Family Night

Chenye stepped out in faith this year and said "no". He said no to extra cirricular activites, including church "ministries" to stay home and nurture his family. He has decided that now is the time to be investing into the diciples God has placed in our home and make that his primary ministry. One of the ways we have activley persued this is by establishing a weekly "family night". We chose Sunday evenings. This is a time where we turn off the phones, put off the dishes and chores, and have a fun purposeful time with just us. We felt this was important for a number of reasons. Just a few are: 1.) we want to model Christian truths. Spiritual imput should not come from just outsiders. We want it to be normal in our daily living.
2.) Spiritual imput doesn't have to be boring. As someone put it, "Christian truth can be alive, effective, and can blend with other forms of family sharing. It doesn't have to be closeted off in a holy zone of formality." 3.) We want to develope relationships and keep influence. As the kids get older we see a battle for their affection. Either the world can have them, or we can fight for them. We want to be a fun family where they are comfortable sharing themselves and secure. We want to have a solid foundation of trust and respect by the time they reach the teen years.

A few rules we have put on the Family Night is:
1.) It has to be just us, and all of us.
2.) The activities have to be fun, and fun for everyone.
3.) All conversation has to be interesting to everyone. (Parents not discussing politics at dinner, etc.)
4.) There must be short purposeful spiritual topics peppered through out the evening.


I have to tell you. It has been tremendously fun. We have enjoyed our family more than ever before. And I believe we have already seen spiritual fruit. Isaac is taking more of an interest in the bible and spiritual things. The motivation seems to be that he is interested in what we are interested in. "Daddy likes it, and so do I" mentality. Another benifit is that the kids are more imaginative. Because we have spend time playing with them, they learn more ways to play on their own. Another thing is that the family relationships are sweeter. Since we started, Cheyne has made many comments about how neat his kids are, how much he loves them, how fun they are. He always loved them, but taking the time to get to know them more and have fun with them has just made it all the better.

I highly recommend this to any family with kids in the house. The blessings are many!