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Joshua Reich

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10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse

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putting your kids before your marriage

No one gets married thinking they will put their kids before their marriage, but over time without being intentional, it happens. It’s easy to do. Kids need our attention, they scream for it (literally). We also rationalize that it’s easier and the right thing to do. Or, we rationalize that we will have time for our spouse later in life, but later in life rarely comes.

Here are some ways you know if your kids are coming before your marriage:

  1. You plaster all over Facebook about how excited you are to take a date night tonight because you can’t remember the last time you had a date night.
  2. The only time you talk to your spouse during the day is for something, you don’t text or call to say “I love you” or “I was thinking of you.”
  3. You don’t touch in public, at all.
  4. Sex is fast and rare.
  5. If you sit down to talk with your spouse, the only thing you can talk about is your kids and what’s happening in their lives.
  6. You don’t have any hobbies or interests outside of your kids.
  7. Dinner is in the car several times a week.
  8. You can’t answer these questions about your spouse: What do they like to do, what is God teaching them right now, what is hurting them or stressing them out right now.
  9. Your kids don’t know what “Mom and Dad time” means.
  10. “Mom and Dad time” does not mean what it should mean. Instead it means watching TV or passing out.
  11. Here’s a bonus one: your spouse complains that the kids come before they do.

Bottom line, it’s easy to do. In fact, most parents think you should put your kids first. This is actually a lie that can destroy your family. Putting your marriage first, makes your marriage strong, which in turn makes your family stronger because of the foundation.

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A Simple Time-Management Principle

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time management

There is an incredibly simple time-management principle that has guided my decisions and how I manage my time.

While it is simple, it has far-reaching implications. Here it is:

Every time you say yes to something, say no to something else.

Every time you say yes to something, say no to something else.

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If you run a company or a church, you can’t do everything. In your family, you can’t afford everything; you can’t sign your kid up for every activity (although lots of parents try).

It’s very simple. If you say yes to something, you will have to say no to something else. I was talking with a couple recently and they were wrestling with whether or not the wife should go back to work. They have small kids, money is tight, and they said, “It would help us financially.” I told them this idea and said, “If you say yes to working, you will make money. But you are now spending less time with your kids and someone else is raising them, you are bringing stress into your life that isn’t there now because you will be home less, because of working.” I kept going but you get the idea.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Every weekend, every weekday we make choices about how to spend our time. When a man chooses between spending time on the golf course or at the lake with his buddies, versus with his children, he is saying yes and no to something. We might say yes to what we want to do, but at the same time, say no to investing in our kids or an important relationship.

At the end of the work day, when we decide to take work home, stay just a little bit longer as opposed to getting home, getting to the gym to get some exercise, spend time with friends. We say yes to something and no to something. By saying yes to working late and yes to more stress, we are saying no to a sustainable pace, no to spending time with friends that would relax us or help us to unwind, no to exercising so that we can be healthier.

You can’t say yes to every kind of music, dress, style, and service time. Pick one.

Pastors try to fight against this in their churches. “If we have a program for everybody, we will reach everybody,” they say. But if you shoot to reach everybody, simply you will reach nobody. You can’t say yes to every kind of music, dress, style, and service time. Pick one.

When I planted Revolution Church, I struggled with this every day. As a pastor, there are so many people to meet with. You don’t want to say no to anyone because they might leave, and you need everyone you can get, all the givers you can muster. This often leads you to running ragged, not resting well, not spending time with your family or time with Jesus. We rationalize that we’re serving people, helping them, and that next month we’ll take that Sabbath, that date night.

As a parent, it is easy to do this as we run our kids from one activity to the next in an effort to give them a well-rounded life. By doing that—by saying yes to running their kids everywhere—we are saying no to family dinners, family devotions (often), but we are saying yes to more stress in their life as a family. Many couples sacrifice their marriages for their kids, pouring their time and energy into their kids instead of their marriage as the most important relationship in the family. This is one reason why more divorces happen in year 25 than any other year of marriage now. Empty nesters don’t know each other without their kids.

