Planning for Growth

Planning for growth:  3 steps to creating a spiritual growth plan for your child

A new school year is here.  Soon we’ll be attending Back to School nights where we’ll look to our children’s new teachers and expect to hear a plan of what our child will learn this year.  Can you imagine your child’s teacher admitting she has no plans?

 None. 

You’d ask, “What will your class study?” 

“I don’t know.”

“What books will you read?”

“I haven’t really thought of that?”

“What will our kids learn?”

“I am not really sure, but I’m sure they’ll learn something.”

You would run right?  You’d run directly to the principal and make sure your child was assigned to a different teacher.   With no plans, it’s pretty clear that teacher has planned for no growth. 

Yet if I were to ask you, “What is your family discipleship plan this year?”  Would you have an answer?   Do you know what you want your child to learn?  Do you clearly know what books of the Bible or faith resource you are going to use?

With no plan, we are planning for no growth.

I know it is intimidating to create a spiritual growth plan.  Just saying it makes it sound like something for seminary students.  But it doesn’t have to be complicated.  Through answering the following three questions you can create an effective plan for your family.

1.  When?  When will our family have intentional discipleship time together?

Family discipleship should happen 3-5 times a week for 10-15 minutes.  Many families find tying discipleship to daily routines make it an expected and anticipated time. Our family uses breakfast.  Five days a week during the school year we have a 5-10 minute devotion and prayer time.  Several of the families in my church use bedtime as their time.  Find a time that can work consistently for your family, and put it on your calendar. 

2.  What?  What do I hope my children will learn?

Keep the end goal in mind.  What do you hope your children will learn in the next three months, six months, one year? 
Your answer might look like one of these:
I want the kids to learn more about Jesus.

I want my kids to understand how we should behave and treat each other.

I want my kids to understand the history of God’s people. 

You may have NO idea what this answer should be.  The incredible thing about the Word of God is that it is ALL good and achieving any of these statements would be great.  (and certainly better than doing nothing.)  Once you have identified your “what,” or your goal, write it down with today’s date. Keep it as a reminder of what your goal is so you can stay on the path you have chosen.  It is a wonderful thing to look back at such goals and see progress.

3.  How?  How will we reach our goal?

So now you have a plan for the when and what.  It might look like this:

Sunday through Thursday we will spend 10 minutes together at bedtime.  Over the course of a year I want my children to learn more about Jesus. 

There is one last question you need to answer.  How are you going to reach your goal?  In other words, what resource are you going to use?  The Bible is the natural answer to this question.  Reading from the Bible daily is a habit every parent should hope to instill in his or her children. But what books of the Bible will you use to reach your goal?  If you want them to learn about Jesus, plan to read the Gospels.  If you want them to learn about how Christians should live and treat each other, plan to read through some of the epistles.  For younger children a picture bible may work well.  Reading a story a night through the Storybook Bible would be a wonderful way to spend a year with preschoolers.  Reading through The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel might be a great resource for teaching teens about apologetics.  Pick a specific resource for your goal. 

Now your plan might look something like this:

Sunday through Thursday we will spend 10 minutes together at Bedtime.  I want my children to learn more about Jesus.  We will read one chapter a night from the Gospels in order starting with the Book of Matthew.

Entering the year with a simple, yet well thought out plan such as this will help your family make sure this year will be a great year of family discipleship.    

Would you like some resource help?  Subscribe to The Celebrated Family and I will send you a free printable family devotion guide for the school year.  Our Salvation and Song will take you through the Gospels and Psalms one chapter at a time. 

Hosting Ms. Daisy

A year ago this week we drove to the airport with a painted sign and purple flowers to pick up our exchange student Daisy.  We laughed at how little we knew about her.  We knew she was 16, where she was from, that she liked purple, and played the piano.  That's about it.  People thought we were nutty.  We were.  Family told us we were too busy.  We were.  Friends told us we were taking on too much.  We were, and we're so glad we did.

Hosting Daisy taught our family not only the generic things one learns when living with people from another country, but also unexpected things.

