Pastor Joel Webb details his daily family worship routine, initiated when his daughter Olive was 14 months old, now occurring at the breakfast table to manage attention spans. The session utilizes a revised Benjamin Keach catechism alongside 38 memorized Bible verses, explicitly rejecting the Jesus Storybook Bible as heretical while favoring the Follow Me Children's Story Bible. Reading Hebrews seven times weekly, singing hymns, and correcting doctrinal errors during prayer, this 30-minute integrated practice ensures comprehensive retention even for his non-verbal toddler Eleanor, establishing a rigorous theological foundation for the next generation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Five Questions for Family Worship00:09:09
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Adam Durant, Pastor Joel, please discuss your approach to family worship.
Great question.
I like this one because it's practical and really fruitful for fathers and mothers.
So, what we do, and this has kind of evolved over time as I am growing as a father.
But what we do at this point is we do our family worship.
So, I'm going to be pretty detailed as always.
We do our family worship at the table.
So, for the longest time, so we started, I'll answer that first.
We started doing family worship when my oldest daughter, who is now about to be five, Olive, when she was, I think, like 14 months, a little bit over one year old.
And so, people have asked me, when do you start family worship?
At what age?
When should you start?
And I always tell them we started when our oldest was 14 months.
And then they say, Do you feel like you started too soon?
And I always say, I feel like we started too late.
I think that really, I think I was always doing private worship.
And the moment that I got married, I started doing family worship with my wife without having children.
But then my wife and I, we continued doing some measure of family worship in our marriage, but without our daughter being present.
Right?
So maybe it's after bedtime or something like that.
And then we spend some time reading the scripture, doing this, doing.
I think we should have invited my daughter into that moment of family worship from the day that she was born.
And so that's when I would start.
And when we started, we would do it usually after dinnertime in the evening, right before bed in our living room.
Now, as the kids got older and as the kids multiplied, now we have three and our fourth on the way.
Being in the living room, Presents some practical challenges.
The kids are moving around, which is just going to happen.
That's part of family worship.
But they're also getting up, they're walking, they maybe start wrestling.
My daughters will wrestle sometimes, which is pretty cute.
They're wrapping themselves up in a blanket, or they're walking and grabbing a toy, or they're doing these kinds of things.
And we permit some of that, maybe not the wrestling part, but some of that, if it's, they're just doing something with their hands while they're also able to be at least somewhat attentive.
But a lot of times it would just get out of control where it's like, okay, you're not listening at all.
So, what we realized is that for the kids to be attentive in family worship, it really helped if we did it at the table because at the table they're all in their chairs.
And instead of waiting till we're done with the meal, right?
Kids a lot of times take a long time to eat, right?
Because pretty much every meal goes something like this take another bite, take another bite, chew it, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow, swallow.
All right, three more bites of salad.
Two more bites of meat.
So, my point is by the time you get done with the kids eating, because they take a long time, sometimes it's pulling teeth with kids to get them to actually eat.
By the time you're done with the kids eating, you could have been at the dinner table for half an hour.
You could have been at the dinner table for 45 minutes or a whole hour, meaning that the kids are ready to get up.
When they're finally done eating, they're ready to get up.
So, what we do is we start family worship at the table with a meal, typically breakfast.
Starting the day, and we start not after they're done eating, but right at the beginning.
So we sit down at the table and start family worship as the kids are eating.
So, that gives them something that they're doing with their hands, but it's definitely a step down from wrestling and rolling on the floor.
So, they're doing something, but they have some bandwidth of attention left for family worship.
And we always start with our catechizing first.
And we break this up into two groups.
So, we have scripture memory, and then we have catechism questions.
And I use Keach's catechism.
It's a Reformed Baptist.
Benjamin Keach was a Reformed Baptist.
And so, it's a Reformed Baptist catechism.
And I revise certain parts of it.
But for the most part, I stick to his catechism.
And we use that catechism.
There are other ones like the New City Catechism, more modern catechisms that I personally don't like because I think that in their attempt to be simple, I think they gravitate too far away from some of the robust theological language that I want my kids to know.
And so Keech's catechism is what I would recommend.
And so what we do is, you know, we're comprehensive.
You guys know that from watching my videos.
Me answering questions, meaning that I don't want to leave anything out.
And especially with kids, because what I've noticed with other families that had older kids than ours, as I was preparing to lead my family in worship, preparing to be a father, is their kids only ever knew about five catechism questions at a time.
And it happened to be the answers to the five catechism questions that they were doing that week in their family worship.
And all the other questions, all the other bases that they had previously covered in past weeks, they had forgotten.
Or at least a lot of it they had forgotten.
So, what we're doing in our family worship, at first it was just five questions.
It was, you know, who made you?
The answer is, God made me.
What else did God make?
God made all things.
Why did God make you and all things?