HOW TO SAY YES AND NO

We say yes and no in our family. We say yes to exercising and a healthy lifestyle. I’ve shared in other places about my journey of losing 130 pounds and keeping it off. Every time we go to the gym or make a meal plan to eat a healthy diet, we are saying yes to health and longevity in life. We have to say no to sleeping in later (as I get to the gym by 6 a.m.), to late night snacks, to too many chicken wings, and to swearing off my beloved Frappuccino.

When we got married, we decided I would work and Katie would stay home. We said yes to her staying home and no to a lot of other things. Other families have nicer things or go on nicer vacations than we do because of this choice. That’s OK. When we made this choice, we knew what we were saying yes and no to.

You need to know the implications.

We say yes to spend time with certain people and no to others. Pastors feel the strain of wanting to be with people, spending time with as many people as possible. But it is simply impossible. For our family, we seek to spend time with the pastors and their wives at Revolution Church, the MC leaders I coach and those in our MC and those our MC is seeking to reach. That is what we as a family we have said yes to. This means we have said no to other things and other people.

You need to know the implications. When you say yes to something, you say no to something else, maybe multiple things, but it happens every time.

IT’S OKAY TO SAY NO

This at the end of the day is what drives many of us to say yes. We have this desire to appease people, to be comfortable, to make others like us. This is what drives so many of us to not say no and to say yes too much.

When someone asks if they can meet with me, I want to help them, I want to say yes. Often I’m able to, but many times if I say yes to that opportunity, I will say no to something else. It might be a date night with Katie, time with my kids, a nap that I need, and my sermon prep time. When we say yes to the wrong things, it is often because we want to make someone like us, approve of us, and be comfortable in a relationship.

FOCUS

This is really a question of focus. When we say yes and strategically, we live more strategically. One helpful thing for me has been to lay out my ideal week and identify what the most important things for me to accomplish each week are. This helps me to see the time I actually have available for things that pop up at the last minute, it helps me to gauge if I can say yes to those opportunities without hurting the most important things.

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4 Ways to Maintain Community

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community

There is no doubt that our culture desires community. This is why Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest and other social media sites are so popular. We even put social in the name to emphasize how much we want community from them. The problem is that these sites bring connectivity to our lives, but not community. Those aren’t always equal. It is deceptive to the point that people think because they are connected and have 1,000 facebook friends, lots of twitter followers or instagram likes, they have community. They have connection, not necessarily community.

In Ephesians, Paul lays out what the church in Ephesus knew in their heads, but struggled to know and live out in their hearts. We easily do this with community. We know what it takes to have community, know we should have community, yet we struggle to live that out. Paul gives us 4 ways to maintain unity in relationships, whether that is a church, a missional community, a marriage or family. The interesting thing he says is not to create unity, simply maintain it (Eph. 4:3). It is given to us by Jesus through our relationship in him.

Because of this change in our lives, finding our identity in Jesus alone (Eph. 4:1), we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to maintain unity through:

  1. Humility. This is the basis of the Christian life. To follow Jesus, one must humble themselves and admit they are broken and that without Jesus, they continue this way. Relationships are destroyed because of pride. Pride elevates one person over another, elevates one agenda over another. Keeps people from serving each other. Pride keeps people from receiving help when needed. I can’t tell you how many times people have complained about their struggles and when I ask who they’ve asked for help from, they say “no one.” Pride.
  2. Gentleness. This is being caring in a relationship. Not berating someone, not bringing up history in a relationship, not reminding someone what they’ve done wrong in the past. This is caring for the other person, seeking their best, not yours. This gets into how you speak to someone. If you say something and immediately have to say, “I was just kidding” that’s sin. You weren’t kidding, there’s some truth in that statement.
  3. Patience. Community will require patience. People will let you down, intrude in your life. You can’t have a relationship and always get your way. I meet so many people who are alone and the reason is because they aren’t willing to give up what they want. Patience also requires you to allow people to grow and change. If Jesus is the basis of our relationships, then we believe He is powerful enough to not only save us and those we’re in community with, but also powerful enough to change them. Stop trying to change those around you, let Jesus do that through you.
  4. Love. Biblical love is not an emotion first. In our culture that’s all love is. This is why people tell me right before they sin, “You can’t choose who you love.” Biblically, you can. Love is an act of the will (a choice), followed by an emotion. One author said, “To love means you start loving a person and on the way to loving that person, you begin to feel that love.”