We learned that we have a lot of love to give

One of the biggest lessons we learned is that we are a good family, and we have a lot of love around here.  Now don't get me wrong, we're not perfect, and Daisy could tell you some stories, but I know that she would tell you that we love one another, and that we loved her well. Emily freely shares love in words, and hugs. Daisy didn't arrive here a hugger, but Emily broke her. Emily was hugging Daisy for the 27th time one day and I over heard Daisy say, "Emily stop hugging me." Emily replied, "But I REALLY love you."  Daisy answered, "Emily I REALLY love you too, but we hugged enough today."   Emily broke Daisy and by the end of the year she would cuddle on the couch with both of the girls and tell us she loved us.  I hope Emily always overwhelms the people around her with love, and that practice rubs off on Pete, Sarah and I.

We learned that hard things are the good things

There is an American middle-class obsession with avoiding hard things.  For Christians, it is a very twisted obsession.  We say we follow the God who gave us literally everything, but we worship ourselves.  It's hard to host an exchange student. Everything our friends and family warned us about was true.  But hard things are not bad things.  Emily sat on a folding chair at meals every day for a year because we only have four kitchen chairs.  Sarah's bedroom became the guest room and she slept on the couch when people visited.  Pete and I gave up countless evening and weekends tutoring Daisy on biology, history, and literature.  For a year we gave up all our time together as a family of four.    Frankly there were times when it was hard, and we did these things with bitterness and a lack of joy, but over the course of a year God broke us.  When I would feel frustrated that Daisy never said thank you, God would whisper, "when was the last time you told me thank you?" When the girls complained about sharing, God would weave a teaching moment into our devotions or their school bible curriculum.  He was constantly present teaching us that the little hard things, are actually good things, because that's how we follow Him.

We learned love will break your heart

When we agreed to host Daisy, we agreed to the unusual agreement of hosting her for four years.  Knowing she would be with us for that long, our family dove into relationships with Daisy that I think may have been stronger and deeper than if we had thought she was only staying one year.  She very much became part of our family.  Unfortunately Daisy's plans changed and she'll start the next chapter that God has planned for her in a different city.  Daisy's departure hurt.  It hurt my girls to loose the piece of their hearts that they had given her.  Sarah is still missing Daisy fiercely.  She lost a best friend and there's a hole.  But I know her heart is big, and she knows the source of all love is her Savior, so He'll fill in that hole and her heart will be bigger for it.  

We are not hosting Daisy this year but our eyes are open to these lessons we have learned, and we'll be watching for people to love on, good hard things to pursue, and ways to give away pieces of our hearts that God has filled so greatly with His Love. 

So how is your summer going?

In May I posted my grand plans for our family's summer.  Friends keep asking me how our summer is going and how the whole no TV thing is working out.  Here's what's happening at our house this morning...

Yep, that's how the no TV thing is going.  That actually illustrates how all my plans are going.

I planned for us to have Adventure Days where the girls and I made sweet memories together.
I planned for casual playdates with friends, and lazy afternoons at the pool.
I  planned to write.
I planned to slow down from the freight train of a schedule our last 12 months have been.

Of those plans I am 0 - 5.  Oh my earthly plans.  Instead, we buried a beloved uncle and got pneumonia.  We loved on and have been loved by our extended family.  We have traveled and had the unexpected joy of holding new baby cousins and seeing lifelong friends.  Emily has watched just under 7 million hours of TV. (Once while she had pneumonia I caught her watching one TV show on her iPad while she watched another show on TV. Awesome. I'm Mother of The Year.)

My only condolence is that my detailed plans must make God laugh.

When I look closer at the last 6 weeks I see His plans.  His plans that reign. His plans that are 5-0.  He planned for us to be His hands and heart to our grieving family.  He planned for me to be loved on by a stream of life-long friends in a season when my heart needs it.  He planned for Sarah to spread her new middle school wings and make memories independent of me.  He planned for Pete and I to have a date in Madrid.  Most preciously, He planned for us to see Him.

I opened by bible study this morning and was instructed to write out this verse:

"Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."
~ Jonah 2:8

Then I walked through looking at twelve verses related to God's supremacy.

Oh God truly must chuckle, chuckle, chuckle at me, and yet His instruction is so sweet.

My plans are my idol, and my calendar is the little alter where I worship myself.

But I don't want to cling to worthless idols.  I don't want to live out worthless plans. I want to grasp on to the hem of the God of gods and Lord of lords, and not forfeit an ounce of the grace He offers me.  I look at my broken plans and my abandoned summer calendar, and I rejoice.  Our summer is going just as it should.