Life under the Sun Household Worship Guide from Ecclesiastes + Read, Pray, Repeat

by Ed Blackwood

This week we will consider Life Under the Sun and Is It an Unhappy Business? in Ecclesiastes 1. At Springs Reformed Church we distribute a weekly guide running from the Lord's Day to Saturday with Monday-Wednesday reviewing the sermons that were preached the Lord's Day at the start of the week and Thursday-Saturday previewing the sermons that will be preached the coming Lord's Day.

However, for the posts here I am linking to the guide from Thursday to Wednesday so that all are aimed at the Lord's Day as the peak of the 7-day rhythm as seen in the image above. The Lord's Day post includes links to the sermons.

[update 8:35pm EST - the 1st three lings were wrong and are now corrected.]

Thursday Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 Vanity of Vanities
Friday Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 Nothing New Under the Sun
Saturday Ecclesiastes 1:12–18—Is Everything Futile?
Lord’s Day
Monday John 10:7–18—Life more Abundantly
Tuesday 1 Corinthains 15:50-58—Labor Not in Vain

We only took 5 days in our look forward/look back pattern this week as we were preparing for the Lord's Supper in the Wednesday reading and notes.

Wednesday Mark 14:22–25—Take.

If you find it useful to use these in your household/family worship, consider asking your pastor to speak to me about him developing something similar in your congregation.

Thoughts for Pastors:

Household worship is, as the name suggests, members of the household gathering to worship God together. It includes instruction from the head of the household to those gathered so that they might know and follow the Lord. Of course, worship is more than instruction. However, we are to worship what we know and Who we know, so instruction from God in his word is a vital part of worship—private, household, or corporate.

Household worship would normally include prayer, Bible reading, and singing of praise to God. Randy Greenwald, in a brief article, gives this insight, which I continue to use on the cover page for Worship Connected.

The back of my shampoo bottle says, “Lather, rinse, repeat.” Simple enough that even I can do it. Though family worship may be a bit more complicated than shampooing hair, it ought not to be rated with “home dentistry” in the scale of difficulty.
If you could buy family worship in the store, it would come in the form of a Bible, and the directions would simply say, “Read, pray, repeat.” Men should gather their families at least once daily. They should read a portion of the Scriptures to them. And they should pray with them. There need be no fireworks or pizzazz to keep the kids interested. There needs to be only a father with a heart-love for God–who desires to see that love appropriated by his children.
Read, pray, repeat.[1]

Pray, Read, Sing, Repeat. It’s that simple.

And how often should households gather for worship? Richard Baxter taught that family worship should not only be practiced daily, but twice daily in the Christian home.[2] Jason Helopuolos suggests that for many families once a day will be a more manageable goal.[3] Like the value of morning and evening corporate worship, certainly morning and evening family worship would be a useful aim. Consistency is important, though some periods of life will be more challenging than others.

[1] Randy Greenwald, “Read, Pray, Repeat,” Tabletalk, November 1997, 8–9.

[2] Richard Baxter, “A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics,” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43800/43800-h/43800-h.htm, 421, accessed January 24, 2025, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43800/pg43800-images.html.

[3] Jason Helopoulos, A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2013), 70.