Tag Archives: mother

Posted on

Family Devotions, Train Wrecks, Praying as a Couple & the Grace to Move Forward

by

If you’re a man and attend church, you’ve heard a pastor say, “You need to be leading your family spiritually.” Yet many men struggle with this. I know I do.

On a regular basis I’ll sit with a man and he’ll ask me, “How do I lead my wife spiritually? When I’ve tried, I’ve been terrible at it. How do I start?”

Family devotions sound incredibly intimidating and scary for many men. Most men look at their spiritual lives and that of their wife and think, “She’s more spiritual than I am. She’s smarter than I am. She’s more mature spiritually than I am.” There’s a good chance that if you are like most couples, she is.

Now, before giving some ideas, let me say up front that this is hard. Devotions for many couples and families are train wrecks. Kids don’t sit still, they go on tangents, it feels stale or simply feels like you aren’t moving forward at all. The picture of the couple who rises at 5am, drinks coffee and reads their Bibles together while holding hands is not reality for many people. Kids who sit still and listen is also not a reality. (I have four boys, and keeping them in their seats for anything can be monumental.)

How to do family devotions.

Click To Tweet

Here are a few ideas:

1. Do something. Most couples and families suffer because they don’t do anything. Just do something. You’ll see in a minute that trying different ideas might be a good idea, but simply do something. Even if it is asking, “What is God teaching you right now? Where have you seen God at work recently?”

2. Find what works for you. What works for one family and couple may or may not work for you.

When Katie and I got married, we probably got at least 10 couple’s devotionals for our wedding. We read through many of them, laughed at many of the ridiculous questions they asked and then handed them off to another couple (sorry if you got one). They just didn’t work for us. Neither did rising at 5am to drink coffee and read together. These work for many couples, and that’s great.

Whatever you do, find what works for you as a couple.

For Katie and me, we don’t do couple’s devotions. We often don’t read the same parts of the Bible at the same time or even the same books. We sometimes do, but we often talk about what God is teaching us. We’ll listen to a podcast together, or I’ll find things she should listen to or books she should read.

For us, our spiritual journey together is often debriefing. This keeps us on the same page and keeps us growing together.

4 things to remember for family devotions.

Click To Tweet

3. Decide doing something consistently (even if mediocre) is better than doing something inconsistently that is incredible. More than likely, especially when it comes to family devotions, it will feel mediocre at best and a train wreck at worst. Don’t quit.

Have the long view on this.

Also, and don’t miss this, kids catch more than you think. I am continually surprised at what my kids catch, pick up and remember. That conversation you think they slept through (and if you have teenagers they may have slept through it), they may have picked up 30% of it.

So, build on that.

4. Give some grace. Regardless, give yourself, your kids and your spouse some grace.

One of the things Katie will often encourage women when it comes to this topic is to be okay with your husband fumbling his way through this. Most husbands (even pastors) are not very good at leading their families spiritually. They have a picture in their mind of what it should look like (but it rarely gets there). They feel like they are failing their wife, boring their kids and failing God. They also feel guilt because they should be doing this and doing it better than they are.

How to encourage your husband to lead your family spiritually.

Click To Tweet

So give grace. Celebrate doing something. When it was a train wreck, say it was a nice train wreck. We survived. Our kids heard the gospel and we tried. And we’ll try again tomorrow.

Posted on

Why You Parent the Way You Do

by

parent

Recently I made a comment on Facebook about babywise and quickly learned that discussing parenting styles on Facebook is akin to talking about global warming and vaccines.

But I learned something in the process, something I didn’t expect.

I learned two things about Christian parents that day and I think it can be incredibly dangerous.

The first, when it comes to parenting, Christians are very relative.

In fact, let me make a bold statement. By and large, most Christian parents care very little about what the Bible says about parenting and what science says about parenting.

Most Christian parents care very little about what the Bible says about parenting.

Click To Tweet

Parenting styles aside for a minute.

There were almost 50 comments on the thread (which I deleted because it hurt my heart and made too angry), but almost every comment started with, “Well for my kid…”

No one ever started a sentence with, “The Bible or scientific research says…” Or, “my goal as a Christian parent because of the Bible is…”

It largely boiled down to what is easiest as a parent.

Now, we couch that in language about how its working for our kids, but I know for years I fell into the parenting trap of what is easiest and most convenient for me.

