Habits of Enhancement: Songs

We don't sing songs in our house.

Well, we do, but we don't sit around and sing, like, a praise song or a hymn together after we read Scripture or pray together. Just ain't gonna' happen.

It's not that we think this is bad or corny. It's just not us.

But, music is alive in our home, you can be sure of that. And we are often timely and intentional about when we play certain songs and how we go about it.

Habits of Enhancement: Reading Scripture

Reading Scripture has been a central part of Christian life for a long, long time. But it was not always something that could be done in the home. Reading Scripture in the home is a relatively recent innovation, partly due to Martin Luther and a combination of other factors, including the invention of the printing press.

Prior to this, Scripture reading was something left to the religious educated to do, the elites. But the common people were to do more than just passively receive the words of Scripture. The words of Scripture were heard (not quietly read) and then modeled in lived life. The process of hearing Scripture and then being shaped by it is a sacred thing.

This is how we want to understand the importance of reading Scripture as we think about being families who worship, as we have been taking a look at what worship is (see posts here, here, and here), and how we can be families who worship. The book inspiring these thoughts, Family Worship, holds reading Scripture highly as part of being a family who worships.

Reading Scripture itself does not make a worshiping family. Reading Scripture is another "habit of enhancement" for the purpose of inspiring lives of worship and devotion to God that are lived and experienced by others in our actions and interactions.

Habits of Enhancement: Prayer

Last week we took a look at the second chapter of Family Worship. The author gave examples of people of the past (and present) who have taught about and modeled practices that are "habits of enhancement." These are daily habits of prayer, Scripture reading, singing songs, as well as other things that enhance the life of worship.

Such habits have great importance. That's why Christians throughout generations have regularly practiced them. One cannot live the Christian life well without them.

Some of you might be thinking of something like the Faith 5, a simple method for family devotions that has been put out by Faith Inkubators in recent years. This is very similar to these habits. Faith 5 includes more than just these practices, and focuses on the importance of sharing and connecting with one another. The difference is that we're focusing more specifically on understanding these as spiritual practices that form our lives as lives of worship.