The Liturgical Father: Raising Children in the Covenant
Raising Children Through the Liturgy of Cleansing, Consecration, and Commission
I am working on revising my little work on fatherhood, published eleven years ago. It’s a rewarding and humbling process, especially to see how my writing has evolved and how much more clearly I understand things now, having been a father for 17 years. I hope subscribers enjoy these revisions, which will eventually be republished with additional chapters (including one on the Singing Father). All paid subscribers will receive a PDF copy of the revised book once it is completed, and I hope to send out several physical copies as well.
If you would like to follow the progress, here is the revised introduction, chapter one on “Fatherhood as Divine Imitation,” chapter two, entitled “Glad Fathers and Glad Sons,” chapter three on “The Proverbial Father,” chapter four on “The Environment of Wisdom for Fatherhood,” chapter five on “The Role of Fathers in Life and Death,” and chapter six on “The Running Father.”
For those who are not paid subscribers, I’d be happy to comp you for 90 days so you can follow along. Send me your email via Substack.
Chapter Seven
“Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared – an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about.” - N.T. Wright
The Nature of Liturgy: God’s Service to His People
Liturgy is grounded in acts. Every act leads to another act. In liturgy, skipping to a meal before being cleansed (the washing of hands) is improper. Liturgy requires table manners. The liturgy shapes us. The word liturgy itself refers to the “work of the people.” Theologically, however, what happens in worship in the gathered assembly is not so much our work, but “the continuation of the service of the ascended Lord Jesus for His people.” We can say that liturgy is the work of God on our behalf, or as theologian Jeff Meyers puts it, “It is God’s service to us.”
In particular, the Lord’s Day liturgy has a way of forming us into obedient children of the Most High God. The service of God in forgiving us and ministering to us in Word and Sacrament re-orients our duties throughout the week. The goal of biblical liturgy is to make us vessels of the gospel as parents and children. Liturgy is order and decency (I Cor. 14:40). This is one reason structure is so crucial to the Church, and more to the point, this is one reason structure is so significant to the life of the home. A home that lacks structure is a home that lacks a well-thought-out liturgy.
