The NXR Podcast - June 10, 2022


QUESTIONS - How Does Pastor Joel Leads Family Worship In His Home？


Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

196.02385

Word count

3,474

Sentence count

219


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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00:00:21.380 Adam Durant.
00:00:23.180 Pastor Joel, please discuss your approach to family worship.
00:00:27.320 Great question.
00:00:27.820 I like this one because it's practical and really fruitful for fathers and mothers.
00:00:34.900 So what we do, and this has kind of evolved over time as I am growing as a father.
00:00:42.540 But what we do at this point is we do our family worship.
00:00:45.860 So I'm going to be pretty detailed as always.
00:00:48.420 We do our family worship at the table.
00:00:51.280 So for the longest time, so we started, I'll answer that first.
00:00:54.440 We started doing family worship when my oldest daughter, who is now about to be five, Olive,
00:01:00.160 when she was, I think, like 14 months, a little bit over one year old.
00:01:05.140 And so people have asked me, when do you start family worship?
00:01:08.040 At what age?
00:01:09.040 When should you start?
00:01:09.960 And I always tell them, we started when our oldest was 14 months.
00:01:13.620 And then they say, do you feel like you started too soon?
00:01:16.360 And I always say, I feel like we started too late.
00:01:18.800 I think that really, I think I was always doing private worship.
00:01:24.200 And the moment that I got married, I started doing family worship with my wife without
00:01:28.880 having children.
00:01:30.020 But then my wife and I, we continued doing some measure of family worship in our marriage,
00:01:34.920 but without our daughter being present, right?
00:01:38.060 So maybe it's after bedtime or something like that.
00:01:39.940 And then we spend some time reading the scripture, doing this, doing, I think we should have
00:01:43.360 invited my daughter into that moment of family worship from the day that she was born. And so
00:01:50.600 that's when I would start. And when we started, we would do it usually after dinnertime in the
00:01:55.680 evening, right before bed in our living room. Now, as the kids got older and as the kids
00:02:01.520 multiplied, now we have three and our fourth on the way, being in the living room
00:02:07.940 presents some, some practical challenges. The kids are, they're moving around, which is,
00:02:14.620 that's just going to happen. That's part of family worship. Um, but they're also, they're,
00:02:18.200 they're getting up, they're walking, they maybe start wrestling. You know, my daughters will
00:02:22.240 wrestle sometimes, you know, which is pretty cute. Um, you know, they're, they're wrapping
00:02:26.680 themselves up in a blanket or they're walking and grabbing a toy or they're doing these kinds
00:02:30.540 of things. And we permit some of that, maybe not the wrestling part, you know, but some of that,
00:02:35.540 if it's, you know, they're just doing something with their hands while they're also able to be
00:02:39.660 at least somewhat attentive. But a lot of times it would just, it would get out of control where
00:02:44.080 it's like, okay, you're not listening at all. So what we realized is that for the kids to be
00:02:48.940 attentive in family worship, it really helped if we did at the table, because at the table,
00:02:53.700 they're all in their chairs. And instead of waiting till we're done with the meal, right?
00:02:58.240 Kids, a lot of times take a long time to eat, right? Because pretty much every meal goes
00:03:02.180 something like this. Take another bite. Take another bite. Chew it. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.
00:03:12.520 Swallow. All right. Three more bites of salad. Two more bites of meat. So my point is, by the time
00:03:20.100 you get done with the kids eating, because they take a long time, sometimes it's pulling teeth
00:03:23.920 with kids to get them to actually eat. By the time you're done with the kids eating,
00:03:29.440 you could have been at the dinner table for half an hour. You could have been at the dinner table
00:03:34.460 for 45 minutes or, or a whole hour. Um, meaning that the kids are ready to get up when they're
00:03:39.580 finally done eating, they're ready to get up. So what we do is we start family worship, um,
00:03:44.280 at the table with a meal, typically breakfast, uh, starting the day. And we start not after
00:03:50.100 they're done eating, but right at the beginning. So we sit down at the table and start family
00:03:53.440 worship as the kids are eating. So that gives them something that they're doing with their hands,
00:03:57.260 but it's, you know, it's definitely a step down from wrestling and rolling on the floor.
