Children need encouragement. Sure they need correction from time to time (okay, maybe a lot!), but they need lots and lots of encouragement as well. And sometimes in the grind of life where all it seems is happening is busyness, hectic schedules, and disobedient kids, we need to remember that our children (at home, at […]
This article first appeared at Wesleyan Kids on November 21, 2013 Dear Parents, I’m concerned about a disturbing trend I’m seeing happening more and more: parents are not disciplining their children (both young and old) when they are doing behavior that they themselves did when they were young. This is more than just a pastor’s […]
This article first appeared at Wesleyan Kids on December 9, 2013 There is a municipal water park in Spokane, WA that my daughters like to frequent when we visit my in-laws. It’s a really neat place. They have a bucket that fills up with water, water spouts shooting streams of water all over the place, […]
Notes from the video below: Men Need to Know Their Family Men need to know their family intimately, not on a superficial level. What are you concerned about? What are you worried about? How are you doing? How are we doing? Men fail to know their families in that their family is not a priority. […]
Article first appeared at Wesleyan Kids from April 25, 2014 Children need to be taught to obey. Why? Parents, teaching your children to obey is actually training your children to obey God. When our children are young, things need to be black and white. Obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings punishment. Children have to learn […]
Article originally appeared @ wesleyankids.org on May 14, 2014 Hayward Wesleyan’s discipleship pastor, Heath Davis, and myself have been trying to engage our church (and the community) in conversations about technology. We have learned a lot. During one of our conversations, we were talking about kids are getting cell phones younger and younger. One father shared […]
Article originally appeared @ wesleyankids.org on May 26, 2014 I think sometimes we parents get distracted from stewarding our children. We forget this deal is all about training. Training requires doing the same thing over and over again. When I was in art school, I spent hours working on the same vase. I sketched it […]
Article originally appeared @ wesleyankids.org on May 29, 2014 Jared Martin shared an amazing insight a while back. I’ve reordered the question: Are we stained or painted with the gospel? I think for many who teach children, we just teach kids the Bible and about Jesus and it sticks to them. It might stick for a […]
Dear Parents, I was recently talking to a mother of a 7th grade student who was sharing with me that her son didn’t want to come to Sunday school and Youth group at church. “Every Sunday morning and every Wednesday evening is a battle,” this Mom shared. “I make him go, even when he doesn’t […]
Six years ago, I wanted to clearly define a path forward in the discussion at Hayward Wesleyan Church regarding family discipleship. In order to do this, I wrote up a one-page document which clearly outlined our initial three initiatives: Read the Bible @ home with your children (at least once a week, or more if […]
I just sent this letter to the parents of our Followers students regarding what happened with the story we interacted with this past Monday. Followers is an after-school program that Hayward Wesleyan Church does every other Monday after school with grades K-5. You can read more about Followers here. Dear parents of Followers students, This […]
I received this email from a children’s pastor a few weeks ago and I’d been thinking about how to respond. Here is the email: Hi Jeremy, I was reading your post at Kidzmatter on Have You Ever Thought About a Discipleship Plan for Your Family? That is a very good question you ask and it’s true… […]
The longer I work with children and then watch them grow up into teenagers and young adults, I believe this to be true about boys: They need to be able to wrestle with their dads. Everyday. They need to be able to test their strength against their dads strength. They need to learn the rules of […]
From my journal dated: May 20, 2014 This morning was rushed. The girls slept till 7:50a. School starts at 8a. Sari woke up frustrated that she’d be late to school, but also didn’t want to rush (kinda of a catch 22 when you wake up late!). I gave Sari a choice to be 30 minutes […]
Sari and I had a rub one morning a while back. We were running late on our mission to get out of the door for school so I was trying to move her along. I told her to get a hat on (because she already had her coat and shoes on). Then when she walked […]
I walked into the backyard after having been inside for a while. I saw the water hose lying on the ground, which isn’t unusual for us because we leave it out fairly often. What was unusual, however, was the flow of water coming out of the end of the hose! I figured the water had been […]
I was tickling my youngest daughter, Macie, on the couch. Boy was she giggling! She was loving it just like both of my girls do. For some reason, for them, tickling is REALLY fun. Not for me, but they love it! Sari heard the laughter and wanted to get in on the fun. She climbed […]
Tim Keller shares an applicable story related to substitutionary atonement (fitting for a children’s book review, right?!): What if you and a friend were walking alongside of a river and your friend looked over at you and said: “I want to show you how much I love you,” and this friend throws him/herself into the […]
When parents are in the thick of life with their children, they often take little time to stand back and reflect on the big picture. The big picture being: engaging with your children in the moments is the point of parenting, not wishing for things to be “perfect” or “right” in the moment, but messy and […]
I was listening to NPR’s All Things Considered and I came across a report called, The Teenage Brain: Spock vs. Captain Kirk. Are adolescents impulsive? Researchers created a scenario to test adolescents’ impulsiveness. Will an adolescent blow through a yellow light at an intersection more frequently than an adult would? Remarkably, when placed in the […]