While these 4 things are incredibly basic and all of us know them. They are difficult to live out. If they are lived out, the gospel is seen clearly. Community is one of the most powerful pictures of the gospel because people in our culture do not stay in relationships long. Lasting in relationship, often is one of the best ways to show the gospel has a changed a group of people.

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Before You Criticize Your Pastor

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pastor

The longer I’m a pastor I’ve realized something about churched people. When I say a churched person, I mean someone who has been attending church for any length of time and is a follower of Jesus (pretty broad definition). Many people in this category, while they love their church and want to see God do incredible things in their city, they also have the idea that they are smarter than their pastor or at least could do his job better than he’s doing it.

Now, they may be smarter than their pastor. There are lots of people at Revolution more educated than I am and smarter in a variety of disciplines than I am. There are people who may be able to do my job better than I can, but aren’t called to it.

I’ve written about criticism and how to handle it as a leader in other posts that you can read here and here. What I want to focus on here is before you criticize your pastor,

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before criticizing your pastor (or anyone):

8 questions to ask before criticizing your pastor.

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  1. Why does this matter? At the end of the day, some of the things that bother us simply are not that important. In marriage, your spouse does all kinds of things that drive you nuts (Katie doesn’t do anything that drives me nuts but I’ve heard other people complain about their spouses). Sometimes it isn’t that big of a deal. It might be a situation where you just need to let it go.
  2. What do I hope to gain from this? What is the end result? Do you hope your pastor will say you are right and they are wrong? Do you hope to help your pastor grow or simply point out his faults? Do you want any recognition in this process?
  3. How would you feel if you didn’t criticize your pastor? What if you didn’t say anything? How would that affect your heart? Would it drive you nuts or would you forget about it?
  4. What if nothing changes? This gets to the heart for many, what if your pastor doesn’t do anything with what you say? What if they disagree with you and tell you nothing will change? How will handle that? Your answer to this question will reveal a lot of your heart and if there is sin there.
  5. Is your criticism actually from the Bible? Pastors hear all kinds of things they are doing wrong or that their church can do better. Most of the time those criticisms simply come from people who would rather things were done differently. Is your problem actually in the Bible? Is your pastor sinning?
  6. Have you talked to anyone else? If you have, you’ve already sinned and you need to repent to God and to your pastor. Don’t bounce it off someone else, don’t do a veiled prayer request.
  7. Is this consistent with my pastor’s character? Could he have just been having an off day? Many times criticism comes from things that are not who your pastor is. If your pastor consistently does the thing or sin that you see, then talk with them. It may just be that something is going on in your pastor’s life that is tough, he maybe didn’t mean anything by what he said or you may have misheard him.
  8. Am I jealous of my pastor? Maybe you want his job, the upfront attention he gets. Many people think being a pastor is easy, glamorous and fun. At times, it can be those things, but it is usually hard work. Often, criticism comes from a place of jealousy, either for their pastors job, attention, status, relationship with God, or marriage. When I meet with someone who is upset at me or Revolution, half of the meeting will be the person venting about their spouse or another area of their life that they are taking out on me or our church.
8 questions to ask before criticizing your pastor.

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At the end of the day, disagreeing with your pastor is okay. Pushing back on something you think is a sin, wrong or don’t like is okay. The problem is in how it is often done. In veiled prayer requests at a missional community, a blog post, gossiping without talking to the source. Sometimes though, you need to not say anything. Sometimes it isn’t a big deal. Sometimes you need to give your pastor the feedback you are holding on to.

