Joshua’s House

By: Ann Saylor

The Christmas season offers so many opportunities to shine Christ’s light in a hurting world through helping others.  Instead of training children to focus on the gifts they will receive, teach them to honor the Greatest Gift by sharing gifts of service with people in your community.

Your family might choose to serve a meal at a homeless shelter, decorate Christmas cards for prisoners, or help children make gifts for their families.  You could host a game night at a senior citizen’s home, bake cookies for firefighters, or clean the apartment of an AIDS victim.  The possibilities are endless!

Volunteering doesn’t have to be ‘just another thing’ on your to do list this month.  It can be a natural outflow of your family’s interests and talents, and a great way to build family memories.  Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Ask family members about their skills, talents and passions - what do they love to do?  Your list might include basketball, painting, singing, or playing games.  Or organizing, hospitality, and making new friends.

2. Ask them what they would like to see change in the community (or neighborhood or school).  You might hear interest areas such as the homeless, people with physical challenges, helping children learn to read, bullying or breaking up school cliques.

3.  See where family strengths and community needs overlap, and start with a simple service project.

• • If your children like music and they are concerned about loneliness in nursing homes, plan a time to go caroling with friends at a local nursing home.
  • If your family loves sports and they are concerned about their peers getting involved in negative activities, ask your church if you can host a family sports night at the gym after Christmas.
  • If your family has a holiday tradition of playing board games or working on puzzles, call a homeless shelter to see if you can host a game night after an evening meal.
  • If you have an artistic family, you might paint a mural at church, at school, or at a community center.
  • If you love the outdoors, you might encourage people to recycle their Christmas trees or pick up trash on a hiking excursion.

God created you with unique skills and talents - how will you use his gifts to make a difference during this season and throughout the year?

Find more ideas for family volunteering and raising strong families at www.theassetedge.net and www.mommysecrets.blogspot.com.

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Ann Saylor is the co-author of two new books, Ready-to-Go Service Projects:  140 Ways for Youth Groups to Lend a Hand and Great Group Games: 175 Boredom-Busting, Zero-Prep Team Builders for All Ages. She is a nationally recognized speaker in the youth development field, teaching about empowering youth, team building, and service-learning.  Learn more at www.theassetedge.net.

By: Mandy Brady

I’ve always wanted kids of my own. But I never expected God to give me 80! Ok . . . so . . . maybe they’re not exactly my kids, and I’m not technically a mom, but I sure feel like it. I’m a volunteer at an orphanage in El Salvador and I definitely lay claim to the kids here. Even though they are not mine biologically, I care for them as if they were my own. I love them, and it hurts me that they are hurting. It hurts me when they make bad decisions. It hurts me when they don’t seem to care about their future, or worst of all, when they don’t seem to care about God.

So many of the kids here seem to have it all together on the outside - they go to church, read their Bibles, memorize their verses, do all the right things; but they don’t really know Jesus. This reality is rough on a mother’s heart. I want to have the assurance that all my kids will be saved. I do all I can to help them understand and realize the opportunity they have, but in the end it is still their choice. There is absolutely nothing I can do to make them choose salvation.  I have never felt as helpless as I do here.

About a month or so ago, the other missionaries and I began gathering each morning to pray for specific cases and children. As we began to ask God to open their eyes, our eyes were opened as well, and we started to see more of the hurt.  We also saw more opportunities to share the good news of Jesus. As we began to ask God to open doors for us, we saw them opening up. We also saw the devil increase his work too. We have one situation here that we have been praying for very intently. Today it seems that the door has been closed. Notice I said “seems”. In reality, we know that things are rarely as they seem. God has certainly not abandoned us. He has certainly not ignored our pleas for this child. I believe as never before, that there is incredible power in prayer. I believe that God has heard and answered us. A Bible verse that I have been claiming lately is found in Isaiah 49:25 “I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save”. It is so important that we take God at His word and believe His promises even when things seem hopeless.

Working for God is not usually an easy thing, but I believe it to be especially challenging when working with children. But then again, the rewards are infinite. I have learned much from my experience here, and am learning more every day. The most important lesson I have learned/am learning is that nothing is impossible with God. My job is not to make things happen, my job is to be completely surrendered to Him and just to be in the place where He puts me and give it my all. I’m learning that the most powerful influence I have is in the little, unexpected moments where I just share what I know to be true, what I’ve learned in my walk with God. Kids really want you to be honest with them. And they want you to spend time with them, listening to them, playing with them and encouraging their efforts. The more time I spend with the kids, the greater the reward.

We’ve all heard that saying that nothing worth having comes easily. Anyone who works with children is on the front lines of the battlefield, of course it is not easy. But we have the assurance that the victory is won. We have the assurance that we are not fighting alone, we are not fighting in our own strength. Every soul is of infinite worth and God will not overlook even a cup of water given in His name. Money, possessions, prestige, comfort, these things are all worthless in comparison to the treasures we can be storing up in heaven. Let us leave behind the things of this earth and give our all in service to the One who gave so much for us (He gave it all in fact). Let nothing hinder you from seeking Jesus more every day, and seeking to draw your children too.

