It has come to my attention that I did not explain the parent discussion groups adequately in regard to who is invited to participate. I have left the impression that the group is only for parents/guardians of youth aged students. My intended invitation was for any parent/guardian of any child, of any age. The materials which will be reviewed will cover a broad range of subject matter that I hope will be of benefit for all parents. I do apologize for the confusion due to my lack of explanation.
That being said, you still have time to secure a copy of the current book, "Effective Parenting in a Defective World," and catch up on the reading. The discussion group for last Thursday did not meet, so anyone still interested can join us for the next one. Like I said in earlier posts, my intent for this is to be extremely casual. It is not a discipleship training class. If we need more time to work through things, it's ok.
The date for our "redo" group discussion for chapters 1-3 will be Thursday, September 8th @6:30pm. Use the discussion questions I posted last week to guide your reading. Please send me an email if you plan to attend so I can decide where to hold the discussion. If you have any questions about the book or anything else, don't hesitate to drop me an email.
Joe
Monday, August 22, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Chapter 1-3 Discussion Questions
For those who have been reading along in the "Effective Parenting..." book, we will be meeting at 6:30 this Thursday at Joe Mugg's in Books A Million (in the Target shopping center). Please take a few minutes to think through the following discussion questions so we can be good stewards of our conversation time this week. Please feel free to email me any questions you may have regarding question clarification or something that stood out in the book. For the sake of time, since we all have children who can't be up all night, I'm limiting our discussion to materials out of the first three chapters only.
Questions:
1. Is living in "survival mode" good enough?
2. What came to mind when you read the statement: "We are easily guided by the land mines we want our kids to avoid rather than the character we want them to develop?"
3. Do you have objectives for you family that are clear to them, or yourself?
4. Is your dream for your children the same as God's?
5. What do you think about the author's statement: "Your job is to raise children who are holy, not happy?"
6. Do you live a life of integrity before your children/family?
7. Why do you do the things with your children that you do?
8. What came to mind after reading about the three relational axioms? (from p. 25)
9. What is really at stake with the challenge of building and maintaining healthy relationships with your children?
10. Does your current parenting style enhance or detract from meeting your children's two primary emotional needs of significance and security? How or why?
11. What things are you thinking about doing differently, having read these chapters?
See you Thursday!
Joe
Questions:
1. Is living in "survival mode" good enough?
2. What came to mind when you read the statement: "We are easily guided by the land mines we want our kids to avoid rather than the character we want them to develop?"
3. Do you have objectives for you family that are clear to them, or yourself?
4. Is your dream for your children the same as God's?
5. What do you think about the author's statement: "Your job is to raise children who are holy, not happy?"
6. Do you live a life of integrity before your children/family?
7. Why do you do the things with your children that you do?
8. What came to mind after reading about the three relational axioms? (from p. 25)
9. What is really at stake with the challenge of building and maintaining healthy relationships with your children?
10. Does your current parenting style enhance or detract from meeting your children's two primary emotional needs of significance and security? How or why?
11. What things are you thinking about doing differently, having read these chapters?
See you Thursday!
Joe
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Insight and Reflection
For those of you who have been reading my blog since the beginning, or had been reading my monthly church newsletter articles, you know how birthdays serve as an intentional day of reflection for me. Not that I am trying to take my children's special day over for myself, but understandably, I have spent much of my morning taking inventory of the last eight months and thinking about the time to come.
Aside from questions pertaining to their physical development and familial adjustments, I have also been asking other questions. Do they understand yet that they are loved? Do they see that I love their mother, and that she loves me? Do they understand that although we leave them with someone in our church's nursery (that resembles their previous surroundings) that we will always come back for them and take them home with us? What else can I be doing to model what a relationship with Christ is supposed to look like? It's been a mentaly and emotionaly challenging morning.
I do not believe in coincidences. I do believe that we serve a God who is constantly at work, not only in the lives of His children, but in all creation. For the last week, I have been going through Chip Ingram's book, Effective Parenting in a Defective World. Late in the first chapter, he reminded the reader of Paul's instruction to father's in the church at Ephesus: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Ingram was not emphasizing the "discipline and instruction" portion of the verse. He explained that the phrase, "bring them up," was meant to convey an idea of development of the whole, and not just a sense of a physical growth. He shared that to Ephesian readers, it would have been understood that to "bring them up" would have involved nurturing emotional, physical, mental, and also spiritual development. The Lord's discipline and instruction are not add-on's to other things that we as parents are already doing, but rather the very way in which we help our children to develop should be permeated by godly discipline and instruction. This is how we raise children who stand out in a culture who's goal is anything but pleasing God.
As I reflect on this special day in our family, and the past 8 months, I can say that yes, there are things that I can do differently. I can be more intentional about letting our girls know that they are loved, and see that their parents love each other. I can proactively create an atmosphere in our home that helps them understand that they are accepted, valued, and are safe. I can do as I challenged our church to do when I preached two weeks ago to constantly chase after God and make Him known in our home. I can also say that I am blessed beyond measure to be celebrating a birthday for two little girls that already have their daddy's heart, and look forward to many more days of reflection.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Little Black Creek Service
Hey Everyone!
