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Book Review and Giveaway: Parenting With Scripture by Kara Durbin

(In the next few days, I’ll have three book reviews and giveaways for you! I’ve received these three books from publishers in exchange for my honest review. I have a copy of each to give away to one of my blog readers. Check out the first review below, and then read the instructions for the giveaway that follow.)

When I first received Parenting with Scripture to review, I envisioned a book that discusses what the Bible says about parenting with some practical applications for daily life – interesting topic, but not very unique; a book with this title could easily get lost in the mix of bookstore shelves. The downplayed subtitle much more accurately represents what this highly unique book is actually about, however: A Topical Guide for Teachable Moments.

Pretend for a second that you have an issue with your kids (I know it’s hard!) – something like anger, conceitedness, laziness, pride or stress. Imagine this: You now have a quick reference tool in which:

You find an easy-to-use two-page guide showing you how to handle the issue at hand (to find it, you simply flip through your reference tool, organized by topics in alphabetical order).

You find 4-6 Bible verses you can use for rooting your child’s heart in what God’s Word says on the issue.

You find relevant and Bible-based questions for discussing the issue at an appropriate level for kids.

You find action points to really drive the lesson home.

Sounds amazing, right? That’s what this books offers!Continue reading

Why We Need to Stop Making Faith Look Easier Than It Is

When I was about 10, someone told me that the end of the world would probably come before I graduated from high school. According to this person, the “signs of the times” were all there, and it was pretty likely I would see heaven before I saw 18.

I don’t know if I was more terrified or devastated. I didn’t know what the Bible said about the end of the world, but I guessed it wouldn’t be a happy event. I also dreamed of being an adult someday, and was sad to think that would never come for me.

When I expressed my dismay by saying, “I don’t want that to happen!” I was told, “You don’t need to worry about it. Just trust the Lord.”

While a doomsday prediction was difficult for my developing mind to comprehend, I was no closer to understanding the meaning of a faith where my human fears and concerns were summarily dismissed with a call to “trust the Lord.” What did that even mean? I had no idea. But if I had a penny for all the times I was called to disregard my concerns in favor of a general trust in God, I would be a millionaire.

My experience with end-of-the-world predictions may be relatively unique, but my experience with adults portraying Christianity as a simple belief system that we accept and then live happily ever after with appears to be common.Continue reading

8 Tips for Developing an Impactful Family Worship Time

As you may recall from past posts I’ve written, our family does a nightly worship time together, consisting of Bible study, singing and prayer. We’ve been doing it for about two years now, and we’re constantly evolving what we do to make sure it’s having the spiritual impact it should for both us and our kids.

Today I’m guest posting about our experiences with it on the blog of the National Center for Biblical Parenting. Click here to check out my “8 Tips for Developing an Impactful Family Worship Time.”

Whether you’ve never considered doing a family worship time or have been doing one for a while, this post will give you some ideas on what might work well for your family. I can tell you that nothing…absolutely nothing…we’ve done has impacted our young kids’ spiritual lives more than our nightly time together. And I promise it’s easy to do. Go check out my post and you’ll see what I mean.

On a side note, be sure to also check out the amazing array of Christian parenting resources offered by the National Center for Biblical Parenting here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on family worship. Do you do it? If so, what does your time look like? If not, what is your biggest challenge in getting started?

Will a World Religion Class Shake Your Kids’ Faith? (Part 2: Comments From World Religion Students)

Yesterday I interviewed James Morrison, a world religion teacher at a public high school in Red Wing, Minnesota. If you haven’t already taken the time to read it, I highly encourage you to do so. It’s extremely thought provoking. Today, with Mr. Morrison’s permission, I’m providing excerpts from his end of semester course feedback so you can hear about students’ experiences “straight from the horse’s mouth.”

As you read the quotes, consider the various premises these kids are working from: being a Christian doesn’t allow for critical thinking, a religion being “sensible” equates to its possible truth and religions are equal if they all address morality, to name a few. Again, I pose this question as food for thought: Will a world religion class shake your kids’ faith in one of these ways? Can you see your kids writing one of these statements eventually?

