Bible Pathways in Picture and Word

Family Worship

"The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:

the father to the children shall make known thy truth."

Isaiah 38:19

God wants the home to be the happiest place on earth, the very symbol of the home in heaven. ( The Faith I Live By, pg 259)

Let the father, as priest of the household, lay upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice, while the wife and children unite in prayer and praise. In such a household Jesus will love to tarry. {Child Guidance 518}

The father, who is the priest of his household, should conduct the morning and evening worship. There is no reason why this should not be the most interesting and enjoyable exercise of the home life, and God is dishonored when it is made dry and irksome. Let the seasons of family worship be short and spirited. Do not let your children or any member of your family dread them because of their tediousness or lack of interest. When a long chapter is read and explained and a long prayer offered, this precious service becomes wearisome, and it is a relief when it is over. }

It should be the special object of the heads of the family to make the hour of worship intensely interesting. By a little thought and careful preparation for this season, when we come into the presence of God, family worship can be made pleasant and will be fraught with results that eternity alone will reveal. (Child Guidance, pg 522)

Family Worship Ideas

1. Worship Box--When children are very small it is beneficial to have something for them to hold during worship. This may be done by creating a worship box with lots of small items that correspond to the songs that you sing or the Bible stories or verses being read. Bells, children of the world, finger puppets, small animals, flowers, felts, fruits, an angel stick, a kazoo or "trumpet", ten commandments, a Jesus loves Me Flag, tick-tock sticks, a small Bible, etc. are excellent for this. You may begin worship with an infant this way. My first child, at less than a year, would fuss if she missed worship time, and I found she was much more pleasant if we had worship every day.

A decorated large shoe box or something of similar size is perfect for this.

Worship with a worship box is one of my happy childhood memories.

(Scroll down to the blue part of the page to learn some simple worship songs for children)

2. Bible Story Picture Books-- As children grow older pictures help to hold their attention. Bible Story Books are an excellent way to learn Bible stories and have readily available pictures. If you are reading Christ Object Lessons, pictures or felts of the parables make this more interesting for children. (One of our favorites was learning about pearls while studying the Pearl of Great Price.) Also I have read directly from the Bible and gathered pictures daily for the story in the Bible we are reading.

3. Have everyone participate. When children are old enough to read it will help to hold their interest if they are allowed to read also. Going around the circle with each reading a verse is profitable for keeping the interest and also helps to develop the reading skills.

Teach children to search for Hidden Treasure in the Bible. Once, when I was "fostering" two little girls who couldn't read (3 and 5 years old), I wanted to teach them to learn to love the Bible itself. I tried marking texts for them to point to. No success. I tried doing it in different colors, a little better, but still not as good of a response as I was looking for. Finally, in the margin beside the marked verses, I placed a small symbol telling what the verse was about. (Pictured) It was a winner, the girls loved looking for "hidden treasure" in their Bibles. Soon they learned which symbol went with which verse and loved to find verses to be read at worship time.

4. Music has been called the universal language. It is a wonderful way to praise God. Having a themed worship and singing songs about the Bible, the sanctuary, the crucifixion, missions, or thankfulness, etc. a makes this special. Find Bible verses that match the theme to intersperse with the songs. Also we regularly learn scripture songs this way. Sometimes we have used scripture songs composed by others or sometimes composed our own. We have a collection of scripture songs here and The Marked Bible Mission has collected and organized even more scripture songs in order by text.

5. God loves variety. Change your worship study throughout the year. We like to have special worships at different times of the year. Here are a few ideas.

Rainbows of Promise- This is an extra for whenever you need something for your little ones to look forward to. We had a search for hidden Bible treasure. We need to search the Scriptures, and dig deep in the mines of truth; for the precious jewels do not always lie on the surface; we should search for them as for hidden treasure. Lift Him Up pg 23 We wrote out Bible promises on rainbow colored sheets of paper, rolled them up and put a rubber band around them. The children searched for them and got to open them, read them and choose their favorite one to share at our special vespers. The vespers also consisted of using our Bibles as a songbook and singing some of the scripture songs we know. We often do it more than once a year at the request of the children.

Week of Prayer-Consists of reading stories of answered prayers and also having a tree "The leaves of which are for the healing of the nations". We used a dead tree and made leaves, flowers and fruits for it. On each leaf is written a person who we are praying for. If we see improvement such as they come to church, we put a flower. If they give their heart to Christ or we see a complete answer to prayer we put a fruit. Each night we each prayed for the people that we put on the tree. "An appeal to heaven by the humblest saint is more to be dreaded by Satan than the decrees of cabinets of the mandates of kings." (In Heavenly Places, pg 8)

Visit the holiday page for additional ideas

6. Make Friday evening Sunset worship special.

We usually sing hymns, allowing everyone to pick one. Then we repeat the 10 commandments. This can be made interesting to children with felts, picture cards or flip charts or tables of stone for them to hold. We also always sing a special sabbath song. We usually close with a special sentence prayer-where each of us saying a sentence of praise or request and the last person ends with their sentence and the Amen.

Learn Children's Worship Songs

These melodies are "no frills" and to our knowledge, out of copyright.

Oh Be Careful

This song will be more interesting to children if you add the motions. Point to eyes, ears, etc. Point to heaven for "up above".