For our family, making our home into a ministry center started when we had the opportunity to host a weekly couples’ meeting for our church. The children enjoyed helping us clean and prepare the house. Then they waited excitedly for the couples to arrive, and during the meeting the children served refreshments.
Having a family focus begins with a decision to meet the needs within the family and to build healthy relationships between the family members. Throughout the seasons of our lives, the activities involved in maintaining a family focus do change, but three concepts can remain priorities.
Before we can keep the hearts of our children, we must win their hearts. For a parent to have won a child’s heart is to have openness with him in which he feels secure in sharing his thoughts, ideas, and dreams, and is confident that he will be valued and accepted.
One of the major struggles that most families experience is in the area of family relationships. Everyone experiences some level of conflict among family members, and if we allow these conflicts to go unresolved, they will bring division and bitterness into our family and will diminish our effectiveness for the Lord.
A poem by Donna Reish.
The Christmas season is a time for celebrating the gift of Jesus Christ, reaching out to others, and sharing traditions with loved ones. Family time at Christmas can create some of life’s most precious memories! Even simple activities can carry a lot of meaning and greatly impact the lives of your children.
In our struggle against evil, we are dealing with spiritual powers. Therefore, we must put on the whole armor of God and stand against the attacks of the wicked one. “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” (II Corinthians 10:4).
Read over the following list of the most common ways a parent provokes his child to anger. Mark any specific areas of failure in your own life or in your son or daughter. Often the attitudes of children reflect those of their parents; therefore, search your own life in relation to the struggles of your child.
Job, who was a great spiritual man, believed the most important thing he could do at the beginning of a day was to pray for his children. No doubt you have prayed for your children, but sometimes these prayers can be rather generic. The following suggestions include specific things to pray for your children.
Study the following principles and mark the ones where you are failing. Then use these principles as a springboard for prayer. Ask the Lord to help you raise each of your children for Him. Ask Him to help you eliminate each negative pattern and practice the positive patterns more consistently.