Honesty is crucial to Christianity. When Christians lie – no matter how tiny the lie might be in the world’s eye – it undermines how people view Christianity and ultimately God. More importantly, the Bible makes it abundantly clear God HATES lies. In a world where lying is accepted more and more each day, it’s important for your kids to understand some of the reasons why God hates lies so very much. There’s a fun activity you can do as a family to help your kids begin to understand why honest is so important. Start by telling your children one of the many stories in the Bible where lying caus ..read more

One of the benefits of my ministry is that I get to observe congregations around the U.S. and in other countries. I get a better sense of what works well and what doesn’t in Christian parenting and ministries serving children and teens. This week, my husband and I visited a congregation that regularly seems to average around a couple of hundred baptisms a year. We began asking ourselves why this particular congregation was averaging so many more baptisms (of believers) than others. We suddenly realized why. The minister there was not afraid to talk about the need for baptism not only to have ..read more

Before you start posting critical comments on social media, the Bible is technically the only book you need to truly Christian parent well. The problem is there are too many people out there who either claim to be Christians or who were Christians who have taken it on as their mission in life to do everything in their power to destroy Christianity. It’s not enough to reject God and the Bible as the standard for their lives. They want to take as many people with them as possible. It would be bad enough if just former “Christians” were aggressively recruiting young people to leave Christianity ..read more

The Danish have a term “hygge” that is an extremely popular way of creating a warm and inviting environment in a home. While the word doesn’t have a true translation into English, the word cozy is most often used to try and communicate the idea of hygge to English speakers. Think of the most welcoming, comforting environment you have ever experienced. It was probably a home with hygge. One of the challenges for encouraging children and teens to be daily, independent Bible readers is to get them to sit still and focus long enough for them to read and process a few verses of scripture (or more ..read more

I was reading a parenting book by a secular author who was amazed to stumble across a home in another culture where a child saw dirty dishes in the sink and got up to wash them without being asked. As she had a secular mindset, her book then looked at all the parenting differences she thought might create children who were equally helpful. I smiled to myself a bit as I immediately recognized what had happened in that home. The parents were raising the child with the heart of a servant. Children with the heart of a servant think about how they can help their family and friends before they thin ..read more

Parents are often intimidated about studying the Bible with their children. Often they will look for a book designed for family devotionals. There are a lot of choices out there and many of them are a great way to help your family get in the crucial habit of daily Bible study. The problem is that many of them only last for a few weeks or months or they may be too simple for your older children and teens. Or maybe you just don’t have the money to keep buying new devotional books. Whatever the reason for wanting to study the Bible without a devotional guide, there’s a fairly simple way to study ..read more

It’s hard to be an informed parent and not have read or at least heard something about the importance of your kids having healthy self esteem. You probably know that self esteem that’s too low can hold your children back in a number of ways. Did you know, though, that if your kids have self esteem that is too high, that can become entitled and narcissistic? That while kids with low self esteem can become bullies, kids whose self esteem is too high can be just as cruel? So what is the perfect balance? More importantly, what kind of self esteem does God want for your children? If you look at th ..read more

We live in a world of quiet quitting. A world where perfectionism is considered toxic. A culture where telling kids to do their best is considered poor parenting because it puts too much stress on them. Where the goal is to do as little work as possible in order to spend as much time on a device as possible – making zero positive impact on the world. A world where serving others and sharing our faith is way too much work and is best done by others. Yet, as Christians, God has actually called your family to a standard of perfection. It may never be achieved, which is why God’s grace is so impo ..read more

In her book Generations, author Jean Twenge looked at an analysis of how many times the words “get” and “give” appeared in American books published each year. Before WWII “give” was more common than “get”. Over time, the top word varied from year to year, but the margin was always fairly close. Now? In 2010, the word “get” was twice as likely to appear in a book as the word “give”. And that’s not the only sign of a growing selfishness in the world around us. Ask any non-profit or ministry and they will tell you that the vast majority of their donors are over the age of fifty. Like any problem ..read more

One of the biggest complaints I hear from employers is that many of their employees lack a healthy work ethic. While we tend to associate the problem with Gen Z, it’s actually pervasive in every age group. The Bible tells us that God expects Christians to work “with all your heart, as (if) working for the Lord, not for human masters”(Colossians 3:23 ESV) – one of several passages in scripture about God’s expectations of His people regarding work. No matter what careers or jobs your children may have, their bosses and managers will expect them to work hard – especially if they want to get rais ..read more