I absolutely loved this class…but I’m not sure if my mom likes the fact that I took it. I think she dislikes the fact that I began to be more open about my personal beliefs, which differ from hers. Because of this I’m not allowed to talk to my little sister (eleven years old) about religion at all! I got in trouble for telling my sister “false ideas,” ideas that were not exactly pro-Christian. Despite this, I’m happy I took the class. Yeah for critical thinking!

– Sarah

The necessity of a world religion class has never been more obvious as it was the night I was studying for my Christianity test and I remarked to my mother how little I knew about Protestants despite being one. How she responded made me a little sad. “You’re not a Protestant, you’re a Lutheran,” she told me. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe she didn’t know that Lutherans are a Protestant sect.

– OliviaContinue reading

Will a World Religion Class Shake Your Kids’ Faith? (Part 1: Interview With a World Religion Teacher)

Today I’m pleased to interview James Morrison, a world religion teacher at a public high school in Red Wing, Minnesota. He has taught world religion for the last 18 years and blogs about his experiences at teachnotpreach.com. He is currently writing a book on the question, “What (if anything) should public schools teach children about religion?”

Mr. Morrison personally is not a Christian; he identifies himself as a “skeptical deep-thinking seeker of truth and knowledge.” I am not interviewing him here for a Christian perspective. On the contrary, I am interested in hearing a non-Christian perspective on how the faith of Christian teenagers fares in a world religion class setting. In Mr. Morrison’s experience, the faith of his Christian students often gets rocked.

So why a non-Christian perspective? As I’ve blogged about before, nearly two-thirds of 20-somethings who were raised in Christian churches are turning away from faith. The research shows that intellectual barriers are the predominant issue. Kids are having trouble seeing how their faith fits and doesn’t fit with the world around them. A world religion class taught by a non-believer typifies the setting that is challenging many Christian kids today.

My hope is that this post challenges all of us to consider how our own kids would fare in a class of this nature, faced with viewpoints of this nature, and what impact that should have on how we raise our kids to have confident faith.Continue reading

Why Fiction is Important in the Development of Kids’ Faith

I’m excited today to feature a guest post from Christian adult fiction author Regina Jennings! Her newest historical romance, Love in the Balance, comes out on March 1.

Once upon a time…

When those four words are said, the toys become quiet, little heads lean closer, and older siblings come running from their bedrooms. What’s Mom going to read? Which story is it today?

Yes, reading fiction is a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon. It benefits kids academically, increases vocabulary, stirs their imagination and exposes them to cultures they won’t have a chance to experience in real life. But fiction is…well, it’s not really essential for Christians, is it? We have the Bible. We have sermons. What can we learn from fiction that we won’t learn there?

Unfortunately, in the Christian propensity to divide the world into sacred and secular we often toss fiction into the bin of the unnecessary, suspect and potentially corrupting. But stories are powerful and influential — used for millennia to encourage virtue and teach truth — and parents shouldn’t neglect literature as a tool to shape their children’s character.

Here are three benefits I’ve noticed from reading fiction with my children:Continue reading

A Valentine’s Day Conversation for You and Your Spouse: What is Your Love Language?

Since the dawn of time, I’ve been pestering my husband Bryan to be more affectionate. Nothing makes me feel more loved than when he stops whatever he is doing to give me a simple hug and kiss. Over our 13 years of marriage, my requests for affection have ranged from gentle reminders to frustrated pleas: “Why can’t you just hug me more?!”

Now, I do have to tell you that I have the most amazing husband imaginable. He is truly my best friend and soul mate. I thank God every day that somehow He chose me to marry this incredible man. He is just a little “affection challenged.”

At some point in the last couple of years, Bryan agreed to be open to a gentle reminder when he hasn’t been affectionate for a while. This worked quite well until I had particularly poor timing with one such reminder.

Bryan had been working all afternoon on various household tasks when he came downstairs for dinner. He hadn’t been very affectionate lately, and when he went straight to his chair without giving me a hug, I decided it was time to issue a “reminder.”

“Can I at least have a hug? You haven’t been very affectionate lately,” I said flatly.

