A Late Start

I am a pastor’s kid. I was brought up in the Seventh Day Adventist Church since birth. I have been married to a Christian man for almost 13 years and been a mother for 10 and a half of those. For the last ten years I have been actively involved in my church’s Children’s Ministries, thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to minister to the church children and my own. Yet, I have a confession to make, I do not conduct Family Worship at home. In fact for most of my adult life I have hated the thought of having Family Worship.

Ever since I can remember, my parents religiously conducted Family Worship twice a day in our home. Every day, rain or shine we had to get up in the morning for worship and then again we would get together in the evening. Our worships were very formal; there was no room for jokes or wiggling around. Singing was not optional, the content was always very deep, we would be asked questions and we couldn’t get away with “I don’t knows”. There was nothing enjoyable about these family moments, my parents always managed to make us believe we were horrible Christians if we did not joyfully participated and this left us feeling guilty for most of our childhood. I hated those worship sessions with a passion! Some of the most tense moments and the biggest arguments I had with my parents, happened during the family worship time. It’s not surprise than when I left home to go to college I did not continue having regular worship time.

I promised myself that if I ever had children, they would not have to go through these painful worship sessions. And until very recently I have pretty much kept my word. If we are home, we might have worship on Friday evening to receive the Sabbath, but it has not been very consistent at all. I secretly hoped my husband would take the leadership in this area; unfortunately, it just did not work out that way.

All these years, I have struggled with this issue. I believe in the concept of Family Worship. I believe we are mandated by God to educate and instruct our children in a godly manner, and family worship should be the center of the home. But I just couldn’t shake the mental block. Ironically, when I tried to have worship with the girls, I reverted, I guess to what family worship was at my home, and it would never be a very enjoyable experience for the girls. Even though I hate it, I guess I tend to think that Family Worship has to be formal, that the content has to be deep, and it should be a solemn moment. When they start to wiggle around, or not pay enough attention, I feel like I have failed and the worship always ends abruptly.

This year, however, I have decided to break away with all my preconceptions or what family worship should or shouldn’t be. I’m just going to try to have a moment with the girls every day where we discuss something related to our spiritual lives. I bought each of them an age appropriate devotional book and I have been spending about 5 or 10 minutes a day reading the devotions and discussing them with them. It’s not very formal, the devotions are very short and simple, some days I read the devotions to each girl separately, some other days they are both together. We still don’t have a “routine” set up, and who knows if we will ever get one. My goal is to do it consistently every day. I’m already seeing positive results both in their spirituality and mine. As the saying goes: It’s never too late…