What Does A Weekly Sabbath Look Like? Lord’s Day Practices for A Christian Family

By the grace of God, for the past 7 years, we’ve been setting aside Sundays – the Christian Sabbath – for rest and worship. I’ll be the first to admit that this was a hard arrangement for me to accept at first! We all need rest, and yet, resting doesn’t come naturally. There’s so much to do. And there are even things we miss out on because Sundays are set aside for worship and rest. But at this point, I can confidently say the blessings of the Lord’s Day – and most of all, of obedience to God – are FAR greater than anything we’ve ever missed out on on a Sunday.

In our home, Sundays are a delight. And while at first they felt like a day that we were missing out on work (you can read more about our transition into resting on Sundays here), they quickly became the anchor of the weeks, or as the Puritans would say, “the market day of the soul”.

After weeks (probably a couple of years, to be honest) of fighting the sabbath in my heart, it’s now so obvious that we as humans don’t have time to NOT take a sabbath.

Resting on Sundays precedes work, and it necessitates hard work the other 6 days of the week. Sundays offer the physical rest and the rest in Christ that we need to give us abundant energy for the blessings and demands of the other 6 days.

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What A Weekly Sabbath Looks Like for Our Family of 6

What does Sunday look like for our family? With four small children, it took us a little while to figure out how to practically rest on Sundays! And as we tried to figure this out, I wished someone would tell us just how they did it! That is the reason for this blog post. 🙂

Since we started observing the Christian sabbath a year or so before our oldest child was born, it was definitely a transition to figure out how to do it with kids (resting looks quite a bit different when there are no nap schedules to worry about and you have hours for uninterrupted Bible study and reading!).

Praise the Lord, even with four littles, we ALL love the Lord’s Day – a day of fellowship, rest, and worship. ❤️

Here’s a peek into what the Lord’s Day is like in our home!

Related reading: How to Take Your Kids to Church – Tips from a Mom of 4 Littles

“If a Christian takes a bit of time on the Sabbath for private Bible reading and prayer, if he is faithful in public worship on God’s holy day, if time is spent teaching his children God’s Word, time preparing and teaching a Bible lesson, time visiting the sick and poor in Jesus’ name, time witnessing to a friend, time fellowshipping with the saints, time singing praises to God – soon the day seems all too short for the spiritually minded. There is so much to do for God in private, in the family, in the church. There is so much to do in worship and praise. IT is a holy day, different from the other six. It is devoted to the Lord in His worship and service.”

-Walter Chantry, Call the Sabbath a Delight

Monday – Saturday – A Time to Work

Rest necessitates work. Monday through Saturday is time to work! For me, a weekly to-do list keeps me organized and helps me to fit in all the demands of running the house, cooking, cleaning, fitting in homeschooling and projects with the kids, etc.

For my husband, who runs his own business, it means fitting in all his work, meetings, and client communication mostly during work hours, but when necessary, after the kids go to bed in the evenings or for a couple hours on Saturday. We work really hard to get everything done by or on Saturday, but if something doesn’t get done, it will be pushed to Monday the next week.

Saturday – A Time to Prepare

Since Saturdays are typically the only day of the week that my husband doesn’t have his regular work schedule, sometimes, we have a lot to fit in! Usually, Saturday are for stocking up on wood (a favorite chore – we love heating our house with wood!), family time at home or in town, and getting together with friends and family.

So, we definitely don’t set aside the whole day to prep for Sunday! I know there are some families that more or less do this, but for us, it works best to spread out most of the work over the course of the week so that our Saturdays have some flexibility.

There are a few things we do on Saturday to get ready for Sunday, but they probably take an hour max.

• Thoroughly pick up the house before bed on Saturday night. We more or less try to go to bed with a clean house each night, but on Saturdays, we spend a few more minutes making sure the floors and counters are cleared, the dishwasher is empty, the yard is picked up, etc. The goal is to create a restful space for Sunday and not leave out any chores for Sunday that could be done earlier. Of course, the house is not perfect – we’re definitely not doing a floor-to-ceiling clean each Saturday night. But we do as much as we can and then don’t worry about the rest.
  
