Help Your Kids Be Faith Heroes

“Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)

The apostle Paul assured Timothy that even though he was young, God could use him in a big way.

 

Children’s heroes can be fictional or real, from cartoon and movie characters to pop singers and fire fighters. The Bible is filled with faith heroes whom God used to fulfill his plan of salvation.  But not all of these heroes were adults. David, a shepherd boy, defeated the giant Goliath, and Mary was a teenager who gave birth to our Savior.  God doesn’t put an age limit on being a faith hero. Kids of all ages are doing—and can do—mighty things for God’s kingdom.

 

Sometimes children have trouble thinking of people in the Bible as anything more than fictional. They may show more interest in celebrities or athletes and strive to be like them.  So it’s important to help children put themselves in biblical people’s shoes.  Together, explore their lives and times, consider their fears and emotions, and try to get inside their skin.  Ask children how they would feel and react in similar situations.  This is a great way for kids to apply the Bible to their lives—and to show them that as Christians, they themselves figure in the great history God is writing.

Hero Journal 

Help your children see how God is using them through a Hero Journal. 

1. List the talents and abilities God has given each child. Then write ways that kids can use their talents to honor God. Whenever you or kids notice that God is using them, jot down the date and what happened. At summer’s end, have a Hero Party (complete with hero sandwiches) and share journal excerpts.

2. Read All About It!—Be alert for stories of young heroes in your neighborhood and beyond. Share the accounts with your children to give them ideas about the incredible things they can accomplish.

3. Big-Screen Heroes—With older kids and preteens, watch movies that feature faith heroes; for example, Soul Surfer, about Bethany Hamilton, and Chariots of Fire, about Olympian Eric Liddell. Then discuss how the characters faced fears, made decisions, showed heroism, and trusted in God’s plans.

Raising Children with a View of the World

By Kristin Welch

Nothing shakes your world like returning from a third world country that is riddled with disease and poverty. Nothing makes you question yourself, your motives, and your own sanity more than trying to blend your old worldview with your new one. Nothing makes you want to raise compassionate children like meeting people the world has forgotten.

I have amazing kids. They are sweet and well-behaved (most days), but they are typical American children. They have too much. They want things instantly and easily. They think about themselves first. They look a lot like their parents.

After returning from my heartbreaking and hopeful trip to Africa, I knew I had to change the way we lived. I wasn’t motivated by guilt; I was moved by compassion. My kids love to play follow the leader. They follow their parents. We’ve just been showing them the American view: bigger houses, nicer cars, more toys, and fitting God into all that stuff.

On a Saturday, I explained to my kids that we would be giving up the occasional house cleaner who made our life easier. I taught them to clean toilets. “Why are we doing this again?” my daughter asked. I pointed to the faces of the four children we were sponsoring through Compassion International, smiling down from their pictures on our refrigerator.She wiped a strand of hair from her eyes, nodded, and went back to scrubbing. She stopped and said thoughtfully, “Mom, I’d like to fill the front of our refrigerator with pictures of children from all over the world.”

It turns out my children were just waiting for their leaders to show them the world. They love praying for a new country at dinner every night. They can’t wait to write to the kids we sponsor. They understand the choice to buy secondhand clothes and less stuff so that we can make our money matter more.  I thought the changes we made in our home would be hard for my kids. I thought there might be resistance. But they love the view and the pictures on our refrigerator.

 

James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." NIV

Prayer

Lord, I love you. I want to be like you. I want my children to love others. I want them to be compassionate people. I know that we are saved by grace through faith and not by our works, but I pray that my works are evidence to the world of what you are doing in me. My children are following me; please help me lead them to you. Amen.

This article was excerpted from Kristen Welch's book Don't Make Me Come Up There! (c) 2011 Abingdon Press.

Kristen Welch is a parent just like you and I. Her blog, "We Are THAT Family" www.wearethatfamily.com  delights more than 70,000 women a month with Kristin's often hilarious, always honest reflections on motherhood, marriage, and Christian life. Kristin lives in Texas with her husband and three children. In 2010 she went to Kenya as a blogger for Compassion International. Royalties from her book will benefit The Mercy House, a home for pregnant girls living on the streets of Kenya.

Family Night Startup, Part 4

This is the final entry in a 4-part blog built on the timeless concepts found in 'Teaching to Change Lives' by Dr. Howard Hendricks.  Let's review the seven laws of the teacher:

I. The Law of the Teacher
The effective parent-teacher is a student among students.
II. The Law of Education
The effective parent-teacher realizes that the way people learn determines how you teach.
III. The Law of Activity
Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.
IV. The Law of Communication
To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.
V. The Law of the Heart
Teaching that impacts is not only head-to-head but also heart-to-heart.
VI. The Law of Encouragement
Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.