00:04:01.960 So they're doing something, but they have some bandwidth of attention left for
00:04:06.060 family worship. And we always start with our catechizing first. And we break this up into
00:04:11.920 two groups. So we have scripture memory, and then we have catechism questions. And I use
00:04:17.940 Keech's catechism. It's a reformed Baptist. Benjamin Keech was a reformed Baptist. And so
00:04:24.840 it's a reformed Baptist catechism and I revise certain parts of it. Um, but for the most part,
00:04:29.380 I stick to his catechism and, uh, we use that catechism. There are other ones like the new
00:04:35.720 city catechism or modern catechisms that I personally don't like. Cause I think that
00:04:39.780 in their attempt to be simple, I think they gravitate, um, too far away from, uh, some of
00:04:45.460 the robust theological language that I want my kids to know. And so, um, Keech's catechism is
00:04:51.220 what I would recommend. And, and so what we do is, you know, we, we're comprehensive. You guys know
00:04:57.660 that from watching my videos, me answering questions, meaning that I don't want to leave
00:05:02.120 anything out. And especially with kids, because what I've noticed with other families that had
00:05:05.880 older kids than ours, as I was, you know, preparing to lead my family in worship, preparing to be a
00:05:10.400 father, is their kids only ever knew about five catechism questions at a time. And it happened
00:05:18.600 to be the answers to the five catechism questions that they were doing that week in their family
00:05:24.220 worship. And all the other questions, all the other bases that they had previously covered
00:05:29.180 in past weeks, they had forgotten, or at least a lot of it they had forgotten. So what we're
00:05:37.040 doing in our family worship, at first it was just five questions. It was, you know,
00:05:42.200 who made you? The answer is God made me. What else did God make? God made all things.
00:05:50.200 Why did God make you and all things? Kind of like the first question from the
00:05:54.420 shorter catechism, Westminster catechism. Why did God make you and all things? For his glory,
00:05:59.740 right? The first question is, what's the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
00:06:04.240 So who made you? God made me. What else did God make? God made all things. Why did God make you
00:06:08.600 in all things for his glory. The fourth question is how do we glorify God? And the answer is the
00:06:15.420 way that I've revised it is two ways. Love God, obey God. Some people would answer by loving him
00:06:21.280 and doing what he commands, I think is the actual answer. But love God, obey God. The fifth question
00:06:26.680 is why should we glorify God? Some would answer because he made me and loves me.
00:06:34.000 Our answer is, is because he is God.
00:06:36.900 Why should we glorify God?
00:06:38.200 Because he is God.
00:06:39.480 So that's it.
00:06:40.180 So those were the first five questions and we would do that.
00:06:43.040 And then we had, you know, three or four memory verses.
00:06:45.200 This is early on, you know, probably three, four years ago in our family worship.
00:06:49.380 So we had like three, three or four memory verses.
00:06:51.940 So in every, every evening we would do, here's our five catechism questions and here's our
00:06:57.620 three or four memory verses.
00:06:59.500 And then we'd move on to the next portion of family worship, which I'll discuss in just
00:07:02.980 a moment.
00:07:03.460 but because I'm comprehensive, I didn't want them to forget anything. I didn't move on when we
00:07:08.840 finally had those down and memorized. Um, I didn't want to move on to here's the next five
00:07:13.320 catechism questions. And now we're only doing those in family worship and we're not doing any
00:07:17.340 longer the first five. Um, no, I, so when we added five more questions, we, we didn't go for another
00:07:25.260 five. It was now a combination of 10. It was 10 questions, the first five and the next five.
