Welcome back to another year with Faithful Families Resources. I hope that you have had a wonderful and
blessed Christmas and New Year with your family and the ones you love. My prayer for you is that 2012 may be a year of
Spirit filled enthusiasm for being faithful with your family.
The purpose
of this blog is to provide
families with the weekly resources, ideas and encouragement to be faithful with
their family. Usually these resources
will include ideas and activities to encourage:1.Family closeness 2. Exploration
of the Biblical and faith story. 3.Patterns of prayer and celebration 4. Service.
These
resources aren’t complicated and the activities are quite simple, but to have
any affect they need to be one. Remember it is often the small daily and weekly rituals
that have the greatest impact on people’s lives. Imagine the impact of a little
bit of the Bible read every night at the dinner table across a year. Imagine
the difference simple but faithful prayers might make in the mind of a child.
I wonder how
you might be faithful with your family this year.
Weekly Inspiration
One
day an expert was speaking to a group of students and on time management
and he used this illustration. Firstly he took out a wide mouthed jar, then he
produced about a dozen large rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time,
into the jar.When the jar was
filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this
jar full?" Everyone in the class said, "Yes."Then he said,
"Really?"
He
reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped
some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work
themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he smiled and asked
the group once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time the class was
onto him. "Probably not," one of them answered.
"Good!" he replied.
And
he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started
dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and
the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar
full?""No!" the class shouted. Once again he said,
"Good!"
Then
he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled
to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, "What is the
point of this illustration?" One eager beaver raised his hand and said,
"The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really
hard, you can always fit some more things into it!""No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point.
The truth this illustration teaches is this: If you don't put the big rocks in
first, you'll never get them in at all."
I
wonder…what are the big rocks you wish to fit into your family life this year?
Family Closeness
Game:
Teeth
Everyone sits around the dinner table and chooses a
fruit or vegetable. Person 1 starts by chanting their fruit/veggie (eg. Strawberry, Strawberry). Person 2 must then chant person 1’s fruit/veggie
followed by theirs (eg. Strawberry, Strawberry, Broccoli, Broccoli). The next
person would then chant Person 2’s fruit/veggie followed by theirs (eg. Broccoli,
Broccoli, Banana, Banana) and so on. As you go around the table each person
must choose a different fruit/veggie each time and one that hasn’t been named already.
What makes this game weird and fun is that you can't
show your teeth at any point (which you
do by pulling your lips over your teeth). If anyone does happen to show their
teeth raise the alarm by screaming "teeth teeth" and flapping your
arms at the player like wings (making sure you don't show your teeth in the
process!).
(Idea taken from http://youthgroupgames.com.au)
Sharing:
Questions for
stimulating discussion in your family.
- What is
something you hope to do more of this year?
- What is
something you hope doesn’t happen this year?
- What is
something new you want to try this year?
- What could
your family do together this year that would help you to grow closer?
Story
With your family read: Mark 1.4-11
Questions
for Discussion:
It was not the
practice in Judaism for members to be baptised, only gentiles (non Jews) needed
to be baptised when they joined the faith. What John was calling Jewish people
to do was very unusual. The word repentance often used in this passage means to
turn away from. John was calling people to turn away from their sin.
- What was the
purpose of John’s baptism?
- How is John the
Baptist described in this passage? What words might you use to describe him?
- What do you
think it means to be baptised with the Holy Spirit?
- Why do you think
Jesus got baptised if he had no sin?
- How do you think
Jesus felt hearing the words: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased.”
Journey
through the Bible
Journey through
the Bible will provide five readings each week you can use in order to get a
good overview of the full sweep of the story of God and His people. There are a
variety of ways you might use these readings. As a parent you might read them
to get a better understanding of how the divine drama unfolds. You could read
them to your children and discuss them. Some are longer than others and might
need to be broken up. It is important that you read them first as some readings
you may feel need to be read in a children’s version of the Bible.
Exodus 12.29-32 The
Tenth Plague
Exodus 13.17-22 Pillar of Cloud and Fire
Exodus 14.1-31 Crossing
the Red Sea
Exodus 20.1-21 The
Ten Commandments
Exodus 32.1-20 The
Golden Calf
Prayer and Celebration
12 Types of Prayer
In his book ‘The hour that changes the world’, Dick
Eastman outlines twelve different types of prayer . In this miniseries explore
the many different types of prayer with your children.
Watching
Colossians
4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
For children this type of prayer is about developing
a sense of what things need to be prayed for. Approaching pray from this angle
might include a time of silence when we ask God to show us what things in our
world need our prayer. It could include looking at the news to see what is
happening locally, nationally or internationally and asking the questions: What
should we pray for? How might we pray for it? What does God want for this
situation or person? In this approach to pray the focus is not so much on
praying for these things but in being alert to what is going on and discerning needs.
Take your time doing this, don’t rush and have a good conversation with your
children. This is about broadening their prayer world.
Service
Growing a just, inclusive, sustainable
and diverse world.
This is a
great time of year to make some plans for how you might serve God by serving
those in need. You might begin with prayer asking God to guide your family in
how you might live out the command to love neighbour. Here are some areas you
might think about getting involved in the kingdom of God by helping to grow a
just, inclusive, sustainable and diverse world.
Justice
speaks of a free people with a home to live in, food to eat, clean water to
drink and access to the things needed for life.
The dignity and rights of others are respected and wrongs sought to be
corrected. Where can you help create a more just world?
Inclusiveness
ensures that the gifts and needs of forgotten peoples are remembered and
honoured. Such people are those for
example who live with disability, are unemployed or are elderly. How can you
help to make a more inclusive world?
Diverse
communities celebrate the wonderful differences in people as a strength to be
shared and a richness to be enjoyed. How can you help to nurture and support
refugees or those who are different in your community?
Sustainable
communities are the only ones that will survive, where deep respect for life
and our deep interconnectedness leads to fair and life giving stewardship of
the world in which we live. In what ways might your family live in more
sustainable ways?
Family Extra
Collage
of Dreams
Use
photos, words and pictures from old magazines, glue, sparkles etc to make a
collage of the things your family would like to do with their life. This might
begin by each member making a list of 10 or 100 things that they would like to
do in their life…like skydive
or write a book or
learn to ride a bike. Alternatively the collage might be about things your
family might like to do this year together. Put the collage up somewhere
visible to remind you of your dreams and plans
(This material is based on and draws from earlier Faithful Families emails by Stephen Harrison & Richard Browning: An Unless Ideas Production.)
Unless otherwise noted all material on this blog is copyright Stephen Harrison and Richard Browning
