Getting Your Family to Church

Getting your family to church is one of the keys to sheltering your family from the onslaught of false ideologies circulating in the world today. The church is a vital means of grace that families need in order to remain faithful to the Lord. This is a principle that must be prioritized, but it is also a practical discipline that requires intentionality.

Prepare for Church

You can help your family get the most out of church by preparing for church. Think of it this way, your family is joining together with other believers to meet with God in a unique way. In order to be most impactful, spiritual and practical preparation is required.

• Prepare for the sermon: Read the passage, pray for your pastor, meditate on the study that your church is engaged in on Sunday mornings. This, by the way, is one of the great benefits of attending a church that preaches the Bible in an expository fashion.

• Prepare for the singing: Sometimes families struggle with the music in church--sometimes they even complain about it. Much could be said about how to handle musical preferences, but suffice it to say that if your family is familiar with the songs and prepared to sing they will enjoy the music a lot more on Sundays.

• Prepare for the serving: Proactively find ways for your family to serve the church together. Model for your children the kind of sacrificial service that will demonstrate to them how important the church is. You should view serving the church as “family time” not as an intrusion to family time.

• Prepare by sleeping: As a mentor of mine taught me, “Sunday morning begins Saturday night.” Get home, get your church clothes together, and get some sleep in your own bed instead of on the back row.

• Prepare for the sitting: If you have young kids, train them to sit still during the service when they are young and engage in the service as they mature. One of the things that grieves me as a pastor is that sometimes the only time parents require the self-control that leads to stillness is during my sermons. Unsurprisingly, the kid who never gets to practice sitting still ends up in trouble for fidgeting the whole time I'm preaching. I hate that because I don't want the kids in our church to associate the pastor speaking with them getting in trouble. This is why I have been known to carry candy in my pocket for the kids after the service; in this area I am not above bribery.

• Prepare for the silence: Train kids to be listen quietly during the service. If a child makes noise during the service at church, it is not the end of the world. However, it is not helpful to the church or a child when they think that they can speak or make any noises they want during the worship of God’s people. In an age appropriate fashion, you need to be teaching them that there are times when they need to be quick to hear and slow to speak—the sermon is certainly one of those times. By teaching them to sit quietly during a sermon you are training their young hearts in this vital area of humble submission.

POINT: There is no biblical requirement on exactly how to prepare your family for church, but some kind of preparation for worship is important if you want your family to most benefit from their time at church. Everything in the world around us is going to detract from what you can get out of church, so protect your family by being prepared for church. Get the most out of it so that your family can be sheltered from the cultural storms that are brewing.

Participate at Church

A family that is prepared for church will be ready to participate at church. It is good to get your family to church, but in order to be faithful you must participate at church.

In other words, it’s not enough to just show up you must be active in the body life of the church. There are several specific areas of church life that will benefit your family.

• Participate in body life - Make the life of the church a significant part of the life of your family. Don't allow your connection to your church to be limited to 90 minutes on Sunday morning. Get involved, build relationships, and allow the life of your church to become intertwined with the life of your family.

• Participate in serving: If there is something to clean, chairs to be moved, or people who need help, volunteer to do it and bring your family along to help. One of the most impactful and formative aspects of my teenage years was seeing my parents serve the church in any way necessary. Being a Christian means being a slave to Christ, you need to model for your family how great it is to be Christ’s slave by serving the church.

• Participate in hospitality: Hospitality is one of the surest ways to teach your family how to love others and to protect them from turning inward (1 Peter 4:9, ESV). Make it a regular habit to share meals with church members you are looking to encourage so that your kids can see that the church is the body of Christ not a building down the road.

• Participate in discipleship: Your family needs to be a place where discipleship is the norm (Matt 28:19), both among the members of your family and within the local church. Let your family hear you talk about your discipleship times with other believers and how important it is for your spiritual life. Train them to feast on the means of grace, especially discipleship. This is an area for which I am exceedingly grateful to be in a church with godly and gifted children/youth workers. Their participation in my kids' life is not a threat to my role, it is a compliment. My children and teens are learning what it is like to receive discipleship from other believers and in the process my fellow church members (i.e., brothers and sisters in the same spiritual family) are reinforcing the principles that I am teaching my kids at home.

NOTE: This is an adapted excerpt from The Christian Home a book written by Paul Shirley. You can read more about how to manage and maintain the home from a biblical perspective in the full book.