• Throw in a load of laundry. Even if I don’t get time to fold it, I like to make sure the all laundry is washed on Saturday nights just to ensure that nobody’s missing an important pair of tights or a necessary sweater on Sunday morning. If we have friends over or a busy Saturday and I don’t get time to fold it, it sits in the dryer or clean basket out of sight – but everything’s clean if we need an item.
• Have a plan for food. We try to make Sunday meals delicious, but easy.

You can read more about how we get ready for Sundays here: Preparing for the Christian Sabbath – How Our Family of 6 Gets Ready to Rest and Worship on Sundays

Sunday – A Time to Worship and Rest

Finally, the Lord’s Day is here! Here’s what Sundays usually look like for our family.

Sunday morning – breakfast and off to church

We will usually do an easy but filling breakfast or something that’s already been prepared. Sometimes we make pancakes on Saturday and heat them up in the toaster. Otherwise, it’s usually yogurt and granola with some sausage links. Garrett and I usually start breakfast 15 minutes earlier than usual to make sure we have enough time to get ready.

At 7, the kids are up, and we eat, and by 8:20, we’re out the door. Because this routine happens every Sunday, we have a good system for cleaning up breakfast, getting everyone dressed, making sure the church bag and diaper bag is packed, and getting outside.

Related Reading: Preparing for the Christian Sabbath – How Our Family of 6 Gets Ready to Rest and Worship on Sundays

At church, we worship together as a family, and then have Sunday school classes during the second hour. It’s important to us that our kids are in the worship service – some weeks go better than others! (I wrote a little about how we’ve worked up to this in this blog post: How to Take Your Kids to Church – Tips from a Mom of 4 Littles)

Since we live 30 minutes from church and it’s usually after noon when we leave, we always pack an easy car snack for the drive home. (Usually Costco Aussie bites!)

Sunday afternoon – good food and rest

At home, it’s time for a good meal and then rest! Because Sundays are for rest, we try to choose easy meals that don’t take much work to make but are also delicious! We’ve found that for us, the best way to do this is usually to make a meal that we love on Saturday night and have leftovers Sunday. Usually, everyone is looking forward to one of their favorite lunches when we get home from church! (Burgers, homemade pizza, tacos, pulled pork, or chicken are some of our go-tos.)

After lunch, the babies go down for naps, and we settle down with the big kids to rest. Sunday afternoons usually find Garrett and I reading (the Bible or another helpful, theological book) or taking a nap if we need it. The big kids (4 and 5) settle down to color and listen to a story (The Biggest Story podcast has been a good resource for us!).

Often, we’ll make popcorn and lattes for everyone. We may also go over Sunday school homework with them, read a Bible-related/Christian book or story (Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey and R.C. Sproul’s children’s books are a few favorites), or enjoy another treat if we have something left over. Sundays should be sweet!

If they need to get some energy out before evening service, they may go out and play for a bit, or we’ll kick a ball and chat with them or walk in the yard.

After the babies, get up, it’s time for a quick dinner and then back to church. We’re usually not very hungry on Sundays (that happens I guess when you’re not doing a lot of physical labor!), so often we’ll just throw together a quick charcuterie board or maybe warm up something easy if we are more hungry (like frozen meatballs with premade sauce, soup, etc.)

Once a month, there’s no evening service, so we like to plan to have friends over for dinner and fellowship on these days.

Sunday evening – worship and sleep

At 5:15, it’s time to head back to church for evening worship. Sometimes the kids will run around outside after the service during warm months. Some weeks there will be potlucks and a longer fellowship time, too. Sundays can be a later night for our kids, and that’s okay. If there’s anything that’s worth staying up past bedtime for during the week, it’s the Lord’s Day! (I also try to keep Monday mornings open as a time for us to re-coup and get reorganized from the weekend.)

Back home, we’ll put the kids to bed, and they usually listen to another episode from The Biggest Story while falling asleep. If it’s not too late, Garrett and I will sit by the fire and get a bit more reading done before we go to sleep.

And that’s the day! While Sunday is a day of rest, it also goes quickly!

What Is Considered “Rest” on the Sabbath?