No Christian would ever say they don’t care what the Bible says about parenting, but many of the ways we parent say otherwise. It doesn’t matter what your parenting style is, how you communicate with your child or how you discipline them. If you are a follower of Jesus, what the Bible says about those things is way more important than what you think works for your child. For the most part, you are guessing at what you think works for your child because you don’t know until it’s over and they’ve moved out. That’s why what the Bible says and what scientific research says is so important.

When it comes to scientific research, I realize some Christians can get weird about that and start to wonder if God was taken out of the picture. While that happens, at the same time, there are incredible discoveries being made about our brains, how we are created and wired and all of that comes from God, whether a Christian discovers that or not. While this might be another blog topic, I think Christians needs to stop fearing science and start seeing how it confirms our Creator and his great plan for us.

The second thing I learned about parents is, we don’t really want to learn anything new. 

Almost no one in the over 50 comments asked, “How did you come to that conclusion? What do you know that I don’t? What books have you read that led you to that?”

Not wanting to learn or be stretched is an incredibly dangerous place to live, but many Christians stay in that zone when it comes to a lot of issues.

Are there things that Christians should reject out of hand without researching? Yes. This is why it matters so much to know what the Bible says about parenting (stay tuned for another post on that).

Now, like the first, no Christian parent would ever say they don’t want to learn. In fact, most feel incredibly inadequate as a parent (I know I do more times than not), but I think in an effort to feel better about ourselves as parents and what we are doing as parents, we shut down anything that might be new because we don’t want to be told we may have been doing the wrong thing.

I know a couple of years ago when we were going through our adoption classes and reading The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family and The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, all I could think of was “how did we mess this up as parents?” What I learned in those resources and classes had way more to do with how I and Katie parented all of our kids than just how to relate to the kids we adopted.

As a parent who claims to be a follower of Jesus, don’t settle for “this worked for me or my friend.” We have way more wisdom than that out there. What does the bible say about parenting? What are you called to be and do as a parent? That’s where we should start.

Next week I’ll share what I think is the most important question for any parent to answer as it relates to your child. It is the question that shapes our parenting style, the books we read, how we communicate, discipline and teach our kids. It is that big of a deal and most parents never even think about it.

Posted on

Tell the Story of Your Kids

by

kids

Every year on our kids birthday I sit down to write them a letter. This isn’t your normal birthday card greeting.

This is a practice I started with our daughter when she was born.

One of the things I believe a dad can do it help to tell the story of their child’s life to them. I feel like with the rise of technology and pace in our lives, we lose an aspect of stories and remembering.

So, every year on their birthday I write them a letter about what happened in their life in this past year. How our family changed, how they changed, milestones in their life. I save each letter and will give them to them when they turn 18 or graduate from college. I haven’t decided yet.

My hope is that this will be a chronicle of what happened, a way of showing them how they became who they are, where they came from. As I talk to a lot of young adults, there seems to be a loss of not only who they are, but where they have come from. A rootless feeling for many.

I want them to see their heritage, so that as they move into the world as an adult, they know where they came from and who they are.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted on

Be Sensitive on Mother’s Day

by

Mother’s Day is a big day for most churches. While Mother’s Day is a great day to honor moms in our lives, it is also difficult for many. Most pastors’ blogs will talk about honoring women, doing baby dedications, giving out gifts to mothers, etc., on Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is a hard day for many women in your church. For some, it reminds them of a broken relationship with their mother, of someone who is no longer there. For some, it is a reminder of the loss of a child. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t mothers, even though their desire exists. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t married when they want to be.

So, be sensitive.

Here are some things you can do at your church:

  • Honor all women. 
  • Acknowledge moms and the role they play. While you are being sensitive, please don’t ignore that it is Mother’s Day. It is; it’s on the calendar, and everyone knows it. You can be sensitive while acknowledging and honoring Moms.
  • If you give out a gift, give it to all women. We’ve given all women flowers in the past. This year we are doing free pictures for families, couples or groups of friends, or individuals.
  • If you want to give a gift to the moms in your church, give it to your children’s ministry to avoid drawing attention to it.
  • Encourage those who Mother’s Day is a difficult day to come forward for prayer with a leader.
  • Acknowledge that Mother’s Day is a great day for some and a hard day for others. This goes a long way in letting all women know they matter and that you see them.
  • Preach the gospel. You should do this every week, but especially on Mother’s Day. Remind women that their only hope, regardless of where they are on Mother’s Day, is Jesus.