You also need to be prepared for your pastor to disagree with you and do nothing about it. This is when the heart issues will pop up for you. What if you believe something is wrong or should change and your pastor does nothing with it? If it is a sin, you should talk to other elders, but let your pastor know that you think this should happen. If it isn’t a sin but is just a difference in theology or how things are done at the church, if it is a big deal for you, you should leave and find another church. Here are some things to work through and keep in mind if it gets to that point.

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4 Ways to Wait until the Last Minute on Your Sermon

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preaching

I meet a lot of pastors who wait until the last minute on their sermons. Whenever I meet with a pastor or church planter I ask them, “What are you preaching on this Sunday?” I love hearing what series other guys are doing, the creativity. Recently whenever I ask this question, I get blank stares and a response of “I’m not sure, I think I have a title.” Sometimes they aren’t even that far along.

Here are 4 ways to make sure that you are killing yourself on Saturday night to put a sermon together.

  1. Don’t plan ahead. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about future series, future topics, just wait. By not planning ahead, you will make sure that you won’t find great quotes, examples, stories to use. You will also keep from being able to use videos, certain songs that will allow artists to thrive in your church. For example, I’m going to preach through Ecclesiastes next spring and just the other day I came across something that will bring my point home next March.
  2. Believe that your sermon doesn’t really matter. Some of these are connected, but a lot of people just don’t think preaching is that important. Whether they hold that people don’t want to listen to a sermon or that they should just give a lite “here’s how to make Monday better than Friday was” kind of a pep talk. Your sermon matters. The Holy Spirit likes to show up whenever we talk about Jesus and the hope we have in Him. Lives are changed through the power of opening Scripture.
  3. Unclear on what is the most important thing you do. Too many pastors are not clear on what is the most important thing they do or what should get the majority of their time. Three things occupy the majority of my time:  sermon prep, developing leaders, meeting with new people at Revolution. I essentially give almost my entire week to those 3 things. Even when Revolution was smaller and we didn’t have a staff, that’s what I spent my time on, it’s what I do that adds the most value to Revolution Church. If you haven’t already, clarify how much time your sermon will get, give the best of your day to it. I don’t do meetings in the morning, except on Tuesdays, which isn’t a day I work on my sermon. My sermon gets the best hours of my day.
  4. Be lazy. A mentor told me, “Someone pays the price for a sermon, either the pastor in preparation or the church who has to listen to it.” Too many churches are paying the price instead of the pastor. Why? The pastor is lazy.

 

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Date Night at Home

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date night

In numerous places, I’ve written and talked about the importance of a weekly date night, you can read about that here.

Unless you have free babysitting every week, there is a good chance at some point you will have a date night at home. Often, this feels like a letdown for a couple because there is something fun and exciting about going out. There is something freeing about someone else putting your kids down. For Katie and I, most of our date nights are at home after the kids go to bed.

Here are a few ways we’ve made those special:

7 ways to make date night special on a budget.

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  1. Have a plan. Nothing hurts date night more than having no plan. In the same way that you plan going out, plan what it will look like at home. What will you eat, who is doing what, what time will things get started. You may have to be more intentional about the plan for date night at home because you are at home.
  2. Stay dressed up. Don’t get into your pajama pants. Nothing shuts your brain down more at the end of a long day like getting into comfortable clothes. Stay dressed up. Wear what you would wear if you were going out.
  3. No electronics. The fastest way to kill most date nights is turning on the TV, no checking out Facebook or Twitter or your email. Concentrate on each other.
  4. Plan a fun meal. It doesn’t have to be expensive or a feast, but something special. Something you wouldn’t normally eat. Katie and I love to try new recipes, so we’re always searching. Katie uses this blog a lot for our meal plans and we’ve found a ton of recipes that have been great for date night on this site.
  5. Eat with your kids. At home, we do an appetizer while our kids eat so that we can still eat dinner with them, talk with them about their day and it helps to hold us over until we eat.
  6. Know who will cook and who will put the kids down. It might be more relaxing for your wife to cook. She may want you to handle the kids, or vice versa. Whatever it is, communicate that and stick to it.
  7. Pick a night you are awake for. There are certain nights you are more alert and awake than others. Find that night and do date night on that night. If you have a long day on Tuesday, don’t do date night that night. Maximize the night where your energy levels are highest. I find knowing which night date night will be helps me to be mentally prepared for it.
7 ways to make date night at home a success.