VII. The Law of Readiness
The teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared. The better the parents are prepared, the better the children learn. You should pray as you prepare the lesson and pray before your Family Night asking God to prepare your children. Readiness is also developed through the Family Night topic selections. If the children are struggling with an issue or have asked you to present a specific topic, you can spend time preparing the lesson with the excitement of finding the answer. They, in turn, come to the Family Night eager to hear the answer. Our attitude of excitement and being in the presence of God permeates our Family Nights. Our children sense it, and our confidence in God is contagious!

The Seven Laws
Teacher
Education
Activity
Communication
Heart
Encouragement
Readiness




Making your Family Night Sensational
The more you involve the senses, the more impressionable the Family Night will be.

• Hearing
Have a Family Theme Song to be played at the beginning of each Family Night to bring family together.
Prayer — assign a different family member to pray each Family Night.

• Sight
Videos — use clips from videos to make a point or set the stage.
Use your video camera to record your activities, then watch as a family. You will make the point two times!
Use a flip chart, white board or felt and pipe cleaners in a shoebox to build "story in a box."
Use sidewalk chalk to draw large animals from a story.

• Taste
Prepare food from Jesus' time — unleavened bread, passover feast elements
Have snacks after Family Night

• Touch
Always have some hands-on activity related to your truth or key principle
Hold hands when you pray or lay hands on for big issues

• Smell
Scented candles to set ambiance
Fire in the fireplace
Baked cookies or brownies
Bake bread during Family Night

We want to recommend the resources of Heritage Builders and their Family Night starter kit now available in the faith@home center.  Click on the following link to learn more about launching your own Family Night:  Family Nights Explained 

Family Night Startup, Part 3

We continue with Laws V, VI, and VII this week.  First, let's review the first four laws from "Teaching to Change Lives" by Dr. Howard Hendricks.  He explains seven laws of teaching that are extremely valuable to every parent who hopes to impress God's truth onto the hearts of their precious children.

I. The Law of the Teacher
The effective parent-teacher is a student among students.
II. The Law of Education
The effective parent-teacher realizes that the way people learn determines how you teach.
III. The Law of Activity
Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.
IV. The Law of Communication
To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.

V. The Law of the Heart

Teaching that impacts is not only head-to-head but also heart-to-heart. Deut. 6 explains that heart-to-heart teaching is really life-to-life teaching. Jesus was the Master at this! His method was, and still is, simply ingenious:

I do 

I do with you 

You do with me 

You do

Jesus never asked the disciples to do something He had not already done Himself. Let's look at prayer. Jesus prayed all night to God before He chose His disciples (Luke 6:12). Mark 3:14 explains: "And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him." We could call this the ministry of "Witness." Jesus was almost always making sure the disciples were with Him. That is why, after being with their Master for extended periods and seeing Jesus pray, they finally had to ask, "Lord, teach us to pray." And, teach them, He did — life-to-life. Herein lies the modeling and accountability aspect.

A. I do - during Family Nights, you explain the desired Godly behavior, attitude, discipline or principle. You give real examples in your life about how you applied what you have taught. Then, from that night on, you have made your children more aware of the principle and they will watch what you do! They will listen and watch to see if you modeled the principle.

B. I do with you / You do with me - Since Family Night teaches the formal and sets up the informal, the world your children live in becomes their classroom to test and apply these principles. As your child confronts a situation and discusses it with you, you can walk him/her through the application of the principle. Then, when they are confronted with the same or similar situation, they will apply the principle and come to tell you about it.

VI. The Law of Encouragement
Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated. Nothing motivates quite like affirmation. The wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, knew this. "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it." Dads and Moms, you've got the power. Work hard at catching your children doing well. When you see or hear of those times, underscore them and praise them. Help children see themselves as God sees them, build them up. Conversely, sarcasm and cut-downs can destroy and cause children to mistrust and be quiet.

Family Nights provide the opportunity to draw out daily actions/decisions your children have made and praise them. Every chance we have to honor one or all of our children for living what they learn, we should do it. They will also let you know when they have done well because they desire praise. You will not lack the opportunity!  The key is to follow through and do it!

We will continue next week with Family Night Startup, Part 4, the final segment in this series. We want to recommend the resources of Heritage Builders and their Family Night starter kit which will be available in the faith@home center soon.  Until then, click on the following link to learn more about launching your own Family Night:  Family Nights Explained 

Family Night Startup, Part 2

In his brilliantly practical book "Teaching to Change Lives", Dr. Howard Hendricks explains seven laws of teaching that are extremely valuable to every parent who hopes to impress God's truth onto the hearts of their precious children.

