What’s the absolute best way to scripturally reign this month? The honest, candid “no punches-pulled” answer lies just a few lines below. It’s not flashy and it most likely won’t produce immediate results, but it’s possibly the most important thing that we can do as it relates to reigning with Christ!

Now, before we reign with Christ in our neighborhoods or even at our jobs, we must first reign in our homes. And by reign, I don’t mean ruling our homes with an iron fist!  As we learned in Rev. Foley’s last blog post, reigning has more to do with serving than it does with acting superior over those with whom we are in a position of authority.

The first step in reigning then, is to lead your family in the practice of a daily family worship time.  Simply put . . . are you making a consistent effort to study Scripture, to pray and to sing spiritual songs with your family?

The statistics, at least those found by George Barna, are startling. In his book, Revolutionary Parenting, he found that only one in ten regular church attending families read the Bible together in a typical month. Fewer than one in twenty of these church families pray together, except before meals. And less than one in twenty families do any kind of worship activity outside the church building.

Take a moment to think about those statistics, but rather than thinking about how terrible other Christians are, think about the state of your own family worship time.  Ask God how he is going to use you to restore, renew and strengthen this practice of a daily family worship time in your own home.  And this is perhaps the best place to start when thinking about the Scriptural practice of reigning.

The most basic way to understand “reigning” is to exercise influence or control with those in your own sphere of influence. Our families are undoubtedly in our spheres of influence and what better way to exercise this influence than to lead them in a greater devotion to Jesus Christ!

Here are some resources to help you get started in meaningful family worship, but remember that to succeed in this area not only are resources needed, but even more so a faithful commitment to follow through!

1. Donald S. Whitney’s book, Family Worship: In the Bible, in History & in Your Home. Pastor Foley recommended this in a previous blog post as possibly the best book on family worship available.
2. Joel R. Beeke’s book that’s simply titled, Family Worship. This has a reformed angle, and what I like about this book is that it gives you specific suggestions on how to implement family worship and what content to include such as specific songs, prayers and creeds.
3. One of the principles of starting a lay church is Establish that Sunday is not the Main Service.  Rev. Foley’s post gives some good food for thought concerning what items should make up the meat of the family worship time.

I’d love to hear about any resources that have encouraged you and your family to be committed to worshipping God together.