The foundation of your devotions ought to be God’s Word and prayer. Generally, for us the best rhythms from later elementary age on have been to read one chapter of the Bible, ask some basic questions about the chapter, sing a song, and pray. Don’t overly complicate the time. It’s better to go shorter than longer. I would rather have five ten-minute family devotions a week than one hour-long devotion. The daily rhythms help draw us into closer intimacy not only with Christ, but also with one another.  

Angel and I have a nineteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old. On the precipice of empty-nesting, I’ve been reflecting upon what has worked and what hasn’t worked as I have tried to lead our family spiritually over the years.
I have experienced ebbs and flows of successes and failures as the spiritual leader of our family. By God’s grace, our kids are faithfully following Christ and have vibrant spiritual lives. Angel and I give God all the credit and glory for the ways in which we have been able to encourage Camille and Soren’s spiritual development; anything good we gave them the Father first gave us.  We cannot lay claim because “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) We own the times we have unintentionally and foolishly put obstacles in their spiritual path. Perhaps our wins and losses might help you walk a wiser course.
The Basics
None of the basics will surprise a mature Christian. While uncontroversial, these are more important than my suggestions for spiritual rhythms below. If leading your family spiritually is playing jazz, the basics are the structure that keep the music cohesive, and the spiritual rhythms are the improvisation that make the song unique to your family.
I’m not able to properly lead my family into spiritual health if I myself am not intentionally growing spiritually. They are watching you closely: lead through your example. There is no faster way to give Christianity a bitter taste than for your kids to sniff out that you don’t take your walk seriously.
Similarly, the spiritual temperature in your marriage will impact your children. The depth of spiritual intimacy in your marriage will directly affect the depth of spiritual intimacy in your family.
If your spouse isn’t a Christian or isn’t committed to the spiritual development of your children, it’s far better to act alone than to wait for your spouse to get on board.
Just as your relationships with your children change as they get older, so too will your spiritual relationships with them change. Expect this to happen and welcome their growth in spiritual maturity.  As you walk alongside them, you will be blessed watching God transform them and even through their struggles you can experience joy in seeing God sanctify them.
Spiritual Rhythms
I’m that dad – the one who introduced his kids to great books about two years too early. A great book isn’t great if the reader isn’t ready for it. Similarly, I often made the mistake in our family’s spiritual life of trying to push the kids ahead of where they were developmentally. How about you? Our goal as parents isn’t to have the most theologically astute eight-year-old, but rather a child whose walk with Christ is marked all the days of his life as having run the race well.
Infant and toddler stage: this was the most straightforward stage for me. The main goal is to create a warm environment where children come to love singing praise to Jesus and reading his Word. For us, this meant that our bath and bedtime were times where we sang simple songs of praise (such as “Jesus Loves Me” and “God is so Good”) and read Bible stories (The Jesus Storybook Bible and The Biggest Story Bible are both excellent).
Elementary stage: this transition was very hard for me because of several challenges. First, most families will begin to have after-school activities (sports, music, and clubs) that impact dinner and bedtime. If you also have toddlers and other elementary-age kids, this is exacerbated.
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In a wedding the couple are publicly declaring to family and friends both their resolve, commitment and intention to a life-long sexual union. And they are asking everyone present to support them in fulfilling such goals. This means  that in an LGBTIQ wedding they are announcing their commitment not to repent, but to continually rebel against the One who made them. A Christian can never support such a decision because the Bible explicitly warns us not to be deceived that such an unrepentant person will ever enter the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

A Vexed Pastoral Issue
One of the most vexed personal decisions Western Christians face today is whether or not to attend an LGBTIQ wedding of a family member or friend. Nobody who follows Jesus wants to destroy the relationship or lose the opportunity to present the Gospel to those they know. But at the same time, we want to both honour the LORD as well as not be a stumbling block to others (See Matt. 18:6).
Unfortunately, sometimes the Gospel brings us into conflict with those we are closest to. And it is at that point which our loyalties are truly tested. As Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-39:
Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
What this means is that our relationship with Jesus must come before all other earthly loyalties. And this is where our allegiance to Him is tested. Christ Jesus calls us to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously referred to as “costly discipleship”.  One in which we take up our cross and we die to the applause of the world. Because this is what it means to bear witness to Christ in a world which lives in rebellion to Him.
Alistair Beggs to Differ
A social media storm obviously erupted recently then, when the well-respected evangelical preacher Alistair Begg, told a Christian grandmother that she should attend a transgender wedding involving her grandson so that she wouldn’t be perceived as being “unloving, judgmental, critical, and unprepared to countenance anything.”
It should be noted that Begg does not support gay marriage and neither would he commend Christians usually attending a gay wedding. But Begg suggested that he would advise someone to sometimes attend as a way of showing love and preserving the relationship.
Since then though, Begg has doubled-down on his comments stating that he “is not yet ready to repent over this…I don’t have to”. (This was probably in response to the article by Robert Gagnon which can be viewed here). Some evangelical Christians agree with Begg that the decision to go a gay or transgender wedding is a ‘disputable matter’ (i.e. Rom. 14), which should be left to an individual’s conscience[1]. But an increasing number of theologians and pastors teach that Christians should not celebrate an LGBTIQ marriage by attending.[2]
An Ancient Problem
The problem is actually not a modern one but was an issue which even the people in Jesus’ day faced. John the Baptist famously confronted Herod over his incestuous marriage to Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife (Matt. 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 3:19-20). John was both imprisoned and later  beheaded due to his confrontation with Herod and Herodias over their incestuous ‘marriage’.