Mandy first visited El Salvador in 2005.  She loved it so much that she when back for another year of service.  Her duties there change frequently, but she is happy to be serving God in whatever capacity He calls her to.

By Judie Port

Take yourself back to your childhood and recall your favorite memories. Smell baking cookies, watch a football game, feel the warm fire as you smell roasting marshmallows, taste hot chocolate and listen to Christmas carols, watch colorful fireworks. If these images bring back a flood of memories, they probably center around family rituals such as vacations, holidays, or visits to relatives.

What is a family ritual?

Family rituals are activities which are repeated, coordinated and have meaning or significance to family members. They form a foundation to maintain a cohesive family when there are so many factors vying to weaken the family.

There are different kinds of family rituals. Some connect or bond family members, others show love to individual family members, and rituals that bind the family to the larger community.

Connection rituals offer opportunities for bonding such as family meals, bedtime rituals, shopping excursions, story time, or worship time.

Love rituals develop one-to-one intimacy and make individual family members feel special. These are couple rituals such as “dates” and anniversaries. Special-person rituals are included in the celebration of Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and birthdays.

Community rituals include religious activities, funerals, and weddings. Other community rituals may include families involved in community service activities or regular gatherings with other outside the family unit.

Why are rituals and traditions important?

Family Rituals provide predictability, connection, identity, and a way to enact values. Dr. Bill Doherty, a professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, found that being intentional about family life through family rituals was an antidote to the drift of contemporary family life away from closeness, meaning, and community (199)*. Family rituals have meaning to the family and build memories. In order for them to survive however, they must be flexible and change as the family changes.

What do rituals and traditions look like?

Meals are routines for all families but one meal a week may become a ritual with the addition of candles, special foods served, inclusion of all family members and conversation limited topics of interest to all. Household chores must be taken care of, however, by adding a few simple touches this task becomes a ritual. Sing songs together as you work, add a timer and race against each other or the clock. It is not difficult to be intentional about rituals, just to stay intentional.

Traditions and rituals are essential for building family ties throughout the lifespan. When my boys were growing up at home, they couldn’t wait for our Friday evening supper. We would all gather around the table and feast on fruit salad and cinnamon rolls. Now my sons are grown with children of their own. When they are planning a visit home they always let me know that they expect cinnamon rolls and fruit salad for Friday evening supper. This was one of their favorite traditions.

When evaluating, creating, changing or managing your family rituals and traditions, start slowly and record your rituals. Be intentional about your family life, your rituals, and your community, and before long, you will discover the richness they add to your life and the lives of others in your family.

Useful Resources

The following are worksheets to help you as you work to develop and strengthen your own family rituals.

Evaluating Your Family Rituals
Principles for Managing Family Rituals
The Delicate Art of Creating or Changing Family Rituals

*Dohetry, W.J. (1999). The Intentional Family. NY: Avon Books.

Judie Port has been involved in educating and strengthening many families over the years. She is currently working in the Social Work and Family Studies department at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee.

By Lindsay Edmonds

Lindsay with her daughter Karis

I was exceedingly blessed to be raised in a solid Christian family where Jesus Christ was worshipped and enjoyed, the Word of God taught and lived out by the grace of God. It was not perfect by any means, but my parents were intentional. They did not leave our spiritual growth to the church, as is prominent in our day. “Leave it to the professionals!” You will hear from many Sunday school environments. My parents took the Biblical command to teach the truth and actively pursued it with their children.

Our Call

“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to yours son and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut. 6:6-7)”.

This is a call to the passionate and diligent pursuit of teaching our children the Word of God! Why? The active storing up of the Word of God was in order to “watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt…You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name (Deut. 6:12-13).”

Since becoming parents, my husband and I have taken seriously the call from Scripture to raise our children “in the instruction and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4)”. We believe it is our primary responsibility to pass on the truth of righteousness to the next generation, to develop Biblical worldviews, to invest in their eternal souls, trusting that the Lord will bring them into His eternal kingdom, rather than trusting any other Christian system to do it for us. My heart’s cry and prayer is that they would come to know the living God and passionately desire to serve Him for all their days.

Passing on the Legacy

In order to be purposeful in this pursuit, we must make plans and steps towards passing on this spiritual legacy to our children. We must actively read the Word at home. This is the very Word of God and the training manual for all of life! It is “inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16)”, all of which are essential for proper success in parenting and in Christ-centered child raising. It is the tool necessary to prepare us for a life of godliness and service (2 Tim 3:17), that we might be prepared for the fiery darts of the enemy and his lies (Eph 6), and that we might be conformed into the very image of Christ (1 Peter 1:4).

In order for my husband and I to properly train and disciple our children, we must first be in the truth ourselves individually. We must be growing in righteousness and maturity in Christ Jesus, rising early to seek His face. We must be humble and willing to confess our sins to our children, so Christ Jesus might radiate His saving grace through us.

