FAMILY WORSHIP by Albert Stone

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 14, 1876

FAMILY WORSHIP.

By Albert Stone

Much importance is attached to the manner in which the religious services of the family are observed. All true worship, whether it be in family or elsewhere, consists in paying due respect, veneration, and homage, to God. At the proper season, the entire household should come together. All should be present during the entire service. There should be order, and the surroundings should accord with the occasion.

If a neighbor calls on business, the master of the house only need be detained. But this case is different. A heavenly guest is to be invited. His coming may depend on the united request of parents and children. And it is of the utmost importance to both parents and children that the invitation should be complied with. It would ill become the occasion if some of the household were doing chores about the house during a part or the whole of the service.

It has been too near a habit with some to permit chores to be done in the house during every part of the service except the offering of prayer. There are extreme cases of course, but it ought not to be so in any case. The veneration we owe to God and our great need of his blessings forbid all such looseness in his service. “Let everything be done decently, and in order.” Let parents make a point of training their young children to proper behavior at this hour, until they have fully learned it, and delight in it, then they will not be troublesome in the house of God.

Let the services be brief, but not hurried. Let them be full of interest, and conducted in a manner to interest the children. As far as consistent, each one should take an active part, and the children be encouraged to sing and pray vocally. ALBERT STONE.