the evening—the whole household should be gathered together to bow before the Lord—parents and children, master and servant — to confess their sins, to give thanks for God’s mercies, to seek His help and blessing. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with this duty: all other domestic arrangements are to bend to it. The head of the house is the one to lead the devotions. but if he be absent, or seriously ill, or an unbeliever, then the wife should take his place. Under no circumstances should family worship be omitted. If we would enjoy the blessing of God upon our family then let its members gather together daily for praise and prayer. “Them that honour Me I will honour” is His promise.”

I would encourage you to read more quotes from godly men such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon HERE.

So how do you have family worship as a large family when Daddy is gone?

In my husband’s absence, during the workweek, I lead my children in going before the Lord.  It does not always happen first thing in the morning, but we try our best to make it the priority of the day, before other things crowd it out.  I find, as a mother, it is a great joy to share the nuggets God has given me with my little ones.  Sometimes I feel like I am the one getting the most blessing from it. Yes, there are  many times of temptation to leave it off, feeling the resistance of the flesh from my children.  We are not naturally given to these things and there is much against it.  The enemy would love to have us be discouraged from pressing into the Lord’s kingdom. But,If no other school gets done, if no other rooms get cleaned, if no other laundry gets folded, if we have spent time together gathering around the Word of God, then we have attended to the one thing needful.

We keep it simple and follow this basic pattern:

• Brief prayer for the Lord to open His word to us.
• We sing a Psalm.  Our family loves to sing Psalms. (I plan on another post on this).  We have several memorized that we rotate through.
• We read a passage of Scripture.  Sometimes I read, other times I have one or more of my children read. We are going through bit by bit the book of Genesis now. Other times, we review a passage that our pastor recently preached on, or I will chose a portion that has to do with an area of sin we are needing to address in our lives.  I seek to apply God’s word practically to the children in challenging them with a lesson to be learned from what we have read.  This is such a good exercise for me, because it causes me to have to think and apply these things, to give back to my children.
• Lastly, we pray as a family. Most of the time I pray, but occasionally we will all take our turns praying. I pray for Daddy at work, for the day ahead, for application of what we have just read and talked about, and for other needs upon our hearts.

Our family worship each morning may be as short as 10 minutes or as long as 30 minutes.  But, we have found it to be such a blessed time.  I, as a mother, get to pour out my heart to my little ones the things God has placed within me for them.

There have been times because of intense sickness that I have been unable to have this daily practice.  For those times I know that the Lord has grace upon his frail children.  But, when I am faithful and can even with frailty lead my little ones, there is a rich blessing in it, even for me.

I would encourage you as mothers, in your husband’s absence, to take time each day to lead your little ones to God.  Whether you call it family worship, devotions, or Bible time, matters not. Whether it is long or short, plain or eloquent is not important.  But, daily time of quieting your hearts together will be a rich blessing to you and your children!

Jenny is the blessed mother of 8 children ages 21-6 and happy wife of 23 years to Steve.  She has been a blogger since before the internet (not really  ) and is the owner of amothersheritage.com.  She has a home business serving entrepreneurs at Concordia Virtual and is a certified birth and labor doula with Cradled in Love Birth Services.