Kind of like the first question from the shorter catechism, Westminster Catechism.
Why did God make you and all things?
For his glory, right?
The first question is, what's the chief end of man?
To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
So, who made you?
God made me.
What else did God make?
God made all things.
Why did God make you and all things for his glory?
The fourth question is, how do we glorify God?
And the answer is, the way that I've revised it is two ways love God, obey God.
Some people would answer by loving him and doing what he commands, I think is the actual answer.
But love God, obey God.
The fifth question is, why should we glorify God?
Some would answer, because he made me and loves me.
Our answer is because he is God.
Why should we glorify God?
Because He is God.
So that's it.
So those were the first five questions.
And we would do that.
And then we had, you know, three or four memory verses.
This is early on, you know, probably three, four years ago in our family worship.
So we had like three or four memory verses.
So in every evening, we would do here's our five catechism questions, and here's our three or four memory verses.
And then we'd move on to the next portion of family worship, which I'll discuss in just a moment.
But because I'm comprehensive, I didn't want them to forget anything.
I didn't move on when we finally had those down and memorized.
I didn't want to move on to here's the next five catechism questions, and now we're only doing those in family worship, and we're not doing any longer the first five.
So when we added five more questions, we didn't go for another five.
It was now a combination of 10.
It was 10 questions, the first five and the next five.
And then when we added scripture memory, it wasn't, oh, here's three new verses as a substitute for the three old verses.
No, now here are six verses.
Three new ones and the three old ones.
And so as we kept doing that, now we have, I think it's 38 Bible verses that the kids have memorized.
Again, my oldest being four, about to be five, she knows all 37 of the Bible verses by memory.
And then she, my middle child is about to be three, and her name's Ruth.
And so, Ruth, she knows about 30 of the 37 that she can quote.
And then, my youngest is 18 months old and can't talk yet, Eleanor, but she wants to participate in family worship also.
You know why?
Because she's a member of our family.
And that's what our family does because we're Christians.
And so I ask her questions, like with the catechism, you know, who made you?
And she'll say, God, God.
She knows the answer to that.
You know, what else did God make?
All thing, all thing.
You know, she barely answered it.
So I give her the easiest ones.
And then even ones that she can't even begin to answer, like a memory verse, you know, I'll still say, All right, what does John 1 1 say?
And I'll just say it with her, you know, and let her even just mumble, just because she just wants to be a part of it.
She'll mumble something.
I'll say, Good, that's okay.
In the beginning was the word.
Say beginning.
You know, good.
In the beginning.
You know, in the beginning was the word.
The word was with God.
The word was God.
So, my point is, as we got more and more, now we have like 38 Bible verses, and I can't remember exactly, but you know, 30 something catechism questions.
Jesus as the Central Character00:05:29
And so, what we did was, because we're doing all of them comprehensively, I'm not dropping off a single one.
You know, you can get back to me in 10 years and see what I'm doing because it is going to continue to expand.
But what we did is we split.
So now we do every other day, meaning the catechism portion of our family worship, which is two parts, scripture memory and questions.
That has now become where one day we do questions, the next day we do verses.
Then the next day we do questions, then the next day we do verses.
That way we can do all of our catechism questions, starting all the way back with the very first one, who made you, and do all of our memory verses, starting with the very first one, which for us was Genesis 1 1.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
So it's comprehensive, and because it's comprehensive, it's just more and more and more, so we split it.
So, our family worship time is at breakfast.
It's at the table.
It's right when breakfast starts, as the children are eating.
It begins with the catechesis portion, which is questions and scripture memory.
And every other day, comprehensive, doing everything that we've ever learned questions one day, the next day, memory verses.
Then the next day, questions, then the next day, memory verses.
That's section one of the Webbin family worship time.
The next is I then read to them.
A story from a children's Bible.
I like to use Follow Me.
Joel Beakey is one of the lead editors on the Follow Me children's story Bible.
Also, I do like Kevin DeYoung's new storybook Bible.
Don Clark is the illustrator.
There are images of Jesus in this, and so a lot of times I'll cover them up.
Or what I do appreciate is Kevin DeYoung actually does have a note to the parents explaining why there are some, not many, but some.
Images of Christ and why they are intentionally obscure.
So they're not cartoonish to make Jesus look like a cartoon character, you know, to look trivial or trite.
But they're also not detailed to, because if they're really detailed, like an actual portrait of a person trying to be as accurate as possible, that's actually counterintuitive because that would say this is who Jesus is.
This is what Jesus looks like when it's not what Jesus looks like because.
We haven't seen Jesus.
We don't know what he looks like.
And even if we did, even if we had a photograph, let's say Jesus came during a time where there was technology and there were video cameras and iPhones and pictures, even then, it's not Jesus.
It's not Jesus because Jesus is the God man, and a picture can only depict his humanity and not his divinity.
