In a conversation my wife recently had with a friend from church, they discussed our practice of not sending our kids to “Children’s Church” on Sunday mornings. This is a fairly new practice for us which we’ve only been doing for a year or two, but after the conversation, the friend reached out and asked for any resources I had on the subject. He received much more than he had bargained for, with me opening the firehose of all of my favorite resources in regards to family integrated worship at church, family worship at home, and family discipleship more broadly, including children’s books and children’s Bibles, as well as our ~daily routines.

As I shared with him, I tend to coalesce ideas in my mind that I’ve gotten from a wide range of books, podcasts, conversations, etc, and have a hard time recalling exact references. This blog is a stepping stone in being able to cite my sources, and I hope to eventually re-read some of the books that have impacted me and write reviews to that end. That being said, while I’ve read some of these resources (and others are on my bookshelf, waiting to be read), I cannot say that I fully endorse any one of them, unless specifically called out below, or in a review once I get around to writing them.

Our family is a work in progress, just like anyone’s. By God’s grace, I think we’re in a better place today than we were 5 years ago in regards to the discipleship of our children, but I know we still have far to go. Our methodologies have changed with time, in different seasons, or with newfound resources, but the goal remains the same (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).

Family Integrated Worship (Children in Church)

Of these, I believe I’ve read the first two, but it was mid-2022 when I did.

Some will argue that kids need children’s church so that they can get teaching on their own level. This is a modern idea, and very much in line with handing off our children’s education to “professionals” via public schools. I would contend that it’s more important that they learn to worship as the church from us, their parents (Deuteronomy 6:7, Deuteronomy 11:18-19, Ephesians 6:4), and that that is best done alongside us in worship.

We do ask our older kids to try to take notes. This can be simple (pictures describing what was discussed), questions, actual notes, etc. It’s a training process. We also try to follow up lunch on Sundays with “Ice Cream Sunday” where we discuss the sermon over ice cream.

While, over time our hope is that they will grasp more and more of the teaching on Sunday, that’s not our ultimate goal at this stage of life. The goal is to train, and build a love for the church gathering as it is, not for some kiddie-pool version of it. As you’ll see below, there are many child-level resources we use throughout the week.

  • Parenting in the Pew, by Robbie F. Castleman (Buy)
  • Let the Children Worship, by Jason Helopoulos (Buy)
  • The Family At Church, by Joel R. Beeke (Buy)
  • The Nursery of the Holy Spirit, by Daniel R. Hyde (Buy)

Family Worship At Home

Of these, I’ve only listened to the audiobook of the first, and it has been a few years as well so I do not recall the details at this time.

Our current practice is to read through the ESV Chronological Bible at breakfast, and before bed we sing songs of praise and read a chapter of The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. We’ve also started to incorporate catechism questions from Truth and Grace Memory Books.

  • Family Worship, by Donald S. Whitney (Buy)
  • A Neglected Grace, by Jason Helopoulos (Buy)
  • A Practical Theology of Family Worship, by Jonathan Williams (Buy)

Family Discipleship More Broadly

Of these, I’ve only read Why Children Matter.

I’m really interested in reading Building a Godly Home, but haven’t found the time to sit down and get through it. It is a modernization of William Gouge’s ‘Of Domestical Duties’. William Gouge was a pastor, and father of 13 who lived from 1575–1653. My understanding is that the only changes made in Building a Godly Home is splitting the original into 3 volumes, and modernizing the language.

  • Why Children Matter, by Douglas Wilson (Buy)
  • Building a Godly Home, by William Gouge, updated by Scott Brown and Joel R. Beeke
    • Volume 1: A Holy Vision for Family Life (Buy)
    • Volume 2: A Holy Vision for a Happy Marriage (Buy)
    • Volume 3: A Holy Vision for Raising Children (Buy)
  • Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children, by Joel R Beeke (Buy)
  • Habits of the Household, by Justin Whitmel Earley (Buy)
  • Disciplines of a Godly Family, by R. Kent Hughes (Buy)

Children’s Books / Storybook Bibles

This is a list of books we’ve used over time in our nightly reading. As I started reading and thinking more about family discipleship, I began to care more about what books we set before our kids. I’ve started to purge our family library of shallow books that give hits of dopamine with no nourishment to the soul, and instead set before our children a feast of delicious, yet nourishing books that will whet the heart and mind with an appetite for the good, the true, and the beautiful.

