Is There A Church In Your House?

Is There A Church In Your House?

Have you ever thought of your family as “a little church?” It is an idea that many Puritans and other believers embraced. Like a church, the family exists to worship, serve and glorify God. It also exists to promote the welfare of mankind and to labor for the advancement of God’s kingdom, especially with regard to the members of the family. As Isaac Ambrose is quoted as saying, a “husband and wife have the task of ‘erecting and establishing Christ’s glorious kingdom in their house.’” (Leland Ryken in Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were.) What a marvelous, yet sobering thought.

Not surprisingly, then, family worship/devotions is central to this notion of the family as “a little church.” Surely it is within the context of family devotions that members of the household corporately bow in worship and praise before the Creator, in thanksgiving for God’s abundant blessings, in confession of sin, and supplication for forgiveness and daily grace.

However, another compelling reason for family worship is that God frequently uses it for the saving of souls. In a pamphlet entitled “The Church In the House,” Rev. James Hamilton of London wrote (in 1842) the following:

"Children have often heard there [in family devotions] truths, which, when the Spirit brought them to remembrance in after days – perhaps, in days of profligacy, and when far from their father’s house – have sent home the prodigal…In your house, there have been, perhaps, several immortal spirits born into the world. Have there been any born again?"

Elsewhere in the same piece, Rev. Hamilton said this:

"Were you like Abraham, entertaining an angel unawares, what would be the report he would take back to heaven? Would he find you commanding your children and your household, and teaching them the way of the Lord? Would he find an altar in your dwelling? Do you worship God with your children? Is there a Church in your house?"

Posted by Nancy Currid