Bible Reading Guide for Holy Week
For the better part of the past year, our family has enjoyed being a part of a small home church gathering. We continue to marvel at all God is doing in our family and in the families of those involved. Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday and one of the men from our group felt led to write a Bible…
Creating Homes Where Our Children Truly Belong
“I don’t belong anywhere.” “No one cares about me.” “I can’t trust anyone.” “I’m not valuable.” As a therapist, I hear statements like these from young people all the time. Teenagers and young adults feel alone, isolated, and detached in what appears to be the most connected generation ever. These…
7 Ways to Change Up Communication with Your Kids
Our primary job as parents is to disciple our children— to help them see that they’re sinners in need of a Savior, to introduce them to Jesus, to teach them about Him, and to show them what it looks like to follow Him. We need to communicate clearly with our children if we’re to fulfill this…
Teens, Politics, and a Book on Kindness
“Where did you hear that word?!” We realize pretty quickly that children are parrots, don’t we? As a result, most of us attempt to temper what we say and how we say it. My wife and I decided early on to crack down on how we spoke about others— especially in front of the kids. If you had…
4 Unexpected Ways Family Worship Blesses Us
In my previous post, I covered why we started doing “family worship time” and what, exactly, we do as a family during that time. In this post, I want to cover four ways family worship blesses us— outside the big ol’ giant obvious one. Family worship is an excellent way to disciple your children…
4 Lessons I’ve Learned as a Sports Dad
You win some. You lose some. And sometimes you really lose some. I drove almost 2 hours on my day off to go watch one of my high school sons play basketball. He played a decent game, all things considered, but his team lost 101-42. Yes, you read that right. They lost a high school basketball game…
How to Help Your Children Find True Happiness
We love to make our kids happy. That feeling we get when they smile and say, “Thank you, Daddy. That was the best time, ever.” There’s a special kind of a delight a parent takes in their child’s delight. When they’re happy, we’re happy. As they get older, our culture teaches them what they “need”…
Super-Hero Dads & Gospel-Centered Apologies
My daughter thinks I know everything. Like everything. In her mind, there are no problems I can’t fix and no questions I don’t know the answer to. She’s 7 years old, and I am her hero. I soak it up with everything I have. Dad to the rescue She recently came to me and asked me to fix a toy of…
The 7 Minute Conversation Challenge
“Most conversations take at least seven minutes to really begin.” —Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation The parent-child relationship is primarily a discipling relationship. And it’s hard to disciple someone without engaging them in real, meaningful conversation. Our hearts and souls were…