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When A Calling Gets Hard (You Know It’s Real)

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leadership

At Revolution, we want to be a church that plants churches. This means, we have a lot of guys walking through our doors who want to plant churches. It also means I have “the calling” conversation on a regular basis. Depending on your background and denomination, “the calling” conversation takes on a variety of weights in terms of importance.

Not only do I meet a lot of guys who want to plant churches, but I also meet a lot of guys who want to be leaders or church planters because it is cool and sexy. For these guys, being a pastor is not a calling, it is a job. Sutton Turner lists 8 ways you know it is a job and not a calling:

  1. If your primary motivation is to pay your bills and provide for your family, it’s a job. If your primary motivation is to serve Jesus and be used by him as he builds his church, it’s ministry.
  2. If you want praise and recognition for your work, it’s a job. If no one else besides Jesus needs to commend what you’re doing, it’s ministry.
  3. If you want to quit because your spouse or kids have a difficult time with you working for the church, it’s a job. If your family understands that serving in a local church is difficult and costly for everyone, and if they count the cost and invest in it with you, it’s ministry.
  4. If you envision yourself in another job or position outside the church, it’s a job. If there’s no other place you would rather be, it’s ministry.
  5. If you do the job as long as it does not cut into other things (hobbies, family activities, etc.), it’s a job. If you are willing to give up recreation in order to serve, it’s ministry.
  6. If you compare yourself with others outside of church staff who have more free time, more money, and more possessions, it’s a job. If you pray for people outside of church staff and want Jesus to bless them, it’s a ministry.
  7. If it bothers you when the phone rings on evenings and weekends, it’s a job. If you see random calls at odd hours as opportunities to help with gladness, it’s ministry.
  8. If you want to quit because the work is too hard, or the pressure is too great, or your performance is criticized, it’s a job. If you stick it out, no matter what happens, until Jesus clearly tells you that it’s time to go, it’s ministry.

That last one stands out to me. The way you know you are called to something is if you stick with it when it is hard. Leadership is hard. Planting a church is hard. Sticking it out when it seems everyone else stands against you is hard. Losing friends because they don’t buy into your vision is hard. Not making a lot of money doing something is hard.

The way you know you are called to something is if you stick with it when it is hard

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Jesus is not looking for guys who want to stand on a stage, who want their name to be known or put up in lights. He is looking for people who are willing to do hard work, who are willing to not be noticed, to not be remembered, to simply point to him in all they do. That is what makes fulfilling the calling God places on your life, you don’t get the credit for it.

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What I Eat

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lose weight

Because of the weight I’ve lost and then I shared last week in my burnout series that certain foods help or hurt you when it comes to fatigue, I often get questions about what I eat.

A few disclaimers before I share what I eat. One, I am not a certified anything when it comes to nutrition or exercise. I’m simply a guy who lost a bunch of weight, kept it off and strive to continue to live healthy. So my knowledge is simply from what I’ve read or talked with actual experts. Two, whatever diet or eating plan you choose, you need to stick with it and do what they tell you to do. I meet a lot of people who do Paleo, weight watchers, nutrisystem. Whatever you choose, do it, eat it, don’t veer from it. You won’t see the results it promises if you don’t stick to it. Third, not every plan works for every person. I believe there is something to the reality that each of our body’s respond differently to different foods. While most nutritional laws are universal, some might not be. I haven’t read much about “Eating for your blood type” but have friends who swear by it and there could be something to that.

One of the things that guided me when it comes to what I eat is that I want to have an eating plan I can do for the rest of my life. I also like food and want to eat good food. I have a friend who juices his breakfast and lunch and eats a salad for dinner, everyday. If pushed on it, I think I’d rather be 300 pounds again than eat that everyday. I want to grill out with friends, go eat at someone’s house, eat out with Katie or have a meeting with someone. I want to enjoy Starbucks (kind of a vice) and some dessert and not feel bad about it.

