Here is something I found posted recently by Mark Driscoll on The Resurgence Blog.  It’s fantastic and a great reminder to all the Dad’s out there!  Merry Christmas!

’Tis the season for Dad to drop the holiday ball, stress out as the money is being spent for presents, and miss yet another providential opportunity to lovingly lead his family. So, this blog is intended to help dads not fall into the same old rut of holiday humdrum, sitting on the couch watching football and eating carbs, but rather intentionally plan out the upcoming holiday season. Our children grow quickly and if we miss the sacred moments God opens up for us to connect with and bless our families, everyone suffers and we set in motion generations of missed opportunity.Dad needs…

1. a plan for the holidays to ensure his family is loved and memories are made. Dad, what’s your plan?

2. to check the local guides for what’s going on to make fun holiday plans for the family.

3. to carve out time for sacred events and experiences to build family traditions that are fun and point to Jesus. Dad, is your calendar ready for December?

4. to not let the stress of the holidays, including money, cause him to be grumpy with Mom or the kids. Dad, how’s your joy?

5. to give experiences and not just gifts. Dad, what special memories can you make this holiday season?

6. to manage the extended family and friends during the holidays. Dad, who or what do you need to say “no” to?

7. to ensure his family is giving generously during the holidays. Dad, who in need is your family going to adopt and bless?

8. to schedule a big Christmas daddy date with his daughter. Dad, what’s your big plan for the fancy daddy date?

9. to schedule guy time with his son. Dad, what are you and your son going to do that is active, outdoors, and fun?

10. to help Mom get the house decorated. Dad, are you really a big help to Mom with getting things ready?

11. to ensure some holiday smells and sounds. Dad, is Christmas music on the iPod, is the tree up, and can you smell cookies and cider in your house?

12. to snuggle up and watch some fun shows with the kids, especially the little ones. Dad, is the DVR set?

13. to take the family on a drive to see Christmas lights while listening to music and sipping cider. Dad, is it mapped out?

14. to help Mom get the kids’ rooms decorated. Dad, do the little kids get lights or a small tree in their room?

15. to read about Jesus and pray over his kids. Dad, how’s your pastoral work going with each of your kids?

16. to repent of being lazy, selfish, grumpy, or just dumping the holidays on Mom. Dad, are you a servant like Jesus to your family?

HT: Mark Driscoll | TheResurgence.

I get asked often enough about Children’s Bibles that I wanted to share with you about a special Children’s Bible that my family and I have fallen in love with recently.

I’d like to introduce you to The Jesus Story Book Bible.  This is the most fantastical, amazing Bible for reading to children from the youngest of ages.  It is truly a breathtaking experience to read it to my own children, and I know you’ll love it to.  When you read it for yourself, you will know I’m not overstating this enough.  It is a wonderful tool for parents.  The words and the illustrations work perfectly on each and every page.  Your kids will love it!

A “Story Bible” is great for kids because it gets away from chapter and verse restrictions, and introduces your children to the great stories of scripture.  What makes The Jesus Storybook Bible so wonderful, is that it ties Jesus into each and every story.

The Jesus Storybook Bible tells the Story beneath all the stories in the Bible. From Noah to Moses to the great King David, every story points to a Child, every story whispers his name…

“It’s like an adventure story about a young Hero who came from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne, everything to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that have come true in real life.

You see, the best thing about this story is—it’s true.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this story. And at the center of the Story there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a  puzzle—the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.

And this is no ordinary baby. This is the Child upon whom everything would depend. This is the baby that would one day—but wait, our story starts where all good stories start. Right at the very beginning…”

Watch the videos for a more few examples of the readings.  This particular reading is fun, because it’s the Christmas story.  And with this book the Christmas Story is the answer!:

As a father who reads to his own children, I cannot more highly recommend this wonderful addition to your families library.  I know that my wife and I cried tears during the first few stories, and I know that you will too.

HT: SojournKids

I had the opportunity, privilege, and pleasure to baptize my oldest son this weekend.  I’ve been asked many times, “As a Children’s Pastor, I bet you’re really excited to do this, huh?”  My answer is usually nice and cordial, but to be honest my excitement over my son’s eternal salvation has nothing to do with being a Children’s Pastor and everything to do with being his father.

From the time my son was in vitro, from those early morning hours of feedings, to the first steps, to the first bites of carrots, first soccer games, first words, first days of school and so forth and so forth; my prayer for him has been the very same.  I have prayed the words of a song that was popular around his birth.  They are the words to that song “One Pure and Holy Passion.”

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You

It has been my prayer that when Ryan seeks after God he would find Him there waiting.  It has been my prayer that when confronted with his own inadequacies and faults, it would be the reaction of his heart to reach towards Christ.  It has been my prayer that when he admits his sin, believes in Christ, and confesses it with his mouth; that his next move would be to follow hard after Christ.

I often tell parents that most kids aren’t really in a good place to understand this until they are around 8 or 9 or even 10 or 11.  There is no hard, firm age for these things; but there are some things we can look for in our children to know if they are ready.  I encourage parents to not rush their children into a decision, and instead work to demonstrate living, active faith before their children.  I also encourage them to quickly reward the curiosity of their children with answers to life’s questions and questions about God, faith, and morality.

But my son has proven to be an exception.  Ryan is the most thoughtful, deep, profound, inquisitive, and reflective 7 year old I’ve ever been around.  I know, I know… it’s my son and I’m biased.  But I’m telling you, there are not 7 year olds like my son.  He’s just in a different place emotionally than most 7 year olds.  He’s different.