So we usually try to kind of skip around past the images or cover them up.
But all that being said, the writing is really good.
So Kevin DeYoung, I think, has done a good job with the writing of his storybook Bible.
It's called the biggest story, the biggest storybook Bible, or the biggest story, the biggest storybook Bible, something like that.
Fantastic illustrator.
So the kids love that one.
The pictures are amazing.
So we do our catechism questions one day.
We do our verses the other day.
It's comprehensive.
After the question portion, memory verses and questions, then it's a story for the kids with a storybook Bible.
I would not recommend the Jesus storybook Bible.
Some families use that.
The Jesus storybook Bible is antinomian.
And I believe borderline heresy.
I really do.
It's gospel centered in exactly the way that you would expect gospel centered.
These days, sadly to be, which means not gospel centered, but gospel myoptic, meaning gospel only, gospel at the expense of God's law, meaning that every story is just here's something that happened, and here's something that God commands, and here's how we can't keep it, and here's how Jesus kept it for us.
Well, that's true.
Jesus is the summation of all the scripture, all the law and the prophets point towards him.
Jesus is the central character of the Bible, but the Bible contains both law and gospel.
And we believe as reformers, not just in the first use of the law, that the law reveals my sin and need for Jesus, need for a Savior, but we also believe in the third use of the law, that the law is a lamp unto my feet, that the law actually directs us in how we should live.
Will we do it perfectly?
No.
But is it still binding on us?
And is it our goal?
Yes.
And the law is not only right and holy, but it is good.
David delighted in the law of God.
It's a lamp unto my feet, not a lamp unto my feet showing me the path to salvation.
No one will be saved by works as done unto the law, but it does show me the path from salvation, how a Christian should live in light of the law, or in light of the gospel, in light of being saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
So, the Jesus storybook Bible, I think it's antinomian.
I think it has a blatant denial of the third use of the law.
And a lot of storybook Bibles are similar to that.
So, anyways, the two that I would recommend is the Follow Me storybook Bible and the Kevin DeYoung one that just came out, the biggest story ever told, or something like that.
So, we do the story.
So, it's the catechism, it's the story.
Then I read from the Bible.
And I'm always clear that the storybook Bible is not the Bible, it's children's stories about the Bible.
Praying for Our Church Family00:03:04
And I let the kids know oh, this is true.
This portion of the story, this is true.
This is something that happened.
This is something that God did.
But it's not the Bible.
And so, then we read the Bible as a family.
I don't want the storybook Bible to be a substitute for the Bible, the actual Bible.
And so, what I'll do is I'll read the same text seven times.
In a week, every day of the week.
And it's the text that I'm going to be preaching on that coming Lord's Day.
So we'll start with Monday and we'll read it all the way up till Sunday.
And then we'll go to church on Sunday and I preach that text.
And so right now I'm preaching through the book of Hebrews.
And so it's whatever text I'm going to be preaching that day.
And I practice with the kids.
When I finish reading the text, I'll say, This is the word of the Lord.
And they know to respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
And even my youngest, Eleanor, she's like, God, thank God.
And so as much as you can, finding ways for them, moments for participation.
And then we do singing.
Then we sing one hymn or one psalm.
Then we do prayer.
Each of the kids has a prayer request, and I teach them to pray.
So I'll feed them the word.
So I want to pray for this family in the church.
I want to pray for it.
It's usually they always want to pray for people, which is awesome.
It helps me even in my pastoral prayers because they'll think of families in the church that we should pray for.
And so, you know, Ruth will say, I want to pray for, you know, the Joslins, a family in our church, you know.
And so I'll say, okay, is there anything specific you want to pray?
No, I just want to, you know, usually they'll say that they don't get sick, you know, or God would heal them, you know, and the kids want God to heal.
People in our church that aren't even sick, you know.
So we'll work with that, but I'll say, okay, repeat after me.
Dear God, thank you for the Jaws, and you know, and the repeating.
My oldest Olive, she can pray on her own, and she does a really great job.
If there's something that's not doctrinally sound in her prayer, then I'll correct that and have her pray again.
And then I'll pray for the whole family.
And then we conclude our family worship by singing the doxology, and we all put our hands up in a posture of praise, and we sing, you know, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, and then we're done.
And that takes, it's a lot, but it takes us about 30 minutes, which is about how long it takes us to eat.
And so intermittently throughout our family worship, it's also take another bite of your eggs.
So we're getting through breakfast and doing all of that.
And so we do it to start the day.
Breakfast is the first thing in the morning.
Mom makes breakfast usually right when the kids wake up or right before.
So they're just getting out of bed.
Going to the table, and it's worship.
It's food for our body and food for our soul.
And that is how we do family worship in the Webb and household.
I hope that's helpful.
Thanks so much for listening.
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