Here are the principles I’ve used:

  • Eat a lot of protein, fruits and vegetables. Lots.
  • Drink at least 100 ounces of water a day.
  • No soda.
  • Very little bread, carbs or grains.
  • Dessert once or twice a week. Max.
  • Two cups of coffee a day. That’s it.
  • When eating out, always know what you are going to order before arriving at a restaurant. It saves you faltering when you get there and see the really good 3,000 calorie plates on the menu.
  • No more than 2 alcoholic drinks a day. This is a good rule of them anyway.
  • Eat every 3 hours, snacks count.
  • Make a plan. If you know what you are going to eat each day for the next 7 days, you have a better chance of eating healthy. Last minute meals often are very bad for you.
  • Cheat once a week. Sunday is my cheat day. I don’t worry about what I eat, I eat what I want and I don’t feel guilty about it.
  • If you are counting calories (and I did when I started losing weight), pick your ideal weight and add a zero to that number. Whatever that number is is the number of calories you should eat in a day. If your goal weight is 180, eat 1800 calories.
What I eat:
  • Breakfast is always 4 – 5 eggs. Getting that much protein first thing in the morning is crucial to the rest of the day.
  • Snacks: 3 pieces of string cheese, banana and peanut butter, protein shake (we make these at home), Greek yogurt (Katie makes this and then take it with us), protein bar (I prefer the clif builder bars).
  • Lunch: Salad with spinach leafs, lots of veggies, 6 oz. of chicken and olive oil for dressing. No croutons.
  • Dinner: Meat with lots of veggies. Very little carbs. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t eat carbs for dinner, period. Don’t always stick to that but at least try. We get a lot of our meal ideas at this blog.
What about eating out? Here are a few ideas of some places I frequent and what I get:
  • In n Out: Cheeseburger protein style no sauce, eat half the fries.
  • Chipotle: Chicken burrito bowl, light on the sour cream.
  • Subway: Spinach & Chicken salad.
  • Starbucks: Nonfat Caramel Macchiato.
While not perfect, this is what I do and how I eat to stay in shape, while leading a growing church and a growing family.
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How to Plan a Preaching Calendar

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Ironically, how we plan our preaching calendar at Revolution is one of the most common questions I get from other pastors. In fact, in the last 2 weeks I’ve been asked about it almost a dozen times that I thought I would share how we decide what we preach on and how far out we plan and why we do it this way.

First off, plan ahead. I am stunned by how little planning goes into some churches. You would think that pastors don’t care what is happening in their churches. Naturally, I am a planner, so this is easier for me and actually more comforting when it is done. For example, the other day I talked to a pastor that said, “It’s Thursday and all I have is a title.” That’s like saying, “All I need is a chip and a chair.” We need better odds than that when it comes to preaching. Now, before you get on my case, God does speak at the end of the week, God does change what we are to see while we are walking up to the stage. It has happened to me and it is exciting and scary all at the same time, but this cannot be our normal practice.

At Revolution, we have decided that the best way for us to reach our mission and target is to preach through books of the Bible. This does not mean we are against topical (that’s a bad discussion in my opinion), we just like doing it this way.

We split series up into two categories:  attractional and missional. Attractional will feel more topical, felt needs, but are based on a book of the Bible. Some examples:  Pure Sex (Song of Solomon), 30 Days to Live (which was topical, see we aren’t against it), The Sermon on the Mount, Ultimate Fighter (2 Timothy), The Blessed Life (Philippians), The Perfect Kid, Give me Faith (James), The Vow, . The other category is missional which tends to be more formation, doctrine, theology. Some examples: Becoming, Jonah, Reveal (Hebrews), The Story of God (overview of the Old Testament), Uprising (a vision series), Manifest (Titus), Light & Shadows (Jude), Fearless (Joshua) and Weird (1 & 2 Peter).