The Westminster Confession of Fatih tells us how the Sabbath is to be kept in section 21.8. It says:

“This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

Zachary Garris expands on this in his helpful article, The Sabbath and Subscription in the PCA, saying, “Thus, the Westminster Confession teaches that Sabbath observance requires (1) preparing one’s heart for worship, (2) ordering common affairs prior to Sunday, (3) resting from works, words, and thoughts of employments and recreations, (4) and spending the entire Sabbath day in public and private exercises of worship, apart from works of necessity and mercy.”

Therefore, rest doesn’t just entail what feels restful to us, but actually taking a pause from worldly endeavors and focusing on public and private exercises of worship.

Mowing the lawn, reading a novel, sewing, or attending a football game may feel relaxing to us (and may also get us ahead on our weekly to-do list), but they are not “resting from works, words, and thoughts of employments and recreations” or taking up “the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

We don’t define rest and worship – God does!

If you want to learn more, my favorite resources on the Christian Sabbath have been The Lord’s Day – by Joseph Pipa, Call the Sabbath a Delight – by Walter Chantry, and Worship Feasting Rest Mercy: The Christian Sabbath – by Daniel Howe.

Tips for Getting Rest on the Sabbath With Young Children

I’ll be honest: for awhile, Sunday felt like the hardest day of the week. Between packing up for church, wrangling kids that were still working on sitting through the sermon, getting home with tired children (that may have fallen asleep in the car and ruined their nap) and trying to get lunch together, thrown-off nap schedules, and a later night, I sometimes dreaded the amount of work and child-wrangling that Sunday would bring.

Now, it is not so at all. 🙂

What changed?

The main thing was perspective. With kids, it’s not feasible to expect to spend the entire day reading or to sit at my desk studying the Bible for 4 hours straight. That’s okay. But is the day more restful and does it offer more opportunity for worship and seeking the Lord than other days of the week? Yes!

With young children and nursing babies, will we both get to sit and listen through the entire sermon? Almost never. But does one of us get to? Usually. Are our kids getting continually better at sitting quietly? Yes. Is leaving the sermon to go to the nursing room worth it to be able to put our kids in the way of the means of grace every Lord’s Day morning and evening? Absolutely. We do not go to church because it’s convenient or because it’s fun (although we do love to go!). We go because the Lord tells us to be in His house with His saints, worshipping Him! Not just when it’s easy. 🙂

Perspective is probably the biggest thing that has made Sundays more restful. We’re no longer stressed about the kids or upset when things don’t quite go as planned. BUT we also learned a lot of practical ways to make the day easier.

Here are a few of them!

• Church bag. We have one specific bag that we take to church every week with a few books, stickers and paper, and a few crayons. It doesn’t get touched the rest of the week. It only take a minute or two to make sure it’s all set to go and it helps the kids sit quietly during the service.
• Consistency. Training kids to sit through church takes time. It was harder with the first couple of children when we didn’t exactly know if our methods would work. But between 2 and 3, they have all begun consistently sitting through church quietly. (Right now our 5, 4, and 2-year-old typically sit with Garrett, and I sometimes half to leave about halfway through with our 1-year-old.) I wrote more about how this works in this blog post: How to Take Your Kids to Church – Tips from a Mom of 4 Littles
• Nap methods. Church can throw off baby schedules, and that’s okay. There’s nothing in our week that would be more worth throwing them off! During times when napping has been a little more fragile, we’ve had to get creative or work a little harder to help keep them on track. Going to the earlier service has helped us in some cases so we can get home on time for naps. Or having one of us jump in the back seat to make sure they don’t fall asleep at noon on the 30-minute drive home. It’s worth it for a good nap after lunch!
• Easy meals. We’ve also gotten better at figuring out what meals work best, what’s easiest, what everyone will eat well, and what’s quick to throw together after church. A car snack works wonders, too!
• Resting together. Kids tend to be a lot more content when we’re not on our phones! We don’t get quite as much studying and reading done as we did when all of our kids took afternoon naps, but that’s okay. We try to read rather than be on our phones, and they can sit with us or listen to their story in the adjacent room. We also often take time to talk, work on catechism questions or Sunday school lessons, or kick a ball with them if they need help burning off some energy. I also like to get up early on Sundays to spend time in the Word before everyone gets up. It’s quieter, and also less disappointing if I don’t get some solid quiet time in the afternoon. 🙂