It’s the weekend…finally. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts from my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

• How to Recover from Preaching
• When You Preach a Bad Sermon
• How You Know You are Being Divisive (And Sinning)

Now, onto the articles I came across that I hope will help you:

Trevin Wax shares The Boy Scouts and the Disappearance of Paths as they’ve recently announced they will now allow girls to join the boy scouts. As my kids have gotten older, we’ve talked more and more about paths, passages, etc., which I think are crucial for kids and something that is lost in our culture.

Hiring is difficult for most pastors and leaders. Marty Duren has 15 questions to ask a potential hire at your church. Many of these are normal ones most churches ask, but there were a few that were new to me.

I’ve mentioned before that Katie and I have been spending a lot of time talking about technology and the role it plays in our family and with our kids. I’ve really appreciate the insights from Jon Acuff on this and he shares The first social media challenge your kids will face, that is incredibly insightful.

I’m reading Sam Storms new book Practicing the Power: Welcoming the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Your Life, which has been incredibly helpful. He wrote a post this week about the relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit that is great and I think a very overlooked part of Christianity. 

I have a daughter and so dating is something I’ve been thinking about and how I prepare her for it. Most of what Christians, especially dad’s have to say on the topic is ridiculous and fear based. With good reason, but that’s why I appreciated this article from Jen Wilkin on On Daughters and Dating: How to Intimidate Suitors. I love how she champions raising a strong woman. We need more of that, not less.

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How do you help your kids grow spiritually?

As our kids have gotten older, this is a question Katie and I get on a regular basis. It is one we’ve gotten right in certain seasons, and in others we’ve wandered around lost. Sometimes things that we do work really well, and other times they fall apart.

Here are seven ideas for you as a parent to help your kids grow spiritually:

7 Ideas to Help Your Kids Grow Spiritually.
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1. Model your spiritual life to them. The reality of anything related to parenting is that you pass on what you do. If you want to pass anything on to your kids spiritually, you must model it for them. They will watch you for 18+ years. They will see you read your Bible (or not), how often you pray and what your prayers contain (so much is taught in this), how often you attend church and how important spiritual things are to you.

2. Involve them in a church. Just like the first one, they will often do what you do. So do what you’d like to see them do.

What if they don’t like church? Many parents will talk about how their kids don’t like to attend church, attend a worship service or something else. Many times I’ll hear parents say, “I don’t want to force spiritual things onto my kids.” This is often from a place of fear as a parent because you don’t know what to do, but also the fear that your kids will reject it and want nothing to do with Christianity. The problem with this is that we don’t apply this to anything else. We force our kids to do math, learn a language, eat broccoli, turn off their electronics and take a nap, often when they hate every moment of it.

If you don’t involve them in a church, when do you think they will learn that? If they don’t understand an aspect of a worship service, explain it to them. If you don’t know what to tell them, do some research together.

I think it’s important as often as possible for kids and students to be involved in small groups, serving in a church and attending the worship service in a church. Is every kid different? Yes. Should you force your kids to do something they dislike? Sometimes.

Our kids take out the trash and dislike it, but they still do it. I don’t think they’ll be scarred as adults because of that.

3. Read the Bible together. Part of why kids dislike church is they don’t understand the relevance of the Bible and the things that happen at church. It is something their parents do, apart from them. So do it with them.

I know this is difficult, and they don’t always want to sit still, but doing something is better than nothing.

For our family, we’ve tried things like the Jesus Storybook Bible when the kids were younger to using a catechism now so we have a question each week we are working through as a family. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do something.

4. Read books to them. One of the things you can do is read books to your kids and discuss the spiritual themes in them. Whenever we watch a movie, we always talk about how it is like the one true story we see in Scripture. What are the themes and how do those themes influence us?

5. Listen to their questions. This might be one of the most overlooked aspects of your kids’ spiritual life because it is out of your control as a parent and doesn’t come on a schedule. But your kids have questions, and when they ask them, engage them. Don’t shoo them away or scold them for asking a question. If they are skeptical or have doubts, talk with them.

This is an incredibly powerful message you are sending them as their parent. You are telling them it is okay to ask questions, to wonder about something, to be unsure.

If you don’t know the answer, tell them and then study it together.

Ask them why they are curious about that. This engages their life. Is it in a book, a show, from a friend? This is an important window into their world.

6. Interact with their friends and talk with your kids about how to pick friends. Don’t sit on the sidelines when it comes to their friends.

You have an enormous impact on their spiritual lives, but so do their friends. Be involved in that.

7. Pray for them. If you’re a follower of Jesus you know this, but it is easy to overlook the power in it.

If you aren’t praying for your kids, who do you think is?

If you aren’t praying for your kids, who do you think is?
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Pray for them. Pray with them. Ask them what you can pray for, even if they say nothing, which will often happen as they get older.

7 Ideas to Help Your Kids Grow Spiritually
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Are these sure fire ways to make sure your kids grow spiritually? No.

There isn’t a sure fire answer to almost anything in parenting, but parenting is about involvement and trying and faith. Lots of it.

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Most relational issues come down to communication, which, when it fails leads to arguments and hurt feelings. Katie and I are often asked about how to communicate with your and  how to fight well in marriage (it is possible to argue and have it be profitable to your marriage). Before you can take your communication to the next level, you have to understand what is keeping your communication from being all it could be.