Since we don't have the bus out of the shop yet, the youth will be carpooling with Ken's class to the service at Little Black Creek in the morning. We need to be leaving the church parking lot @7:45am. We'll not be having youth Sunday School tomorrow since we'll be out at Little Black Creek. We will be back at church in time for the worship service in the morning. If you have any questions, give me a buzz-preferably before 9pm tonight though since the girls do so like their sleep:)
Joe
Since we don't have the bus out of the shop yet, the youth will be carpooling with Ken's class to the service at Little Black Creek in the morning. We need to be leaving the church parking lot @7:45am. We'll not be having youth Sunday School tomorrow since we'll be out at Little Black Creek. We will be back at church in time for the worship service in the morning. If you have any questions, give me a buzz-preferably before 9pm tonight though since the girls do so like their sleep:)
Joe
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Parental Discussion Opportunity
In my last posting, I talked about an idea that I had about going through materials such as books and other resources and then posting thoughts regarding them. After some feedback, I have decided to procede with the idea and set up some discussion times. The kinds of resources that I'll be reviewing will primarily be things regarding youth and/or children's family ministry. The goal in this endeavor is to come alongside parents to share resources and work through challenges or opportunities together.
Here's how it's going to work...I'll pick a book or other resource, and then I'll write a short review on my blog in effort to create interest. I'll set a reading or review schedule so those interested in participating can all be progressing together so at some point, we can all meet somewhere for a discussion and critique of the material. Please know that this is NOT a discipleship training class. It will be very casual, but we will still use a Christian, biblical worldview as our means of evaluation. Remember, the goal of these forums is not to generate membership. The goal is to generate healthy Christian families.
The book I have chosen for our maiden voyage is Chip Ingram's book, Effective Parenting in a Defective World (cover shown at right). Ingram is the president of Walk Thru the Bible and teaching pastor on the nationally syndicated Living on the Edge radio program. I have found paperback copies available from LifeWay for $13.99, but you may be able to locate one somewhere else.
In Ingram's book, he proposed an interesting proposition. What if rather than trying to completely shield our children and families from a culture which is clearly flawed and antagonistic toward God's standards, we equipped them to encounter that culture with tools to navigate it and stand out from the crowd. Granted, this notion is not new with Ingram, but his approach is incredibly practical and rooted in historic, Christian principles.
Through nine short and manageable chapters, Ingram offers practical measures to helping the family:
-Model right living and priorities
-Build strong bonds with your children (with consideration given to the reality that many families are not
"traditional" in the sense that mom and dad are in their first marriage, raising kids from that union)
-Affirm your children's significance and security
-Teach the importance of obedience
-Use discipline lovingly and effectively
-Persevere through mistakes and tough times
I hope many of you will join me in this attempt to build and maintain healthy Christian families. Even if you choose not to be involved in the discussion times, I hope you will use the resources reviewed as tools in your own families or your own circles of influence.
In order to keep our discussion times short and manageable, I will plan three separate forums: one after chapter 3, another after chapter 6, and the last after chapter 9. We will tentatively plan to meet at a location TBA on Thursday, August 18th, at 6:30pm. I will provide some discussion questions on the Monday prior to the meeting so we can focus our talks. I welcome any dialogue at any time about the project-as general or as specific as you'd like. For privacy issues, comments are not allowed on my blog, but you can send me email through the church's website under the "Contact" tab. I look forward to growing with you!
Joe
*Any quotations or specific information taken from:
Ingram, Chip. Effective Parenting in a Defective World: How to Raise Kids Who Stand Out From the Crowd. Tyndale House Publishers: Carol Stream, Illinois, 2006.
Here's how it's going to work...I'll pick a book or other resource, and then I'll write a short review on my blog in effort to create interest. I'll set a reading or review schedule so those interested in participating can all be progressing together so at some point, we can all meet somewhere for a discussion and critique of the material. Please know that this is NOT a discipleship training class. It will be very casual, but we will still use a Christian, biblical worldview as our means of evaluation. Remember, the goal of these forums is not to generate membership. The goal is to generate healthy Christian families.
In Ingram's book, he proposed an interesting proposition. What if rather than trying to completely shield our children and families from a culture which is clearly flawed and antagonistic toward God's standards, we equipped them to encounter that culture with tools to navigate it and stand out from the crowd. Granted, this notion is not new with Ingram, but his approach is incredibly practical and rooted in historic, Christian principles.
Through nine short and manageable chapters, Ingram offers practical measures to helping the family:
-Model right living and priorities
-Build strong bonds with your children (with consideration given to the reality that many families are not
"traditional" in the sense that mom and dad are in their first marriage, raising kids from that union)
-Affirm your children's significance and security
-Teach the importance of obedience
-Use discipline lovingly and effectively
-Persevere through mistakes and tough times
I hope many of you will join me in this attempt to build and maintain healthy Christian families. Even if you choose not to be involved in the discussion times, I hope you will use the resources reviewed as tools in your own families or your own circles of influence.
In order to keep our discussion times short and manageable, I will plan three separate forums: one after chapter 3, another after chapter 6, and the last after chapter 9. We will tentatively plan to meet at a location TBA on Thursday, August 18th, at 6:30pm. I will provide some discussion questions on the Monday prior to the meeting so we can focus our talks. I welcome any dialogue at any time about the project-as general or as specific as you'd like. For privacy issues, comments are not allowed on my blog, but you can send me email through the church's website under the "Contact" tab. I look forward to growing with you!
Joe
*Any quotations or specific information taken from:
Ingram, Chip. Effective Parenting in a Defective World: How to Raise Kids Who Stand Out From the Crowd. Tyndale House Publishers: Carol Stream, Illinois, 2006.
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