However, I would greatly benefit from hearing your train of thought as you think through various practical issues that might arise. Here are three scenarios I usually get from people who love God and just want to please Him on His day.

First, what do you say to the couple who, after a day filled with private, family, and corporate worship – both morning and evening – sit down together after the kids are asleep and wonder if they would be in sin to restfully watch thirty minutes of television before bed?

Second, how would you advise a family filled with young, energetic children? Can light recreation be a form of Sabbath rest-taking (in the service of worship) for children? Playing with toys, going to the park, or, if the weather is inclement, watching a cartoon could be things that either allow the child to exhaust his or her energy or to settle him or her down a bit, thus gearing them up for attending the evening service.

Finally, what advice have you for the youth pastor who meets with high schoolers each Sunday night? Should he avoid recreation and games, or can he, for example, take the youth group outside to toss Frisbee or a football after the lesson for group building?

64. Since the evening prayers are in many places found to be fruitful, each church following this practice shall do what it deems to be most edifying. But whenever there is the desire to eliminate them, this shall not take place without the judgment of classis, together with that of the authority for the Reformed religion.

68. Ministers shall on each Lord’s Day, ordinarily in the afternoon sermons, briefly explain the sum of Christian doctrine contained in the catechism which at present is accepted in the Netherlands Churches in such a way that it may be completed annually, following the division of the catechism itself made for that purpose.