As each new year approaches, I begin to think about what I want to do differently and ask God how I can be more effective and intentional in different areas of my life. One of the areas I have been praying about is how to be more intentional with my kids. As a mom, one of the most important assignments I have is to raise my children to know, love, and follow the Lord.
What do you want your children to look like when they are grown? Do you desire for them to be focused on success, materialism, and entertainment? Or do you want them to be living in communion with God and raising your grandchildren to live for the Lord as well?
Recently the Lord connected me with Charmé Fletcher, founder of the blog, Covenant Heirs, and coauthor with her husband of Making a Spiritual Discipleship Plan. My husband and I enjoyed using her spiritual discipleship plan resource to come up with our own discipleship plan for our family. It is an amazing tool and really helped us develop a vision for our family, so we stay centered on what matters most in life. I asked her to guest blog for us to tell you more about this wonderful tool…
Living in today’s modern world, we have a great number of parenting websites, blogs, and resources available at the tip of our fingers. While this can be a good thing for so many reasons, it can also feel like searching for precious gems amidst the rocks and debris surrounding them, and then determining if the gems truly hold value.
Working in preschool ministry, I get an interesting perspective of Santa at Christmas time. Leading worship, it is my goal to encourage the preschoolers to get more excited about Jesus than anything else in their life. When I ask the preschoolers what they are excited about at Christmas time, this is what I often hear…
What do your kids love about Christmas? Mine love decorating the Christmas tree (my husband’s least favorite part), making, icing, and eating Christmas cookies, and spending time with their cousins… Christmas is fun and full of exciting activities, but with so much to look forward to, if we are not careful, it can become easy to loose sight of the main reason for Christmas.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… a time we can bring God so much glory by enjoying the love story between Him and us. A story we want to share with our kids over and over every Christmas because it’s the greatest love story ever told- that the God of the universe would want to come down from Heaven and be with us!
Every year as Christmas creeps closer and closer, I am filled with anticipation for the joy of the season, but also anxiety sets in as I wonder if I will be able to get everything done in time. From preparing kids for Christmas plays, to hosting and attending parties, to determining the perfect gifts for each family member… it’s a crazy time of year!
Have you ever wished you could eliminate those countless hours of screen time on long road trips? What if you could give your kids a constructive activity that the whole family enjoys? I know books are great, and we encourage our kids to read in the car as much as possible. It’s also important to use some car time to talk or play family games, but it’s nice to have other options as well. One of the activities we enjoy on road trips and when traveling around town is listening to audio dramas: stories that come to life through the character’s voices and sound affects without the visual input.
One of my favorite activities during the summer months is reading chapter books with my kids. I enjoy snuggling on the couch as we read the next chapter and discuss what we can learn from it. There are some great, classic books out there, but lately I have been searching for some good Christian chapter books with a message of faith. We know a few, and I reviewed one of them below, but I asked some friends (and some of their kids) to tell me their favorites and why they liked them.