LEAD YOUR FAMILY LIKE JESUS Book Review

 

 

A Little About the Book:

     Does your family need help getting organized? Do you need a psychologist or couselor to help sort out the drama?  Or do you need a coach or director to help move your family from the chaos they are in to more peaceful and happier times with lifelong memories and lessons?  Do you just desire more peace and more of Jesus in your family?  Well, you are in luck!  Ken Blanchard, best-selling coauthor of The One Minute Manager and Lead Like Jesus will show you can become more like Jesus and lead your family into newer and deeper levels of life that will not only make an impact on you but also on your kids.  Ken is joined by verteran parents and authors Phil Hodges and Tricia Goyer.  Together they will take you on an epic journey to help you to lead your family like Jesus. 

    

     Lead Your Family Like Jesus will take you through twelve priceless parenting principles based on the Savior's life and teachings-from "Say Yes to the Best and No to the Rest" to "Know the Difference Between a Crisis and a Bump in the Road."  You will also discover how your heart, head, hands, and habits can work together as you serve your way to a truly Christ-centered family.

 

     I don't know about you, but my kids are everything to me!  I am so honored to have been given the opportunity to read this book and travel through the life of Jesus and learn new ways to truly center our lives around Christ!

 

 

 

Lead Your Family Like Jesus Review:

 

     I have to start by saying that I am so honored to have been a part of this book launch.  I am so honored to have had the opportunity to meet and serve with some pretty amazing people.  Each of us committed to join hands with Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges and Tricia Goyer as they began to launch their latest book, Lead Your Family Like Jesus.  Not only did we join hands with them, but we also joined them on an amazing spiritual journey.  Through this many of us have began to take a new journey or path with our own families.  So, with a renewed vision and much encouragement I now give you my personal opinion of this book and a basic review!

 

     I am far from a "perfect" parent.  In fact, there have been times in my life where I have had to ask God, "why did you trust me with two other lives?"  He chose me to be there mom.  He believed in me and loved me so much that He gave me this amazing journey of parenting.  The key word there is journey.  We all learn as we go!  There have been times in that journey that I have found myself saying, "I am sorry" as much as I say "I love you."  I am just a sinner saved by grace!  It is not on my own works and I have no room to boast.  As a parent I want what is best for my kids and that means what is best for them now, but also what is best for them eternally.

 

     This book is divided into four parts and twelve chapters.  I will tell you that if you are a person that likes to take notes or highlight in your books you will fill each page with bright colors or a notebook full of notes.  In each section Ken, Phil, and Tricia share their thoughts!  This not only makes it a great read (I mean three great authors from different backgrounds with different views) but it also makes it a very powerful read.  You will travel with them each through the four sections of the book, The Heart, The Head, The Hands and The Habits.  As you read along their journies in parenting you are also given awesome testimony from others all throughout the book.  You are not alone in this at all.  It is sort of like a study group going on in the midst of an amazing message. 

 

     The Heart:  Leading like Jesus as a parent is first a spiritual matter.  Since you have been given the honor to influence your kids you need to ask yourself "Am I motivated by self-interest or by the betterment of those I'm leading?"  You need to know what is important forever and what is tempory in life.  You need to also live by what is important forever.  Once you understand this you will then journey through how an unChristlike kind of EGO (Edging God Out) can cause you to make choices that can and will hurt our families.  But in this section of the heart Tricia share the hope of another kind of EGO (Exalting God Only).  With this EGO, she shows us how Jesus set a pattern for us to exalt God and lead our families for the important forever!

 

     The Head:  "The journey to leading like Jesus as a parent starts in the heart, with your motives and intent.  Those motives and intent then travel through the head, where you store your beliefs about parenting."

     Jesus told us and showed us that leadership (parenting) is first an act of service.  How do you become a servant leader?  This does not mean you please everyone all the time.  (Many parents know how exhausting that can be.)  We still have to keep in mind the important forevers.  We as parents should not be worried about pleasing others or how we look in the PTA meeting.  We should be concerned about pleasing God, our Father, and not others. 

     In this section you will begin to look at or think about the importance of  vision and direction for your family.  Where are you leading them?  And, is that pleasing to God?  Is it forever important?  You will look at your values and what you stand for and you will also view the primary focus of your family.  Where are you going?  What do you stand for?  Who are you and whose are you?

 

     The Hands:  "Family members will experience what's in your heart and head when your motivations and beliefs about parenting affect your hands-your actions.  If as a parent you have a servant heart and a servant-leadership point of view, you'll become a performance coach." 

     This section had the words performance coaching.  I am a life and spiritual coach.  I never really thought of myself as a coach to my kids.  However, I AM just as Jesus was and is! 

     In this section you will focus on making the most of the parenting years because as most of us know they go by quick.  Also, Ken does an amazing job at showing us how we are coaches to our kids and what that looks like and how that works in the family in this section. (Love it)  Phil really brings to this chapter the emphasis of the results of great parenting.  He really focuses on obedience here as well. 

 

     The Habits:  This section was my personal favorite.  Overtime, our perspectives can get warped and our habits become us and can be some of the most challenging things to address and change.  However, NEVER impossible. 

     "As a leader committed to serve despite all the pressures, trials, and temptations He faced, how did Jesus replenish His energy and servan perspective?  Through His HABITS!"

     "Your habits are the way you review and act on your daily commitment as a parent to serve rather than being served."