00:07:31.460 and then when we added scripture memory it wasn't oh here's new three new verses um as a substitute
00:07:37.340 for the three old verses notice now here are six verses three new ones and the three old ones and
00:07:42.080 so as we kept doing that now we have i think it's 38 bible verses that the kids have memorized again
00:07:47.500 my oldest um being four about to be five uh she knows all 37 of of the bible verses by memory
00:07:53.980 and then she, my middle child is about to be three
00:07:59.300 and her name's Ruth
00:08:01.400 and so Ruth, she knows about 30 of the 37
00:08:04.620 that she can quote
00:08:05.700 and then my youngest is 18 months old
00:08:08.880 and can't talk yet, Eleanor
00:08:10.380 but she wants to participate in family worship also
00:08:13.620 you know why?
00:08:15.000 Because she's a member of our family
00:08:16.580 and that's what our family does
00:08:18.400 because we're Christians
00:08:19.260 and so I ask her questions
00:08:22.500 It's like with the catechism, you know, who made you?
00:08:25.260 And she'll say, God, God.
00:08:27.500 She knows the answer to that.
00:08:28.500 You know, what else did God make?
00:08:29.620 All thing, all thing, you know, and she'll barely answer it.
00:08:32.440 So I give her the easiest ones.
00:08:34.500 And then even ones that she can't even begin to answer, like a memory verse, you know,
00:08:38.360 I'll still say, all right, what does John 1, 1 say?
00:08:41.700 And I'll just say it with her, you know, and let her even just mumble just because she
00:08:46.700 just wants to be a part of it.
00:08:48.180 She'll mumble something.
00:08:49.180 I'll say, good, that's okay.
00:08:50.640 In the beginning was the word.
00:08:51.880 say beginning, you know, good. In the beginning, you know, in the beginning was the word and the
00:08:57.100 word was with God. The word was God. So my point is, as we got more and more, now we have like 38
00:09:01.560 Bible verses and I can't remember exactly, but you know, a 30 something catechism questions.
00:09:08.400 And, uh, and so what we did was, uh, because we're doing all of them comprehensively,
00:09:12.900 I'm not dropping off a single one, you know, you can get to me, get back to me in 10 years and see,
00:09:17.660 see what I'm doing, because it's going to continue to expand. But what we did is we split. So now we
00:09:23.040 do every other day, meaning the catechism portion of our family worship, which is two parts,
00:09:29.640 scripture, memory, and questions, that has now become where one day we do questions, the next
00:09:35.060 day we do verses. Then the next day we do questions, then the next day we do verses. That way we can do
00:09:39.860 all of our catechism questions, starting all the way back with the very first one, who made you,
00:09:44.080 and do all of our memory verses, starting with the very first one, which for us was Genesis 1.1.
00:09:49.360 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So it's comprehensive. And because
00:09:53.420 it's comprehensive, it's just more and more and more. So we split it. So our family worship time
00:09:59.360 is at breakfast. It's at the table. It's right when breakfast starts, as the children are eating.