That’s not to say that every book we own is focused on Bible & Theology, but I do want to teach our children to feast well, and to have a high standard for what they feed into their minds & hearts.

The books below are roughly in the order we introduced them to our library. The Biggest Story was probably the first book I purchased after starting to rethink how we use books to shape the heart & mind. For a long time, it was my favorite children’s book, and gives a great overview of the Bible, in a beautiful, easy to understand format. It’s divided into chapters and we would often read a single chapter each night and discuss, but is short enough that we’ve also at times read it through in a single sitting.

Our kids were huge fans of Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey, and if it were up to them, we would never have moved on to anything else. We’ve read each of the volumes through several times. The Kingdom of God Bible Storybook is from the same author.

My most recent favorites are books in the “Story of God” series, and the kids are big fans as well. Each book follows a “thread”, or theme through the Bible and showcases how God is with us, is savior, and is king.

Another favorite of ours is The Promise, which goes through images of Christ in the Old Testament (Adam, Isaac, Moses, David, etc) and how none of them were perfect, and therefore could not be the Christ, and how all are fulfilled in Jesus.

  • The Biggest Story, by Kevin DeYoung (Buy)
  • Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey, by Tyler Van Halteren (Buy)
  • The Ology: Ancient Truths, Ever New, by Marty Machowski (Buy)
  • WonderFull: Ancient Psalms Ever New, by Marty Machowski (Buy)
  • The Kingdom of God Bible Storybook, by Tyler Van Halteren (Buy)
  • The Story of God series, by Kenneth Padgett & Shay Gregorie
    • The Story of God with Us (Buy)
    • The Story of God Our Savior (Buy)
    • The Story of God Our King (Buy)
  • The Promise, by Jason Helopoulos (Buy)
  • The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, by Kevin DeYoung (Buy)

Catechisms

Catechesis is an ancient practice in Christian discipleship that has been abandoned in many evangelical circles today. The catechizer asks a series of questions, and for each question, the catechumen gives a memorized response. This is an effective way of hiding truth from God’s word in your heart. It cannot replace scripture memorization, but does help combine theology from the entirety of scripture into a set of concise questions & answers.

For several years we’ve used The New City Catechism, which has longer & shorter versions of each question, as well as songs that can help children memorize them. My wife often uses these during homeschool time.

Recently, I’ve started to incorporate the Truth and Grace Memory Books in our nightly routine.

  • The New City Catechism Devotional, by Collin Hansen (Buy)
  • Truth and Grace Memory Books, by Thomas Ascol (Buy)
  • Teaching Truth Training Hearts, by Thomas Nettles (Buy)
  • The Illustrated Baptist Catechism, by Paul Cox (Buy)

Hymnals

As part of family worship, we try to sing 1-3 songs that we sing as a church on Sundays. Several of these songs can be found in the Hymns of Grace hymnal. Though we don’t use hymnals on Sunday mornings, I purchased a couple of copies to give our children something to read the lyrics off of. I was shocked at how much they enjoy it. It just shows that the idea of something being “antiquated” only applies to those who are old enough to remember it as the “old way” of doing things. Children make the old new again.

Recently our pastor’s wife discovered The Gospel Story Hymnal for kids, and since she knows we are of a similar mind in the discipleship of our children, shared it with me. I’ve debated whether or not to get it. Since our children are already excited about singing out of a traditional hymnal, I don’t want to “cripple them” with bright colors and pictures. Too often today Christians think they cannot worship without bands, lights, and fog machines (this was me as well from middle school until I was nearly 30) which calls into question what the object of our worship is.

  • Hymns of Grace, by Philip Webb (Buy)
  • The Gospel Story Hymnal, by Britta K. Wallbaum & Lindsey E. Goetz (Buy)

Music

Apart from formal times of discipleship, we listen to a lot of music. There is no Disney in our home, nor are there the latest pop songs. We want to be just as intentional with the music we listen to as with the books we read. The majority of our music should be shaping the heart (we do still have room for the occasional silly song).