When he began to ask questions about faith, it wasn’t from a “What do I have to do to be like others?” or “I want to be baptized, what now?” perspective.  It was more from a “Why would someone pray to Jesus?” and “I’m thinking this sin in my life might be a problem, Dad.”  His mother and I diligently answered his questions, but never put the question back on him.  We would answer and leave it til another day.  Eventually the questions became more and more frequent.  One night after an exhaustive journey through Romans, he was really struggling with a decision.  I told him to just think about what he knew, and I would be here if he needed any help.

After a half hour of thinking about it, he approached me and his mother to ask, “I need to tell God my mistakes, and tell him I believe.  I believe all these things about Jesus and I need to tell him.”  I told him to go ahead and pray, and without putting words in his mouth he prayed for God to forgive him of his sins, and told Jesus that he believed in Him.  He did it all on his own.  He was taking the first steps towards following hard after Christ, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

You can see more of what we did after Ryan’s Baptism to celebrate his decision, and the impact of so many other people in his life on my wife’s blog at http://www.lostinlaundry.com/2009/10/were-widening-circle.html.

She summed it up perfectly:

My prayer is that as my kids grow, these people will be around to give them the same messages I’m giving, but in a different voice and from a different perspective.

Thank you Lord that in the short time we’ve lived in Lubbock, you’ve made us a part of a spiritual family. Thank you for these people who love and influence our kids toward loving You. Bless them Lord, and keep providing opportunities for authentic relationship.

I’ve chronicled our adventures at Trinity Church of getting families more involved in the spiritual experience we offer their children during our weekend environments (Check out our Going Orange Baby Steps #1 and Baby Steps #2.)

We’ve worked hard to get parents involved in our traditional drop-off events, and have made changes to our child baptism procedures, and we’ve totally revamped our Child Dedication process in the past few months.  One of the other things we’ve wanted to do is offer parents a glimpse of what we do with their children each and every Sunday morning at Trinity Kidsplace.

So what were the goals?

Goal #1: To see parents participate in a Trinity Kidsplace experience with their child.

Goal #2: Parents would be exposed to all that happens in Kidsplace with their Elementary age children.

What were the challenges we were up against as a team to get parents involved?

1. It was not possible to do a Children’s Ministry led service for adults in the main sanctuary.  We have 4 services each weekend, and to plan for all 4 services would be quite the load.  I’m also not sure it would be as effective at our church as it might be at other churches.  In the future this might be an option, but I don’t see it fitting the overall vision of our church.
2. We have tons of parents involved in Adult Education opportunities on Sunday Mornings.  This means we need to offer something that floats between multiple services so everyone can have a chance to attend Kidsplace with their child.
3. We operate in limited physical space.  We do children’s ministry in a room that barely holds the children.  Adding a 100 parents would be a logistical nightmare!
4. We wanted to resist the temptation to pull a bait and switch on our parents.  You know the kind.  Where you ramp everything up and bring in the chainsaw juggling clowns for the parents, then back to the puppets talking to the ceiling when the parents leave.  We want to show what we really do for kids.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Here is what we did:

1. We planned five “Parent Sunday” events over the next 3 months.  There are five, because our Elementary ministry currently ministers to 1st-5th graders.
2. We also spread them out so we have a week gap between each of our “Parent Sunday” events. This was done to prevent volunteer burnout, and to allow me time to promote and get the word out.  The way it’s setup, we’ll get 1st through 4th grades in before Thanksgiving, and we’ll get 5th grade parents down in January 2010.
3. We promoted the event only to the parents that were invited on that particular week.  No mass mailings, no church bulletin insert, etc… We only want parents to hear about it when it pertains to them.  How did we do it?  We created mailed personal invites for the parents, handed out left-over invites to parents the Sunday before in the specific small group that applied to them.  I also posted on our parents blog, and on the Facebook Kidsplace Fan page what was coming up.  I used the parents blog as a place to answer those commonly asked questions.
4. We did what we do.  We sang the songs we always sing, and did our large group and small group programming like we always do, and the only added element was the parents being in the room.  We even made very little mention from the large group stage that we had parents in the room.
5. We gave a gift to each parent in attendance when they checked-in at the parent table.  The gift included some the lesson take-home page that pertained to what they experienced, included the “How to talk to your child about Salvation and Baptism” materials, and a small book about connecting with your kids.  It was an easy, easy, easy gift.  Nothing too huge.
6. We had some family-friendly gift cards in the small group time with kids and their parents.  I left it up to the small group leaders to determine how they were given away, but I heard they worked them into some review-type games.  This week it was some Krispy Kreme gift cards.  I tried to make it something family friendly.

So how did it go?

It actually went remarkably well.  I’d say about 1/3 of the kids in the 1st grade, had parents in attendance.  Which was pretty great!  The parents loved it, and I had many comments that they were so glad to be a part of what happened.  Even a few comments like, “I had no idea you guys did this with the kids!”  We really exposed ourselves to people in our church that had no idea what we did with their kids every Sunday morning.  These are good things, trust me.

In the coming weeks we’ll see the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 5th grade parents come down to experience Kidsplace and it’s my prayer that we can build some momentum for more family involvement going into 2010 and beyond.

Here are the invites we sent to parents.  It was postcard sized, and printed front and back.  We put them in some nice invitation quality envelopes, and put our gears logo all over the envelope.

Sam Luce has done some great things at his church to reach out to parents and the like; but as is the case with most things…it didn’t fit our model.  I encourage you to flood his inbox with questions about their Parent Sundays (or whatever they officially call them.)  He’s the pro at these kinds of things!