We also try to alternate between Old and New Testament books of the Bible. What we are trying to do is to make sure we are giving our church a healthy balance not only of books of the Bible, but also styles and feel.

What about length?

We haven’t bought into doing a 3 – 6 week series only. Hebrews took 18 weeks, Nehemiah took 22 weeks, and Peter took 23 weeks. The length of the series is not that big of a deal as long as the speaker is up for it. Long series are draining. We try to stay away from doing long series back to back as that is draining on me, our team and our church. Also, if you do a very serious book that is heavy on the theology like Hebrews or Jude, do something lighter right after it.

How far out do we plan?

We look about 12 months ahead when it comes to thinking through topics. This is where so many pastors do themselves a disservice. By knowing this far in advance what I’m going to be preaching, I can be on the lookout for articles, quotes, current events, etc. I’ll often be reading a book and a quote will jump out to me that will work in a sermon 10 months from now. It also helps any creative ideas we have for musicians to think through songs or to write songs, to be able to make videos, build things on stage or props. None of that can happen if a pastor has a great idea on Wednesday or Thursday that they want to implement on Sunday.

Are we flexible?

Yes. Just because we are planning something does not mean it is written in stone and unchangeable. In 2012, we planned to preach through the whole book of Romans. Last summer on vacation, I felt like I needed to dive into 1 & 2 Peter during my quiet times. Because of that, we shelved our Romans series for another time. This turned out to be a great idea as we are moving in 2012 and being in the middle of a long book series while moving would have been difficult and taken away some flexibility for us.

For our creative process, we look 6 – 8 weeks out as we think through atmosphere, visuals, video clips, dramas, cover songs. As we get closer, Paul takes us through a process of honing in on what we will use and how it will flow.

How long would this take? Not very long. In fact, if you sat down right now and made a list of topics you would like to teach on in the next 6 – 12 months you would be well on your way.

When I started preaching through books of the Bible, I picked James to start out with because it was my favorite book of the Bible. Not very spiritual, I know, but it worked and I started to get used to it.

The point is, plan ahead. Way too much is at stake to go week to week.

Now I’ve told you how we do it, how do you plan your series? How do you decide what to preach on?

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Kids Take Their Cues from their Parents

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kids

I’m often asked how to change a child. How do you make a child follow Jesus? How do you make a teenager make better choices?

There are a few realities of parenting I’ve learned. One is, you can’t change a child or a teenager. The Holy Spirit can. I’ve talked before about how you need to be praying for your child, but there is something you can do beyond that.

What is important to you often becomes what is important to your child. Think about it, there is a good chance you have a hobby because one of your parents had a hobby. Maybe you like working on cars because you used to do that with them. You might like camping or hiking because they did.

What is important to you often becomes important to your child. Choose wisely.

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In our house, our kids have a deep love for music, for nature, sports in general and the Steelers. Why? Because Katie and I love those things. We pass on what we love.

The reality of parenting is that if our kids are not growing in their love for Jesus, the first place we need to look is our own lives. It isn’t the church’s fault, it isn’t our kid’s fault, the fault often lies with us. If Jesus isn’t important to us, why should we expect it to be to our kids? They pick their cues up from us.

I remember talking with two dads a few years ago who each had teenage kids. One of the dad’s was lamenting that their kids were seniors in high school and wanted nothing to do with church or God. The other dad looked at him and said, “How can you be surprised? You’ve spent the last 6 years skipping church and missional community for basketball and soccer. You’ve taken your kids all over the state for competitions. You’ve spent 6 years telling them that sports are more important than God, they are just doing what you taught them.”

Those words have stuck with me; they are just doing what you taught them. Our kids do what we teach them. They pick up their cues from us. If we tell them something is more important than church, reading your bible, praying, giving, attending a missional community, they will learn that lesson.

Here’s the question to wrestle with:

  1. Are your kids growing in their love for Jesus?
  2. If your kids left home right now, would they be reading their bible?
  3. Would they look to join a missional community or do they not know how important biblical community is?