I. The Law of the Teacher
The effective parent-teacher is a student among students. We can only hope to impart what we have learned. Moms and Dads, share with your children what God has taught, and is still in the process of teaching, you.  As a learner still learning, tell them of your successes and stumbles, your triumphs and struggles as they directly relate to the topic of your Family Night. Parents, by your example, you will establish levels of vulnerability. Your children will respect you for your openness.

Josh McDowell has put into an equation form the following:
RULES + RELATIONSHIP = RESPECT
RULES — RELATIONSHIP = REBELLION

We need to spend as much time as we can with our children. We need to be intentional and at times, quite sacrificial. We must build solid relationships with our children. We need to share what we have learned about life. As parents when we lay down rules, lots of times our children do not like them, but we know they have a purpose. My parents' purpose was for us to do better than they had done. That's the purpose of Family Nights — to teach our children, by God's grace, to do better than we did. Family Nights earn respect for parents because they build relationships.

II. The Law of Education
The effective parent-teacher realizes that the way people learn determines how you teach. Each person learns differently. There are three distinct ways of learning: a) auditory = listening, b) visual = by sight, and c) psychomotor = by touching/testing. Realizing that no one person learns exclusively one way only, it does seem that people favor certain senses more than others from which to gather and process information. The wise parent-teacher incorporates within Family Night  the chance to use any or all three learning styles that best address their children. For the listener, more illustrative stories or music can be used. For the visual learner, use videos or white boards. For the psychomotor learner, you can use object lessons or crafts.

III. The Law of Activity
Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement. The more the learner is engaged and involved, the more learning takes place. Dr. Hendricks believes, and we strongly agree, that Christian education today is much too passive. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Notice those verbs, they're action verbs. They're words that convey passion, strong intent, and maximum involvement. Our hope for Family Night is that they be intentional, strong, passionate, and action-filled. Herein lies the key — action-filled. The element of fun comes through a strong object lesson. The object lesson creates a fun anticipation for the unknown. An object lesson provides involvement to help the children experience the points and enhance their understanding. Half the fun is in the actual setup of the object lesson. The curiosity of the child is heightened.

IV. The Law of Communication
To truly impart information requires the building of bridges. It involves searching for stepping stones of commonality between the parent-teacher and the child-learner. Common experiences and common relationships are integral bridge builders. Many parents are quick to point out the differences between their childhood experiences and their childrens'.  We believe the pointing out of similarities and congruent experiences, feelings of empathy, build strong bridges across which effective communication can flow.  Our children like to hear stories, see pictures or home movies of when we were their age. You will uncover much common ground with your child!

We will continue next week with the last three laws of teaching from "Teaching to Change Lives" by Dr. Howard Hendricks.  We want to recommend the resources of Heritage Builders and their Family Night starter kit which will be available in the faith@home center soon.  Until then, click on the following link to learn more about launching your own Family Night:  Family Nights Explained 

 

Family Night Startup, Part 1

The faith@home Family Night is something new that we encourage every Christian family to begin as soon as possible.  The hardest part about starting something new is just that...starting.  We hope to simplify this for you by sharing some practical tips for launching your very own Family Night.

The faith@home Family Night is an effort to redeem three nights each month in which your family will gather for a time of fun, interactive and intentional learning together.  Biblical truths and principles are the foundation for this time, yet fun family activities such as games, movies, and outdoor attractions are the natural venue for spending time together.  It is a structured family Bible study time using fun and engaging object lessons in a flexible, easy-to-use format.  It is a modern technique with an ancient foundation...Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  Christian parents are commanded to:

• Love the Lord 
• Teach our children - impress God's truth onto the hearts of our children, more formal/structured
• Talk with our children - "faith talks" and "God moments" with our children. more informal/impromptu

The faith@home Family Night delivers all three:

• Parents love the Lord by obeying His commands; the Bible, God's Word is the foundation for the central lesson or principle/theme upon which the evening is planned
• Provides a brief formal time for teaching our children
• Lays a foundation for "faith talks" and "God moments" upon which you can discuss throughout the evening and the weekend in casual conversation and real life

Part One is...Read & PRAY.  That's right, read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and talk with God about what He says to you through His word.  Pray about how God would have you implement your own faith@home Family Night, and stay tuned, because we will be sharing Parts 2-4 in the coming weeks.

What do you believe about Easter?

That may seem like an odd question, but have you ever been talking to someone who believed differently from you - and weren't sure how to answer questions about Jesus' resurrection?

