Habits of Enhancement

We've been going through the idea of family worship, and worship in general, as we are blogging along through ideas and content from the book Family Worship. As we've been getting our minds around the idea of worship so we can practice it in the home, we've been focusing on understanding what worship is and is not. In last week's post, we looked more at worship. Particularly we looked at when "worship" isn't worship.

Chapter two of the book, Family Worship, is very interesting and helpful. In this chapter, the author takes us through stories (very briefly and just skimming the surface!) of Christians of the past who have cultivated "family worship." This includes people we know like Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles Spurgeon. It also includes important, yet forgotten Christians of the distant past like Tertullian (from the 3rd century) and John Chrysostom (from the 4th century).

This is an important chapter, and good for us to learn from. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in our ways today, in our world, in our bubble. It's easy to forget those who came before us in faith; easy to not celebrate them. But they have much to say. It is helpful to hear and learn from people of the past, whose lives serve as ongoing witness to the gospel and as a bridge between the writing of Scripture and our current lives.

Here are a few examples from the book.

Tertullian writes of the Christian home:

They pray together, they worship together, they fast together, instructing one another, strengthening one another...they sing Psalms and hymns to one another...(from Ad uxorem ["To My Wife"] book 2, chapter 8).

Notice the emphasis on together. These practices seem to be practices that create unity and togetherness in the household, in addition to being practices of faith. Or maybe this is how unity and togetherness are best achieved--through sharing spiritual practices and integrating them in the home life. I tend to think yes.

Fast forward to Martin Luther. Luther was a huge advocate of instilling spiritual practices and leadership in the home. This is one of the reasons the (then) institution of the church was upset at him: he was putting too much authority in the hands of everyday people, and pulling it away from the church. Luther's Small Catechism and Large Catechism were written for the purpose of being helpful and relevant guides for faith in the home. Parents, not pastors, were to teach the catechism.

As part of this, Luther advocated instruction in the home, along with prayers and singing, as fundamental practices of a mature Christian household. He even (scanalously in his time) said about the household that actively instructs in the ways of the faith:

Such a house is actually a school and a church, and the head of the household is a bishop and a priest in the house. (Lectures on Genesis 21-25)

Cultivating spiritual practices might enhance togetherness and doing these things situates the home as the center of the life of faith. The home as a church!

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There are many other examples in the book that we'll return to in the future. Here are a couple points I think it's important to focus on.

First, you don't need to have a special theology degree or a certain type of household to do these things. Single parent, two parents, working parents, many kids or no kids--whatever the setup--the importance is on the home and family.

Second, it's important not to focus on the practices as worship. These type of spiritual practices are just that spiritual practices. The book equates them with worship. I am not so quick to do this as the previous posts have suggested (you may disagree on this, but at least I've got you thinking more about what "worship" is and is not!).  

Let's call these practices "habits of enhancement." These practices, in themselves, do not constitute worship. Recall the previous posts about what worship is and is not, and how worship is a way of life that we live out toward others just as much as to God. The practices of praying, Scriture, singing, gathering can sometimes turn out to be empty and lacking worship.

These habits, however, are still necessary. Why? Glad you asked.

These habits--spiritual practices if you want to call them that--reinforce a life lived as a worshipful life. We don't want the takeaway from this helpful book on family worship to be that "if we pray, read Scripture, and sing songs, then we're a worshiping family." Not quite true. It would be like saying, "if you exercise exactly 30 minutes a day, eat six servings of veggies, and get 8 hours of sleep, you're healthy." Not quite. Those things serve to cultivate health, but "healthy" is an ongoing way of being and not able to be reduced to certain actions.

Same with worship. We want to think of the practices of prayer, Scripture reading, singing songs (and other sorts of practices we might associate with "worship") as "habits of enhancement." That is, they enhance the life of worship. They do not necessarily equate with "worship" in the full sense, and they are best not confused with worship. Remember, "worship" is something we offer to God. Most basically, it is the offering our our whole selves to God. So, while we're at it, we might just add to these habits: serving the needy, inviting the stranger/neighbor, clothing the naked (Matthew 25:31-46).

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What "habits of enhancement" best enhance your life of worship (of offering your selves to God) as an individual and as a family?

Talk through these: prayer, Scripture reading, singing songs, serving others (add to the list as you want). How do these each "enhance" your relationship to God and your offering of yourself to God?