Thus we purposefully seek to read the word individually and together in the morning, and have times of family worship (singing praise songs together) on evenings throughout the week or read godly Christian books together. Our morning devotions normally include reading through one chapter or two in the Bible. For those with older children, you may benefit from choosing a good Biblical catechism to read and discuss together as well. It may not happen every day, but we are aiming to purposefully include it in our schedule. During our worship times, we can display to our children that we value Christ above all else. While our little ones are very young and as they grow older, we desire to plant the truth in their hearts by including them in the Sunday morning church service. We want them to see us worshipping the Lord, learning from our example, and to hear the truth taught together.

I enjoy singing worship songs to my daughter throughout the day, but especially as I am rocking her to sleep at night. I have posted a bulletin board over the changing table with different missionaries that we support. While I complete the routine task of diaper changing, I am repeatedly reminded to pray for others out loud so she can hear. My heart’s desire is that my children would catch a vision for missions and service through these small means. For Christmas this year, we are hoping to purchase a copy of the Bible on CD for our children to listen to while they fall asleep at night. How much better when their minds are being developed, when their hearts are soft and pliable, to plant these precious seeds? It is never too early to start.

As our children grow, we will be investing in and supplying our children with quality books that will strengthen their understanding of the Bible (doctrinal books) and increase a heart for service (missionary biographies, history, etc).

It is not an easy task in our day and age to invest in the eternal wellbeing of our children. We are constantly bombarded with false worldviews through television, movies, internet, music and our encounters with unbelievers. Thus it is wisely important to carefully guard these entrances of the home or some may need to be removed altogether. These are opportunities also to discuss with your children right and wrong, to discern truth from error.

Challenge

Overall, God’s grace is sufficient when we humbly come before Him, acknowledging our dependence upon Him to complete this high and holy task. Yet, we must devote ourselves purposefully to God’s calling for our roles as parents. If you could start with one thing today, I would encourage you to begin reading the Word together. Start with Proverbs, which has such wisdom for all! Take turns reading just five verses or so and share a comment. Be faithful and trust the Lord for the fruit even though it will take time and repeated practice.

Reflecting back upon the morning devotions while growing up, I remember it clearly. My parents made “wisdom search”, as they called it (searching for nuggets of wisdom, most frequently in Proverbs), a daily routine. For a long time, many of us children did not value it whatsoever. We hated rising early and stumbling downstairs to gather in the living room around the Word of God. But slowly and surely, as my parents practiced faithfulness, the seeds of righteousness were planted, watered, and took root in our hearts. Through their faithfulness, I grew to love the Word of God and come to my own personal saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Thank God for my parents making the teaching of the Word at home such a priority. I want to pass on such a gift to my children.

For excellent further reading, I highly recommend Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, Jr.

Lindsay Edmonds is a mother of one (soon to be two), who is passionate about her family and about serving God in all she does. Her kind and loving spirit evidence her strong faith and love for the Lord. To find out more about Lindsay, visit her at her blog.

So, today is the exciting beginning of guest blogs here on Joshua’s House. It’s great to hear from other people about all the ways God is teaching them to grow, and to have them share with us a few tips on Christ focused families. A couple of the blogs you can look forward to reading are about the importance of family traditions, and tips on starting a few of your own; thoughts from a house parent - what it means to be a mom at an orphanage; thoughts from a mother’s heart about why raising children with a heart for God is so important, and many more.

To kick off our guest posts, we are doing something a little out of the ordinary (I know, it’s strange to start that way, but bear with me.) I am going to share with you a few excerpts from some articles I found on the Crown Financial Ministries website.

Have you ever longed to teach your children Godly stewardship from a young age, but you weren’t really sure how. Or maybe you’ve never really looked at the reasons for good money management yourself. Stewardship is a principle that Jesus told many parables about, so it must be important. Crown has some great advice. In their first article on Children and Finances, Crown gives three basic principles that are applicable to both parents and children.

1. Teach by example that God owns it all.
2. Exercise self-control.
3. Live on a budget.

The article then goes on to lay down five simple rules that should always be observed.

1. Pay children only for jobs completed (Proverbs 12:11).
2. Pay for quality work (Colossians 3:23)
3. Pay fairly within the family budget.
4. Encourage sharing.
5. Encourage saving.

This conclusion of the first article is taken directly from their website:

With regard to financial management, parents’ goals should be slowly to develop financial discipline and wisdom in their children.

It doesn’t happen overnight; but, with consistency the seeds of responsibility that parents sow will eventually take root in the lives of their children and will yield results in their future financial dealings.

Part two of the Children and Finances article includes ideas for working with children of various age groups. Here are some of our favorites:

• Age 8 and under - Begin a prebudget. A prebudget is described as giving children three jars or envelopes; one for God (tithe), one for savings and one for spending.
• Age 9-12 - The prebudget graduates to a mini budget. In the mini budget, the child is expected to put 10 percent of all money earned into tithe, 25 percent for short term savings, 25 percent for long term savings and 40 percent for spending.
• Teen Years - At this time the budget becomes more complex and your teen should start keeping a written record of all expenses. At this time, you may also consider opening a checking account for your child to learn more money management principles.

What is listed here is only an introduction to the articles at the Crown website. I encourage you to head over to their website to find out more about teaching your children about wise money management.