Communicating well with your spouse starts with you, not your spouse.
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1. You think it’s them. Most times when a person seeks out counseling or advice concerning their marriage it is to fix their spouse. If only they did this or that. The reality is, the first reason you aren’t communicating well with your spouse has nothing to do with them, but you. Stop trying to fix them. Stop trying to change them. You can’t be the Holy Spirit to your spouse, so stop trying.
2. You have to be right. Stop trying to be right and try to see from their perspective. Things change in a relationship when you try to see what the other person is seeing. Often though, we want to be right. Because, well, we’re right.
3. You don’t listen. Many times in a discussion, instead of listening, you simply start thinking of your response to what the other person is saying. You aren’t able to engage them. The thinking is, if you don’t have a response ready the moment they stop talking, you won’t be heard. While it makes sense in our heads, it is ludicrous in a relationship. This goes back to wanting to be right instead of to understand.
4. You fail to see it from their perspective. If you don’t listen well, you will never be able to see anything from a different perspective. I am amazed at how often Katie and I see the same situation totally differently. And how often Katie is correct in her perception of something or someone. If you fail to see your spouses perspective, you might end up making a mistake.
5. You don’t know how they listen best. Couples who fight often, don’t know how their spouse likes to discuss things. This was a game changer for us. Katie likes to discuss things immediately, she is a verbal processor. I on the other hand like to process things in my head. By the time I share any idea with someone (at home or at work), I have been thinking about it for months. If Katie gives me space, we often have a better discussion. Now, sometimes I need to bite the bullet on my preference and discuss it with her. Understand how your spouse processes information and work from there.
6. You don’t know what the real issue is. This is something we’ve talked about it part 1 and part 2 of our Beautiful series. Often, when a couple has a fight, the topic they think they are fighting about is not what they are fighting about. They are fighting about what the situation reminds them of. Their spouse said something that reminds them of what their parent used to say, so they react to that. We end up punishing our spouse for what someone else did.
7. You belittle them. Want to end a conversation with your spouse, belittle them, insult them or disrespect them. Act like they don’t do enough.

7 reasons you aren’t communicating with your spouse & what to do about it.
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Every week, if you preach, you stand before a group of people. They are all different, but they have a lot of the same needs and desires. I was asked recently what my goal of preaching is (which is another topic than this post will cover) and what I think people want out of a sermon. Whether pastors like it or not, what people want to hear is important to a sermon. You need to preach what the Bible says and what God calls you to say, but if you don’t know what people are looking for, you will struggle to communicate in a way that makes sense to them.

As I thought about it, here are some of the groups that show up at church every week and what they want out of a sermon (just a note: I’m not saying these are true or even good things, just what I see as reality):

1. I was forced to be here. You have people in your service who were dragged to church by someone. It may be a friend, parent or spouse but they are there not because they want to be but because it keeps the peace. This person wants to not be bored. They simply want to survive church. They are counting the seconds til you are done. Not necessarily listening but sitting there with their arms folded thinking, “I’m here, impress me.” To communicate to this person, don’t be boring. Know what you are talking about. Don’t have rabbit trails. Say what you are planning to say and sit down. Make sure the beginning and ending of your sermon are solid and prepped.
2. I know I’m broken. This person may be a follower of Jesus, this person may be exploring Jesus. This person knows something in their life is broken. It could be a sin pattern, addiction, negative emotions, a broken marriage or something else. Regardless, this person wants help. They are looking for something to fix what is ailing them. This person is incredibly open to the gospel and what Jesus can do in their lives. While the focus for them is on fixing their life and not necessarily Jesus, that is openness to Jesus because it can be directed to a biblical view.
3. The feel good Christian. I would guess that most churches have a lot of these people. They are the ones who want to be inspired. They don’t want to be challenged to change or confront things in their life. They want to check the church box off the list and go home feeling better than when they walked in. They don’t plan on reading their Bible this week. More than likely, at least according to Jesus (Matthew 7:15 – 23), many people in this category are not Christians. This person will leave a church and say, “I didn’t get fed there.” They will decide if they liked the service if they feel inspired or if they sang songs they like and know. This person needs to be confronted with the reality of their sin and need for Jesus and need to be made to feel uncomfortable about their eternal state. This person needs the Holy Spirit in their life.
4. The agenda Christian. This person knows a lot about the bible and can come across as a mature Christian, but they usually aren’t. This person wants you to talk about a certain topic, a lot. When you talk about that topic, you have to say what they want or else you didn’t preach it correctly. You should preach on the end times, a lot. Talk about Israel, a lot. Be political in you preaching. Everything is about the kingdom of God and their interpretation of what that means. When you present the gospel, if you don’t give the 4 spiritual laws, Romans road or their rendition of the gospel, you didn’t preach the gospel. While this person can help a pastor present things clearly and biblically, they often miss the mark in how they give feedback. Most pastors give this person an audience because they tend to be a squeaky wheel. When talking to this person, you need to lovingly listen and then firmly communicate your differences. Make changes if need be. Communicate the stance of your church and how things will not change if necessary. You may even need to help this person find a new church to attend where they will line up more in their beliefs. That’s okay as well.
5. The mature Christian. This is the person who is a leader in your church, or growing their faith, bringing people with them, involved in a missional community, giving back to God, reading their bible during the week and praying. This person prays for their pastors. This person prepares their heart to hear a sermon, asks God to speak to them through his word when it is opened during a sermon. When convicted of sin, they repent and seek to live the life God created them to live. This person wants to grow, to be challenged.

While these are generalizations and have inherent problems with them because of that. There are also a few other categories I could’ve covered, I think these are the main ones and how to communicate to them.

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