Value of Worship at Home

In some of my work on Baptist theology and practice I came across this quote from Gaines Dobbins’s, The churchbook: A treasury of materials and methods (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1951), a standard text in the 1950’s. His point applies just as well today.

“Children who have learned to worship at home will not find it difficult to worship in the church. Children from worship-less homes cannot be led easily to appreciate the meaning and the value of church worship. A mark of the decadence of our civilization is the decline of family worship. Its revival would be one of the most significant signs of spiritual recovery. The use of one of the popular aids to family devotions, with suggestions for daily Bible readings and prayer, would prove of inestimable value in the promotion of worship in the home, where the best of all training in worship may be received.” (157).