Family Worship Guide

Throughout Christian history, families have participated in both the corporate worship services of the church, and in private family worship in their homes. One of the keys to worshipping together as a family is simply to have a plan. We want to encourage you to pick one time a week and designate that as the time when you will gather as a family and spend some time in worship. Remember this doesn’t have to be long or formal but you can simply follow the short guide we have here. This guide requires little to no preparation and is connected to what we are doing together on Sunday mornings.

Each week the guide will contain four main elements: Sing, Read, Teach, and Pray, with the elements in the guide pulled from our corporate worship service that week. There are also some recommended resources included at the bottom of the guide that may be helpful to your family at some point during your time together.

You can do the whole thing in 15 minutes as a family or, if the discussion is going well, feel free to go longer. Remember to give yourself grace and trust that the Lord will supply what you need. It won’t always be smooth and it may sometimes feel like little was accomplished. The key is just to spend regular time together in worship and point each other to Jesus. Think of ways to make this time interactive and engage your kids if you have them.

You aren’t in this alone. The Lord is with you and so are we. Feel free to share with us how your worship together is going. We would love to help you with any struggles you may be facing and celebrate all the victories. Know that we are praying for you each week as we send out this resource. We are so excited to see what the Lord does as he works in and through you and your families.

Click the button below to access a Spotify playlist with the worship songs for this week!

Hebrews 8:1–13 (ESV)

1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” 6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 
8 For he finds fault with them when he says: 
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, 
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel 
and with the house of Judah, 
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers 
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. 
For they did not continue in my covenant, 
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel 
after those days, declares the Lord: 
I will put my laws into their minds, 
and write them on their hearts, 
and I will be their God, 
and they shall be my people. 
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor 
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ 
for they shall all know me, 
from the least of them to the greatest. 
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, 
and I will remember their sins no more.” 
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

The Apostles Creed (AD 390)

We believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy universal church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.