Every evening promptly at six-thirty, with the dinner dishes cleared away, they all bow at the family altar. When Dad opens the oversized King James Bible it is a cue for Mom and the girls to start taking notes. The boys stay busy underlining passages in their small New Testaments with yellow felt-tip pens.

I have never seen that kind of family, except maybe in the pages of an outdated Sunday school quarterly. I don't know if the fact is good, bad, or neutral, and it probably doesn't matter much. What really matters is finding out how the Christian faith can best mesh with family life in today's world.

"Honey," I said to my husband, "why don't we clear away the dinner dishes and bow at the family altar at six-thirty every evening?"

"What family altar?" he exclaimed. "Are you wanting another piece of furniture?"

"I mean, dear, why don't we have family devotions every night at six-thirty?"

"Probably because no one is home," my husband said, chuckling. "And besides, I hardly ever get to see the news now, and God certainly wouldn't want me to miss the news. Seriously, can't we come up with something better?"

Something better. There it was again. The Christian faith/contemporary family life mix is in need of something better. Old-fashioned family devotions seem to be extinct in today's society, but where is "something better" to be found? The next day I began to poll some of my Christian friends.

"Maybe we're not pious enough," one of them declared, "but the scene you just described would never work for us. We have the kind of home where the neighborhood kids are jumping on the beds, the dog has to be taken outside, and the phone is ringing."

"Don't we all," I moaned.

Another friend told me it is hard enough for her to get her three children to sit still in church on Sundays. "If I subjected myself to stress like that every night," she sighed, "I am afraid the whole concept of Christian motherhood would soon be missing from our family."

One evening shortly after my survey was completed, I was chopping celery for the salad. My husband and daughter were taking Raggedy Ann for piggyback rides. "If only his fraternity brothers could see him now," I mused. When it sounded like they were taking a break, I called into the living room, "What do you want your child to remember most about growing up in this home?"

"That it's a Christian home, I suppose," was the answer.

"What comes second?" I continued.

"I don't know," my husband said. "Probably that we have a lot of fun around here."

That's it! I thought. That's the missing element in my make-believe family—fun. A parent can pound the Bible into his child for years, but if the child doesn't see real joy in his parents' lives, then any attempt at family devotions automatically flops. A vibrant Christian life style, a cause worth living and dying for, days filled with excitement and adventure and fun—these are the things that make a child want to grow up to be like "Mommy and Daddy."

Today my family has a daily devotional time together. Of course, it is our own brand of family devotions. We decided that each family, being unique, probably needs to devise its own.

Our brand simply consists of a short period of time set aside each morning to read the Bible and talk to each other and to God. It is a casual time, mostly because we are a casual family and because God has always fit comfortably into our home. When we feel like laughing, we laugh with Him. When we feel like crying, we cry with Him, and that is the way we want it. That is the way we want our daughter to know God too. She will never be able to withstand the pressures of today's world without that kind of personal relationship with her heavenly Father.

Our family devotion time was born out of need. Naturally, my husband and I feel that the parental role model of Christian living is the most important element in a child's home. Still, we sensed a need for a structured time of family worship, too. We needed it for ourselves and also for our child. When we devised our brand, we talked about how difficult it is to find a chunk of time in our already-overflowing day. We agreed that families are constantly changing and growing and that when our daughter is older we may need to plan something different. But we also agreed that family worship is extremely important in a Christian home. We would arrange our priorities accordingly.

I know some parents who pray with each of their children at night, plan family conferences when necessary, and feel that other types of family devotions would not work for them. Others think that just having dinner together and talking about a serious topic is almost a "mission impossible." There are some families, though, who are able to squeeze out a little more time. They might visit a bookstore, choose their favorites, and plan reading and discussion nights. Or they might plan family "talk-back sessions" for last week's Sunday school lesson.

Other families save an hour at the end of each day to study a devotional book together or try one of the creative methods of Bible study outlined in various publications. And sometimes little things are more important than they seem. A friend recently told me that his wife always clips a small devotional thought for the day and puts in on the breakfast table. Over the years he has come to realize how that small gesture has helped to shape his family's faith.

There are lots of possibilities. The important thing is that each family member has a voice in the planning of family worship, in the discussions about the family's changing needs. The spiritual development of each individual must be a top priority, too. Every Christian needs private time with God and time to join with a group of Christians for study and prayer and worship. That is the only way a person can bring anything significant to his family worship time.

With all this in mind, here are a few more ideas for family worship:

• Families with young children might encourage their tots to act out Bible stories. Parents could also let each child tell his own bedtime story by recounting the events of his day and then praying about them.

• Teen-agers might enjoy pretending a switch in roles. The family could center on a Bible issue and act out an imaginary related situation with a child playing the part of a parent and vice versa.

• As time passes, a family prayer note book can become a precious keepsake. Start one by entering your family's prayer requests, and then explaining how and when they are eventually answered.

• Use some of your worship time to plan family outings that will deepen your faith. Attend a Christian concert together, or go to hear an interesting speaker. A nature walk might be fun, too, as long as it is not substituted for church.

Of course, an attitude of faith is the necessary ingredient in any of the methods of family worship. Success is found in the constant prayer that God will help us see everything in life through spiritual eyes. It is found in the father who sees a rainbow and explains to his daughter the message behind it. It is found in the mother who sings "Jesus Loves Me" while she pushes her son's swing.

Maybe it will take a little time and effort and experimentation, but family worship can be tailored to the needs of the individual, changing family. It is probably too easy to give up, but having a happy marriage and well-adjusted Christian children is no accident. The family members who remain flexible and grow and vary their worship to meet their needs already know that.

I remember the first time we skipped our family devotions. I spent the day looking over my shoulder, half expecting to be zapped by lightning. It didn't happen, though, and my day was surprisingly smooth.

"Do you ever feel like our morning devotional time is just a meaningless habit or an empty ritual?" I asked my husband that evening after dinner.

"Habit and ritual, maybe, but not meaningless or empty," he said. "Besides, there is something to be said for having a few habits and rituals in a family," he added.

He was right. In talking about it, we admitted to each other that there are mornings when we feel like we are just going through the motions. "But," my husband reminded me, "the Bible doesn't tell us to put the emphasis on our feelings. We are supposed to be putting the emphasis on our faith."

Needless to say, we decided to continue our daily devotions. The format and time are open to change, but the need to keep God in the number one spot in our family is not a variable. We need to worship as a family. In fact, if we had never spent so many mornings going through the motions, we might never have experienced those spiritual highs along the way. If we had never gone through the motions, we might not be able to talk about God in our family so easily, without embarrassment.

Going through the motions in our family has resulted in a kind of spiritual oneness in marriage that makes every other area of married life full and fantastic. It has helped initiate the spiritual growth of a little girl who now has a good chance of growing up knowing the truth: that the big three are not wealth and power and fame, but "to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly" with God.

"No," I said to myself the first day my child wanted to lead our prayer, "my concept of family devotions was not really outdated after all. It just needed to be updated."