00:10:04.300 It begins with the catechesis portion, which is questions and scripture memory. And every other
00:10:11.400 the day, comprehensive, doing everything that we've ever learned, questions one day, the next
00:10:17.100 day, memory verses. Then the next day, questions. Then the next day, memory verses. That's section
00:10:21.780 one of the Webin Family Worship Time. The next is, I then read to them a story from a children's
00:10:29.960 Bible. I like to use Follow Me. Joel Beakey is one of the lead editors on the Follow Me
00:10:36.380 children's story Bible. Also, I do like Kevin DeYoung's new storybook Bible. Don Clark is the
00:10:44.780 illustrator. There are images of Jesus in this. And so a lot of times I'll cover them up. Or what
00:10:51.400 I do appreciate is Kevin DeYoung actually does have a note to the parents explaining why there
00:10:56.640 are some, not many, but some images of Christ and why they are intentionally obscure. So they're
00:11:02.140 not cartoonish to make Jesus look like a cartoon character, um, you know, to, to look trivial or
00:11:08.260 trite. Um, but they're also not, um, detailed to, to, to, because if they're really detailed,
00:11:15.300 like an actual portrait of a person trying to be as, as, as accurate as possible, um, that that's
00:11:21.300 actually, um, counterintuitive because that, that would say, this is who Jesus is. This is what
00:11:27.340 Jesus looks like when it's not what Jesus looks like, because we haven't seen Jesus. We don't
00:11:32.620 know what he looks like. And even if we did, even if we had a photograph, let's say Jesus came,
00:11:37.360 you know, during a time where there was technology and there was, you know, video cameras and
00:11:41.340 iPhones and pictures, even then, you know, it's not Jesus. It's not Jesus because Jesus is the
00:11:47.620 God-man, and a picture can only depict his humanity and not his divinity. So we usually
00:11:53.440 try to kind of skip around past the images or cover them up. Um, but all that being said,
00:11:59.140 uh, the writing is really good. Uh, so Kevin DeYoung, I think has done a good job with the
00:12:02.720 writing of his, uh, storybook Bible. It's called the, uh, I think it's called the biggest story,
00:12:06.860 the biggest storybook Bible, uh, or the biggest story, the biggest story, storybook Bible,
00:12:12.860 something like that. Don Clark is the illustrator. He's a fantastic illustrator. So the kids love
00:12:17.680 that one. The pictures are amazing. So we do our catechism questions one day. We do our verses
00:12:21.860 the other day. It's comprehensive. After the question portion of memory verses and questions,
00:12:26.080 then it's a story for the kids with the storybook Bible. I would not recommend the Jesus storybook
00:12:31.740 Bible. Some families use that. The Jesus storybook Bible is antinomian. And I believe
00:12:38.860 borderline heresy. I really do. It's gospel-centered in exactly the way that you would expect gospel
00:12:47.340 centered these days, sadly to be, which means not gospel centered, but gospel myoptic,
00:12:53.840 meaning gospel only, gospel at the expense of God's law, meaning that every story is just,
00:13:00.940 here's something that happened and here's something that God commands and here's how
00:13:04.260 we can't keep it. And here's how Jesus kept it for us. Well, that's true. Jesus is the summation
00:13:10.280 of all the scripture, all the law and the prophets point towards him. Jesus is the central character
00:13:16.720 of the Bible. But the Bible contains both law and gospel. And we believe as reformers,
00:13:24.660 not just in the first use of the law, that the law reveals my sin and need for Jesus,
00:13:30.480 need for a savior. But we also believe in the third use of the law, that the law is a lamp
00:13:35.040 unto my feet, that the law actually directs us in how we should live. Will we do it perfectly? No.
00:13:40.620 but is it still binding on us and is it our goal yes and the law is not only right and holy but it
00:13:48.060 is good david delighted in the law of god is a lamp unto my feet not a lamp unto my feet showing
00:13:53.480 me the path to salvation no one will be saved by works as done unto the law but it does show me the
00:13:58.500 path from salvation how a christian should live in light of the law or in light of the gospel in
00:14:04.340 light of being saved by grace alone through faith alone in christ alone so the jesus storybook bible
00:14:08.500 I think it's antinomian. I think it has a blatant denial of the third use of the law.
00:14:15.600 And a lot of storybook Bibles are similar to that. So anyways, the two that I would recommend is the
00:14:20.600 Follow Me storybook Bible and the Kevin DeYoung one that just came out, the biggest story ever
00:14:25.520 told or whatever, something like that. So we do the story. So it's the catechism, it's the story.
00:14:31.000 Then I read from the Bible. And I'm always clear that the storybook Bible is not the Bible.
00:14:36.060 It's children's stories about the Bible.
00:14:38.780 And I let the kids know, oh, this is true.
