Too Busy to Lead Family Worship?

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) was a Baptist pastor in London for most of the second half of the 19th century. His is one of the most recognized names in Christian history, but he’s best known today as the Prince of Preachers.

An electronic search of the mountain of material produced by Spurgeon reveals that he often referred to family worship, which he also called “family prayer.” “I esteem it so highly,” he said, “that no language of mine can adequately express my sense of its value.”[1]

Some may think that Spurgeon lived in a much simpler era that afforded him more time to practice family worship than Christians would have today. I’ve conducted a great deal of Ph.D. research on Spurgeon’s life and pastoral ministry, and can confirm this isn’t so.

Spurgeon’s autobiography, as well as many firsthand observers, tell us that Spurgeon …

(1) pastored the largest evangelical church in the world at that time (with more than 6,000 active members),

(2) preached almost every day,

(3) edited his sermons for weekly publications, and thereby

(4) produced (in the 64-volume Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit) the largest collection of works by any single author in English,

(5) wrote an additional 120 books (one every four months throughout his entire adult life),

(6) presided over 66 different ministries (such as the pastor’s college he founded),

(7) edited a monthly magazine (The Sword and the Trowel),

(8) typically read five books each week, many of which he reviewed for his magazine, and

(9) wrote with a dip pen 500 letters per week.

And I think I’m busy! Five hundred hand-written letters? I couldn’t write 500 tweets per week! Even if I were just copying verses from the Bible!

God gave Spurgeon an extraordinary capacity for work and productivity. And yet, despite the ceaseless, crushing demands on his schedule, at 6:00 each evening, setting aside a to-do list that few could match today, he gathered his wife, twin boys and all others present in his home at the time for family worship.

After his death, his wife Susannah wrote this glimpse into their lives together with their twin boys, both of whom became pastors:

After the meal was over, an adjournment was made to the study for family worship, and it was at these seasons that my beloved’s prayers were remarkable for their tender childlikeness, their spiritual pathos and their intense devotion. He seemed to come as near to God as a little child to a loving father, and we were often moved to tears as he talked thus face to face with his Lord.[2]