The Gift of Ritual
Why creating rhythms for our kids helps them in ways they cannot yet see
I’ve often heard this refrain from Christian parents, “I don’t want church to become a ritual.” We are, after all, pursuing a relationship instead of religion. Consider the lyric of this popular worship song:
Shake up the ground of all my tradition
Break down the walls of all my religion
Your way is better
The implication is that religion, with the same practices and the same boring routines, is lifeless and that true Christianity is an exciting, ever-changing thrill ride with Jesus.
This follows the evangelical emphasis on knowing God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. To be sure, evangelicals emphasize this because the Bible emphasizes this. Consider Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3 that his knowledge of the Scriptures and his status as a teacher in Israel were not enough to gain him peace with God. He needed to be born again. He needed a personal relationship with God through the Son.
Or consider John 1:13, where the gospel writer says that salvation cannot come through “blood” or, as some translations describe it, “natural descent.” We could go on. Being born in a Christian family is not a guarantee of salvation. Knowing the right answers is not a guarantee of salvation. Going to church is not a guarantee of salvation. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
However, we shouldn’t pit a personal relationship with God over and against rhythms and practices that nurture our faith. You might even say that regular religious practices and routines are essential to a thriving faith. This idea also comes from Scripture. Consider the words of the psalmist in Psalm 119: “Your words have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God.” In other words, the regular practice of taking in God’s Word builds the heart muscle so it can, in concert with the Spirit of God, resist the temptation to sin. Elsewhere in that same passage, we read that a young man “cleanses his way” by “taking heed to God’s Word.”
Or consider the admonition in Hebrews to “not neglect the gathering together” of God’s people. This practice is more important as “you see the day approaching.” As the Day of the Lord nears, as the world gets more sinful and difficult, Christians need the regular gathering together as a formative discipline that, again in concert with the Spirit of God, helps us live faithfully in the world.
Pastors are encouraged to “feed the flock of God” (1 Peter 5). They are to do this “in season and out of season” (1 Timothy 4:2). To feed implies regularity. Just as our physical bodies are not nourished by one big exciting meal, but by regular common meals, so it is that our spiritual lives are nourished by hearing weekly intake of faithful exposition of the Word. This goes for the command to sing hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5). The implication is that God’s people are doing this regularly, routinely, often.
Humans are, by God’s design, creatures of routine. What hardens into habit becomes formative, in an almost subconscious way. Let me share a story or two from my own life about the way “tradition” and “religion” as decried in that worship song have become precious to me in my adulthood.
My parents, first-generation Christians, made us kids attend church three times a week. There was no negotiation. I dressed up in a full suit and tie three times a week and sat ramrod straight listening to sermons I mostly forgot and hymns with words I didn’t understand (Ebenezer, anyone?).
As an adult, I consider this one of the best gifts my parents could have given me. You see, all those days in church implanted the word in my soul. They embedded hymns in my heart. So much so that often, a single phrase from Scripture will pop into my head or a song lyric will come to mind. And they are precious to me.
These rituals matter. My parents were probably just trying to make it. They weren’t thinking about brain science or how habits are formed when they were schlepping us into the church building every Sunday. And yet here I am, thankful for this ritual, this religion. It has helped make my relationship with Jesus most precious.
As parents, we don’t have the power to change our kids’ hearts. Only the Holy Spirit can do that work. But what we can do is create environments where our kids’ faith can grow. We can establish what is normal and what is routine. We do this not only by establishing a weekly rhythm of church attendance, but in other ways.
One of the enduring images from my childhood is the image of my father with a cup of coffee and an open, tattered King James Bible every morning.
Humans are creatures of routine. We will be formed by our practices and habits. The world, the flesh, and the devil will rush in to try to form us with bad habits that lead us away from God. Our children are looking at us for a vision of what is normal. Let’s give that to them, not by dissing the rhythms and spiritual disciplines, but by doubling down on them.
Consider this lyric from a favorite hymn:
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
Some Updates:
I have a new episode of my podcast out. This time with Knox Thames, who has long experience advocating for international religious freedom. He shares insights on his time in the government, where it’s hardest to be a Christian, and why Americans should speak up for those who must practice their faith under threat of persecution.
I’m working on final edits for my book on Christianity and Patriotism, out in Sept from Broadside Books. I’m excited about this one.