For years we have struggled to have a family alter in our home, a time set apart where we as a family pray, read scripture and worship as a family. There have been numerous excuses over the years that have hindered us from establishing this discipline in our home. Excuse number 1 always revolves around our schedules and the challenges of finding a time that we can consistently meet with everyone. Anytime we attempted to create this time in the evening we almost immediately struggled because there are at least two evenings, sometimes three, a week where other things are scheduled. It gets late, we get tired. It never occurred to me that twice a week, even once a week was better than not doing it at all! The other time when we are naturally together was in the morning. Unfortunately, I am not a "morning" person. This is my excuse for all kinds of things including why devotions would not work in the morning. I say excuse because that is exactly what it was. I simply did not want to assert the discipline that it would require to get up consistently every morning and be pleasant! This year, I worked this time into our schedule. At eight o'clock we are all expected to be at the table, with bible and breakfast. When we started the year, Mr. took the responsibility of making sure everyone was up and moving. As the year progressed, the children began using their alarm clocks and taking on that responsibility. Mr. still has the task of waking the Mrs. up! I am a work in progress!I kept waiting for Mr. to take the lead, or rather my "ideal" of what it would look like if he took the lead. My ideal of him was that he would set the time, the place, prepare a lesson as well as get a degree in worship and lead us in wonderful harmonious singing. HMM, for anyone who has ever had the misfortune of hearing us sing, we apologize. Our family philosophy definitely falls into the make a joyful noise category! It was easy to use this excuse. After all, he is the head of the family. What I did not realize was that as his helpmeet, I needed to help him get this going! Mr. wanted to have devotions, he simply did not have the time or energy to prepare them. With his permission for the morning schedule, I set about to do the planning. We had had some limited success, usually involving the Christmas season, where we have done a seasonal devotional as a family. The devotional has become a much loved Christmas tradition. For the month of December we meet everyday to read scriptures around the birth and prophesies if Christ. We hang a symbol representing that days scripture on a banner and we sing hymns together. With that experience in mind I chose a simple devotional and we got started. My husband leads the time we spend together. He reads to us, he starts the singing. He is the leader. I helped him by supporting and encouraging the shared vision. I knew it was the right thing when after the first morning of devotions, he looked at me and said "thank you"!
The hurdle that I believe was the hardest to over come was the example of all the "perfect" families who do this "right". The bar gets set pretty high when you are looking around for how to practice the family alter. There are books printed and talks given on this subject. We felt like we would fail before we ever began. We had to stop looking at the worlds example of perfection and look to Christ. So often, we try to be something that God never created us to be. He did not create us to have the worlds version of the family alter, so that we could claim some sort of saintdom. He created us to WORSHIP HIM! So, with our eyes on Christ and a plan to worship, we have proceeded through this past year.
What we are doing is working for us. We scheduled it. Mr. is faithful to make sure everyone is up and ready for our devotional. The kids are faithful to be at the table at 8:00 sharp where we have our time over breakfast. We don't make it 100% but we do make it more days than not. We do not do anything complicated! Right now we are reading The Jesus Freaks together and doing the Lent devotional. We have also read through Proverbs and a book tittled Do Hard Things. We found an online sight called the Center for Church Music. http://www.songsandhymns.org/ It has the words and music to many wonderful hymns. It also has the story behind the hymns and a devotional that can be read. We are still working on family prayer. This is also an area that I struggle with on my own. There is always room to grow and learn.
