Anglican view on family worship
A while back I shared this article: 8 Solid Tips to Bring back Family Worship, which was featured on The United Methodist Church's website.
Research has shown that family worship, family devotions, family faith-sharing is critically important for raising Christian children who will become Christian adults. Corporate worship and church involvement is the foundational spiritual practice, of course, but at best that means engagement for only a couple of hours of the week.
Family devotions bring that focus on God - on adoring, obeying, and enjoying the Father, Son, and Spirit - into our every-day routine. As a pastor I try to make clear to parents who bring infants to be baptized, this "family worship" is absolutely crucial for passing along the Christian faith to the next generation (and it is also probably the missing link in the last few generations of Protestantism).
I recently ran across THIS great post from Episcopal priest Esau McCaulley (pictured) on how the Anglican tradition is shaping not only how he worships on Sundays, but also how his family worships together every day. His journey has some similarities with my own, and so I really resonated with what he has written.
Following the practice of John and Charles Wesley, I try to pray the Anglican Morning Office on most weekdays at the local Episcopal church with our local clergy, but that is while my wife is at work.
When it comes to our praying as a family, currently our "family devotion time" besides the Lord's Day Service and Wednesday evening small-group, consists of meal-time prayers and reading that great "bread and butter" of United Methodist daily devotions: The Upper Room. The Upper Room includes a Scripture reading, a devotional story, and a short prayer to read (to which we often add a few of our own 'free prayers' and/or the Lord's Prayer).
The Upper Room is available online HERE (and on the side bar of this blog).
There are numerous other Devotion guides and Prayerbooks that are specifically grounded in our Wesleyan heritage that have become popular among United Methodists.
As my first daughter grows older, it might be nice to expand our family devotion times to include a seasonal Psalm or gathering prayer. I rather like the "Daily Devotions for Families" included in The Book of Common Prayer of 1979 (p. 136-140). I hope the forthcoming 2019 Book of Common Prayer will include something similar.
What do you do for family devotions?
Research has shown that family worship, family devotions, family faith-sharing is critically important for raising Christian children who will become Christian adults. Corporate worship and church involvement is the foundational spiritual practice, of course, but at best that means engagement for only a couple of hours of the week.
Family devotions bring that focus on God - on adoring, obeying, and enjoying the Father, Son, and Spirit - into our every-day routine. As a pastor I try to make clear to parents who bring infants to be baptized, this "family worship" is absolutely crucial for passing along the Christian faith to the next generation (and it is also probably the missing link in the last few generations of Protestantism).
Following the practice of John and Charles Wesley, I try to pray the Anglican Morning Office on most weekdays at the local Episcopal church with our local clergy, but that is while my wife is at work.
When it comes to our praying as a family, currently our "family devotion time" besides the Lord's Day Service and Wednesday evening small-group, consists of meal-time prayers and reading that great "bread and butter" of United Methodist daily devotions: The Upper Room. The Upper Room includes a Scripture reading, a devotional story, and a short prayer to read (to which we often add a few of our own 'free prayers' and/or the Lord's Prayer).
The Upper Room is available online HERE (and on the side bar of this blog).
There are numerous other Devotion guides and Prayerbooks that are specifically grounded in our Wesleyan heritage that have become popular among United Methodists.
As my first daughter grows older, it might be nice to expand our family devotion times to include a seasonal Psalm or gathering prayer. I rather like the "Daily Devotions for Families" included in The Book of Common Prayer of 1979 (p. 136-140). I hope the forthcoming 2019 Book of Common Prayer will include something similar.
What do you do for family devotions?
Labels: Anglicanism, Daily Office, Methodism, Spirituality and Liturgy
posted by Rev. Daniel McLain Hixon at 6/29/2017
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