Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

For classical Reformed spirituality, morning and evening family prayer was one of the foundations of piety. It was at the heart of the day-to-day exercising of Christian faith. This made sense to those for whom Covenant theology was so formative. The unity of the family was a significant feature of Covenant theology. With the coming of Pietism, daily family prayer was unfortunately replaced with private devotions. Pietism was very individualistic, and many of this persuasion had a hard time understanding why children should be baptized. There was no sacred unity in the family. Each single human being stood before God alone. With the demise of Pietism, private devotions began to develop atrophy. They finally became not much more than “five minutes a day.” Today, as we seek to recover a Reformed spirituality, we need to reach behind Pietism and recover the older classical Protestant discipline of daily morning and evening prayer.

So true. Christian life is more community driven than individual drive. Common prayer is thus highly needed