While there is no doubt that we are saved by grace, through faith & faith alone (Eph 2:8-9) - did you also know that there is a lot of external historical evidence for the resurrection?  The following article by Lee Strobel contains a few highlights that I wanted to share with you this Easter season.  So whether you are talking to friends, co-workers or even your own children - hopefully you can be even more confident in knowing what you believe and why. 

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  ~ Philippians 3:12

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why I'm Celebrating my 30th Easter

By Lee Strobel

How do we know Jesus rose from the dead? Here's a snapshot of the kind of evidence that led me to abandon atheism and embrace Christ

I had seen plenty of dead bodies as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, but I never saw anyone come back to life. That's why I was a skeptic about Easter - until my agnostic wife's conversion to Christianity prompted me to spend two years investigating the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection.

What I encountered turned me from atheism to faith - and what I've learned since then has only cemented that decision:

First, there's persuasive evidence Jesus was executed. In addition to multiple early reports in the ancient records that make up the New Testament, we also have confirmation outside the Bible. Atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann called Jesus' death by crucifixion "indisputable."

Second, there are resurrection accounts that date back so early they can't merely be legendary. A.N. Sherwin-White of Oxford said the passage of two generations was not even enough time for legend to grow up in the ancient world and wipe out a solid core of historical truth.

Yet we have a creed of the early church (recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff) that confirms Jesus died for our sins, was buried, rose and appeared to named eyewitnesses, including skeptics. This creed dates back to within a few years of Jesus' death - and therefore its underlying beliefs go back even further. It's like a historical news flash!

Concluded historian James D. G. Dunn: "This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus' death." To me, this devastates the claim that the resurrection is simply a legend.

Third, there’s the empty tomb, which is implicit in the early creed and explicit in the earliest Gospel.

Scholar William Lane Craig said that the site of Jesus’ tomb was known to Christians and non-Christians alike. Therefore, if it weren’t empty, it would have been impossible for a movement founded on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the same city where Jesus had been publicly executed just a few weeks earlier.

Also, the unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was first discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story, because in that culture a woman’s testimony was considered untrustworthy. If the writers were merely making up the story, they would have claimed men made the discovery, thus boosting the credibility of their tale among their first-century audience.

Moreover, the empty tomb was implicitly admitted in the claim that the disciples had stolen the body. Why would Jesus’ opponents manufacture a cover story like that unless they were trying to explain away the inconvenient truth that the tomb was empty?

Nobody had a motive for stealing the body, especially the disciples. They wouldn’t have been willing to die brutal martyrs deaths if they knew this was all a lie.

Finally, historians Gary Habermas and Michael Licona have summarized multiple sources confirming the apostles’ conviction that the resurrected Jesus appeared to them:

• Scholars agree Paul wrote First Corinthians. There, Paul says he met with the apostles and confirmed they, like him, had encountered the risen Christ.
• The early creed confirms the disciples (and 500 others!) saw the risen Jesus; indeed, many scholars believe two eyewitnesses cited in the creed, Peter and James, were the ones who gave the creed to Paul.
• Most scholars concede that Acts summarizes the teaching of the early church. Acts describes Peter telling a crowd in Jerusalem just weeks after Jesus’ execution that “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.” Acts reports that 3,000 people agreed and the church was born.
• The Gospels confirm Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. (Even if you discount the ending of Mark as being a later addition, Mark still reports a resurrection, features an empty tomb and foreshadows Jesus’ appearances.) New Testament scholar Craig Evans, who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, told me: “There’s every reason to conclude the Gospels have fairly and accurately reported the essential elements [of the resurrection].”
• The early church father Clement knew the apostles, having been ordained personally by Peter. In a first-century letter, he said the apostles had “complete certainty” about the resurrection.
• Another early church leader, Polycarp, who studied under the apostles and was appointed by John, repeatedly referred to the resurrection and affirmed “the apostles loved Jesus who was raised.”

So convinced were the disciples that they were willing to die for their conviction that Jesus had risen — not because they had faith in it, but because they were in the unique position to know for sure that it was true.
Even atheist Lüdemann conceded: “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”

He would claim these were hallucinations or visions, yet I don’t find that credible. Hallucinations occur in individual brains, like dreams, yet Jesus appeared to groups three different times – including 500 people at once.

Were these visions prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the half-brother of Jesus and a skeptic. Neither was primed for a vision, yet each died proclaiming Jesus had appeared to him. Besides, if these were visions, the body would still have been entombed.

My books analyze the various objections that skeptics have raised. None, in my view, overcome the affirmative evidence. So I reached the verdict that the resurrection really happened – and that this event vindicated Jesus’ claim that he is the unique Son of God (John 1:12).

That’s why this year I’m celebrating my 30th Easter as a follower of Jesus.