00:14:40.840 This portion of the story, this is true.
00:14:42.600 This is something that happened.
00:14:43.580 This is something that God did, but it's not the Bible.
00:14:46.480 And so then we read the Bible as a family.
00:14:49.560 I don't want the storybook Bible to be a substitute for the Bible, the actual Bible.
00:14:54.620 And so what I'll do is I'll read the same text seven times in a week, every day of the
00:15:00.740 week, and it's the text that I'm going to be preaching on that coming Lord's Day.
00:15:04.300 So we'll start with Monday.
00:15:05.480 and we'll read it all the way up till Sunday.
00:15:09.500 And then we'll go to church on Sunday
00:15:11.360 and I preach that text.
00:15:12.500 And so right now I'm preaching
00:15:13.240 through the book of Hebrews.
00:15:14.480 And so it's whatever text I'm gonna be,
00:15:16.140 you know, preaching that day.
00:15:17.860 And I practice with the kids, you know,
00:15:19.180 when I finish reading the text, I'll say,
00:15:20.740 this is the word of the Lord.
00:15:21.980 And they know to respond by saying, thanks be to God.
00:15:24.940 And even my youngest, Eleanor, you know,
00:15:26.480 she's like, God, thank God, you know?
00:15:28.620 And so as much as you can, finding ways for them,
00:15:31.620 you know, moments for participation.
00:15:34.040 And then we do singing.
00:15:36.880 Then we sing one hymn or one psalm.
00:15:39.560 Then we do prayer.
00:15:42.260 Each of the kids has a prayer request
00:15:43.940 and I teach them to pray.
00:15:45.780 So I'll feed them the word.
00:15:47.000 So I wanna pray for this family in the church.
00:15:49.280 I wanna pray for,
00:15:50.220 they always wanna pray for people,
00:15:52.000 which is awesome.
00:15:53.460 It helps me even in my pastoral prayers
00:15:55.540 because they'll think of families in the church
00:15:56.900 that we should pray for.
00:15:58.140 And so Ruth will say,
00:15:59.180 I wanna pray for the Joslins,
00:16:01.400 a family in our church.
00:16:02.280 you know? And so I'll say, okay, um, is there anything specific you want to pray? No, I just
00:16:05.940 want to, you know, uh, usually they'll say that, that they don't get sick, you know, or God would
00:16:10.260 heal them, you know, and the kids want God to heal people in our church that aren't even sick,
00:16:14.440 you know? So we'll work with that, but I'll say, okay, repeat after me, dear God, thank you for
00:16:19.920 the jaws and, you know, and, and the repeating my oldest, all of, she can pray on her own. Um,
00:16:24.120 and she does a really great job. If there's something that's, that's not doctrinally sound
00:16:27.400 in her prayer, then I'll correct that and have her pray again. Um, and then I'll pray for the
00:16:31.480 whole family. Um, and then, uh, we, uh, conclude our family worship by singing the doxology and
00:16:38.240 we all put our hands up in a posture of praise and we sing, you know, praise God from whom all
00:16:44.140 blessings flow. And then we're done. And that takes us a lot, uh, but it takes us about, um,
00:16:52.800 about 30 minutes, which is about how long it takes us to eat. And so intermittently throughout our
00:16:58.760 family worship. It's also, uh, take another bite of your eggs, you know? Um, so there's, you know,
00:17:04.940 we're, we're getting through breakfast and doing all of that. And so we do it to start the day.
00:17:10.460 Breakfast is the first thing in the morning. Mom makes breakfast usually right when the kids wake
00:17:14.640 up or right before. So they're just getting out of bed, going to the table and it's worship.
00:17:19.040 Um, it's, it's food for our body and food for our soul. And that is how we do family worship
00:17:24.440 and the Webbin household.
00:17:25.620 I hope that's helpful.
00:17:26.880 Thanks so much for listening.
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