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

196.02

Word count

3,474

Sentence count

219

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Pastor Joel and his wife share their approach to family worship. They discuss the benefits of starting family worship at the dinner table and why it's important to have family worship begin at the beginning of the meal.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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 0.77
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? 0.91
00:08:15.000 Because she's a member of our family 1.00
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. 0.94
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, 0.99
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.
00:17:28.100 But real quick, before you go,
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00:17:42.680 Thanks so much.