Bryan looked at me, unmoved. “What do you want from me? I was just changing the air filters for us. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t take the time to do this stuff.”

Air filters? Air filters.

Air. Filters.

I want a hug and get an air filter? At that moment, the utter futility of expressing my need for affection swallowed me whole.Continue reading

8 Ways to Be a Less Selfish Parent

I did a little experiment last week. I spent a day noting all the ways I could catch myself being a selfish parent. I know that sounds bizarre, and I can’t quite explain why I had the urge to do it! But it was eye-opening to see how many ways I caught myself.

I categorized these things into eight broad areas that I’m sharing with you today. I’m sure if I sampled other days, I could come up with many more, but it appears I have plenty to work on already. Ahem.

Philippians 2:3-5: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…”

I know I deeply desire to count my kids as more significant than myself. On big picture, long term things, I think I do. But in day-to-day life there are a lot of ways selfishness creeps in. Here are 8 ways to be a less selfish parent based on my sample day!

1. Be willing to “waste” time.

I often feel that I live in the most inefficient household imaginable. With three young kids, everything, and I do mean everything, takes longer than it should because they’re learning to do things on their own. If I turn off a light, one of the kids is almost certainly behind me turning it back on, in order to turn it off again independently. I would much prefer to efficiently do things myself. But putting others first means being willing to spend time in a way that may be “wasteful” to you and valuable to them.Continue reading

Are You Confusing Feelings and Faith?

I have somehow managed to be blessed with three kids who are generally happy to clean up after themselves. They don’t make a big deal of putting their things away, so usually this isn’t one of those mind-numbing parenting issues we are constantly battling in our house.

But not always.

The other night, I made my post-dinner “time to clean!” announcement and Kenna planted her bottom on the ground. She shrugged her shoulder to her ear, puckered her lips, looked at me with defiant eyes and pronounced, “Noooo. I’m not going to. I don’t FEEL like it tonight.”

Hmph! With an air of indignation, I informed her, “I didn’t feel like making you dinner tonight, but your stomach is full. Clean up.” I wish I could say it ended there, but it turned into a nasty battle over whether her feelings on the issue mattered.

Not 24 hours after this little event, I sat across from Bryan at the dinner table bemoaning the fact that it is so hard to feel God.

When I pray, I mostly feel like I’m talking to the walls. When I read the Bible, I usually don’t feel God’s illumination. When I worship at church, I often don’t feel any kind of supernatural connection.

My interpretation of these experiences: My faith has a problem. It’s broken. I’m doing something wrong. God set this whole thing up to be too difficult. It leaves me confused, frustrated, and if I’m very honest, a bit angry.Continue reading

5 Steps to Helping Your Kids Prevent Their Own Sinful Behavior

I think I spend about 85% of my waking hours asking my kids to stay in their seats at meal time. OK, that’s obviously not possible, but it accurately reflects the disproportionate annoyance I feel in dealing with the matter.

I recently reminded Alexa to stay seated, and told her that if she got up again, I was going to strap her into her booster seat. She gained the freedom of sitting in her seat without the straps recently, so losing that freedom is now a very dire consequence.

I left the dining room to prepare the rest of lunch. When I returned, Alexa had strapped herself into her seat.

“Alexa! You don’t have to strap yourself in. I was just saying that if you get down again, mommy will have to do that.”

She explained, “I strapped myself in because I wanted to get down again.”

What an insight from a two-year-old! She recognized she still had the desire to do something bad, so she took steps to prevent herself from the behavior. If only we all had such foresight!

We spend an enormous amount of time working to shape our kids’ hearts to desire a Christ-like life. But our Godly desires will never be perfected because we are sinful by nature. Alexa’s statement was a reminder to me that shaping our desires is only half of the battle. We also need to take precautions against behavior that comes from the sinful desires that inevitably remain in our heart.

We need to teach our kids that we will never be perfect, but that we can have a plan for managing our imperfections. I’ve been very intentional in working with Kenna on the issue of managing her frustration-induced anger lately. We’ve made a lot of progress in a short time! Here are five steps that have been working for us.