This is a helpful analogy in that it helps us to see the issue from another perspective and an angle of which we are yet to be confronted with, namely incest. What follows then is a ten-point summary as to why a Christian should never support or even attend an LGBTIQ union.
First, If a Christian Goes Then They Would Have to Publicly Declare Their Objection in the Service of the LGBTIQ Marriage from Proceeding
The Presbyterian Church of Australia’s Public Worship and Aids to Devotion Committee,[3] outlines that the congregation—and also couple—be asked the following questions:
Declaration of Lawfulness
If anyone can show any reason why this marriage would not be lawful, let them now declare it.
And I require and charge you both, knowing that you are answerable to God, that if either of you know any reason why your marriage would not be lawful, you declare it now.
Normally there are only nervous looks between the bride and groom, as well as uncomfortable laughter from the congregation, at this point in the ceremony. No one expects someone to say something at this point and it rarely if ever occurs. However, when it involves an LGBTIQ couple the issue quickly becomes relevant.
Historically, the question was there to safeguard against the unlikely—but not altogether impossible—situation of either one of the couple being married to someone else at the time. Or, as was the case with Herod and Herodias, being a close relative to one another. However, because both LGBTIQ desire and behaviour is a transgression of God’s law, one would be duty bound to stand and voice his or her opposition to the unlawful union from proceeding.[4]
Second, Christians Could Not Give Their Personal Congratulations
Following on from the previous point, even if the ceremony was not conducted according to the specific religious rites of a Christian denomination, a Christian could not offer his genuine ‘congratulations’ to the couple. As Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has said:
Remember that the traditional word used of those who are attending a wedding is that they are celebrants. They are there to celebrate the wedding. It is virtually impossible to go to … a wedding of a same-sex couple and go and smile and not give affirmation to what you believe to be fundamentally contrary to nature and injurious to human flourishing.
If you are consistently biblical in your thinking, you simply can’t go to a wedding that actually isn’t a wedding, for a marriage that you don’t believe is a marriage. One of the principles that has guided the Christian church through the centuries is that the Church cannot sanction and Christians should not celebrate weddings that are illicit or unlawful according to Scripture.
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When will the postmodern conception of language cease to be tolerated in the PCA? Words don’t get to mean what one wants them to mean.  The doctrines in Scripture or our Constitution or AIC Reports don’t get to be so nuanced until they mean the opposite of what they intend.  The law of non-contradiction might not hold for Derrida, and maybe not in the PCA anymore, but it does to our Lord.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with With God, and the Word Was God. – John 1:1
God is not a God of confusion but of peace. – 1 Corinthians 14:33
Much ink, um, keystrokes has been typed regarding the source of the divide in the PCA.    We have been told by Progressives (in the Bryan Chapell sense of the term) that we are just misunderstanding each other and that we actually agree.  All of these never-ending disagreements are actually agreements.   We supposedly agree on what the Westminster Standards mean as well as the AIC Report on Human Sexuality and the one on Women in Ministry also.  We supposedly agree to follow the BCO.  That does of course depend on what you mean by the word “agree.”
We don’t even agree on what words mean, let alone complex systems of doctrine or AIC reports that simply provide guidance.  The two wings of the PCA are completely divided on women deacons, women preachers, human sexuality as it relates to identity, appropriate missional posture, Revoice, CRT, Side B Gay Christianity,  and clarity of speech.  You object?  It all depends on what one means by preaching, deacon, corporate worship, and every other word in this article.
This whole thing is reminiscent of when Bill Clinton uttered the brilliant words “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is” nearly 25 years ago.  It would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Playing fast and loose with words and clarity in our Lord’s Church is no laughing matter.  Quite frankly it’s sad.
How long before “Let your yes be yes and your no be no” becomes “well that depends on what you mean by yes and no. In one sense it is yes and in another sense it is no.?”  Brothers and sisters, sadly, we are already there.
It is Pharisaical Legalism at Its Core
Seeing the letter of the law in our Standards, the BCO, AIC Reports, and Scripture itself then looking for ways  to do what one wants to do is Pharisaical legalism.  It is legalistic to look for workarounds, loopholes, and wiggle room to do mission.  No amount of law or guidance will prevent a legalist from pursuing these things. No language will either.
It is Pharisaical legalism to put women in the roll of Deacon with the only difference being that hands were not laid on her and then say she is not a Ordained Deacon.[1]
It is Pharisaical legalism to not have the office of deacon at all, but to have another made up board of men and women doing everything the diaconate is supposed to do.[2]
It is Pharisaical legalism to have women teaching and/or preaching assembled Christians but say that she didn’t teach or preach because it wasn’t at a Worship Service or we didn’t call it a sermon, but rather she exhorted at a study.[3]
It is Pharisaical legalism to host a Transvestite Celebration on property that is owned by the church through a ministry run by church leadership/members but say it was separate from the Church because the building it was held in was “decommissioned” and the organization that runs the ministry is separate from the Church.
It is Pharisaical legalism to plant non-PCA churches or start para-church ministries that are overseen by PCA churches, officers, and members that do all the things we aren’t allowed to do.
It is Pharisaical legalism to look at the AIC Report on Human Sexuality and say we agree with it, but then ignore all that it advises against because it doesn’t say “shall not” or “shall,” thereby justifying the wholesale use of what the spirit of the report calls unwise and must be rejected.
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