     If you want to stay on track; you need to stay close and connected to Christ.  In this final part of the book, Ken lays out five ways or powerful habits that can help you stay on track with leading your family like Jesus.  He starts with solitude!  Be still and know that I am God. Psalms 46:10.  The next habit is prayer.  Here he share the acrnmy ACTS to help others pray. A is for adoration. C is for confession.  T is for thanksgiving and S is for supplication or asking.  The third habit, (and one I am challenging myself to do more of in the mornings and not just at night) studying and applying scripture.  The fourth habit is accepting God's love and then finally being involved in supportive relationships.  (I could really use more of these!)  Tricia piggy backs on several of these concepts such as solitude, prayer and relying on the Word of God.   She shows us how to pray for our kids with the song head, shoulder, knees and toes.  (This you will sing and pray over and over.  I love it) Then

Phil wraps it all up with the greatest habits that God showed us: forgiveness and grace. 

 

Every page is full of something for everyone no matter where you are in life or parenting.  Lead Your Family Like Jesus has something for everyone!  To add to that, YOU ARE NOT ALONE in this book!  As you read you will journey through many lives including the authors!  You are sure to connect with someone in this book if not many on several levels!  There is a lot of information that you can use to transform your family towards the important forever!  This book is a quick read, but I would recommend taking your time and really looking at your family.  It will be worth it for you and your kids.  Sit down with a group of other parents or alone in your room or with your husband or make this a family read.  There are many ways to use this book and when you are done.......read it again......I am sure you will find more! 

 

I will continue to read this book throughout my parenting season!  I will also be forever thankful that the walk of Jesus applies to all no matter what stage of life you are in, who you are, where you have been, where you are at, and where you are going!  He is truly the way, the truth, and life.  Your family can be His light?  So, who are you and whose are you? Then, do your words and actions reflect that truth?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restoring Balance

The idea of balance defines our Universe. The cosmos, our planet, the seasons, the oceans, and our forest are all in perfect balance. Even our Earth has to restore balance from time to time. We witness this through events such as hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, and other acts of nature. Wouldn't it be nice if we could flood our past or those days that we would like to have disappear and restore it all back into balance? Awe, if it were only that easy.

Humans unlike nature and the Universe are an exception. We tend to live our lives out of balance for the most part. We have eight components of life; spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, social, cultural, occupational and environmental. So, with so many compartments in our lives is it even possible to maintain balance in all areas or can we only balance a few areas and juggle the rest the best we can (which is what we tend to do anyways)?

According to Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, living a balanced life is obtainable and starts with the way we process the world and our surroundings. Have you ever heard the sayings; "When you change the way you process the world, the world you are processing changes" or "If you think you can, then you can?" As humans our pattern tends to be: The more we have the more we desire; the more we take the more we need. The less effective it is the more we consume," and this is toxic to our well-being. How you perceive the world that is around you, and the more in balance you are with your thoughts, dreams, and passions, the easier it is to balance everything else out. An ancient Hindu saying is; "God gives food to every bird but He doesn't throw it in the nest." In other words God gives us what we need but we still have to do some work to obtain the fullness of our lives. Now, I have come up with a list of 20 ways you can start getting your life into balance. So, let us begin!

1. Focus on your dreams no matter what
2. Don't focus on how difficult things are
3. Focus on this statement "You get what you think about whether you want it or not"
4. Slow down/Be patient/and enjoy the small things
5. Become conscious of your desire to be at peace and adjust you thing around those thoughts
6. Be a loving person, not a judgmental person
7. Love yourself
8. Be accepting to change
9. Stand for what you believe in regardless of what others think
10. Never compromise what you believe and how you feel for the happiness of someone else
11. Let go of you past and remove all shame and guilt LIVE FOR A NEW KNOWING
12. Know that you are enough and believe in yourself and dreams
13. Don't dwell on what is missing from your life
14. Stop complaining and cultivating a bad, unlucky and unworthy image of yourself
15. Capitalize on your talents/strengths
16. Integrate your passion with your career
17. Get organized
18. Live simple not beyond your means if you attempt too much you will succeed at nothing
19. Rest and be active
20. Take time outs

This list will not bring your life into balance, but it is a start and will give you something to think about. If you feel out of balance then your day-to-day routines and habits define your life. Louisa May Alcott once said, “Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead…” This doesn’t sound like day-to-day routine and habits to me. Basically, being in balance is all about following your passion, living our your dreams, having a positive attitude, don’t sweat the small stuff, love yourself, and never give up on what you believe, think and feel. We let life control us, knock us down, and hold us back. This produces stress in one or more areas of our lives and a snow ball effect in our heads causing us to feel stressed, out of balance, and creating negative victimized thinking which flows from our heads to our bodies. This produces a negative outlook, unhappiness, physical systems such as fatigue and much more. Who enjoys living this way? Millions of Americans feel this way, out of balance, stressed, and a lack of passion for life. Over 112 million Americans are on prescribed medications to reduce the side effects of living out of balance and stress. This is sad, and I am sure this is not how we intend to live our lives all the time. (always searching for peace and balance) So, quit trying to conquer the world and everything in it. You are fighting the impossible. We have never won anything by trying to conquer it. Look at the war on poverty and on drugs. Since we started trying to conquer those poverty has spread and the jail population has tripled. Follow your own dreams and go where your passion lies. Love and keep things as simple as you can. When you think you can; you can! Also, know your self worth and don’t sell yourself short of what you desire and know is possible. Then last but not least…DREAM BIG! –Express don’t suppress-

Telephone Game another Theology Thought

Telephone Game....How do I know the Bible is Real? Another Theology Thought

Did you ever play the game telephone in school? Maybe you did, but just forgot. It was simple, but a great way to back up my reasons as to why I believe the Bible is the Word of God for this discussion.

Let me explain the game first. Telephone was a game we played in school. There were about 20 kids in my class. The teacher would tell one student a secret in their ear only once. That student would then whisper the secret to another student and so on. Once the last student received the secret they would stand up and repeat the secret to the whole class. As usual it was nothing close to the original secret the teacher told. The point was to demonstrate how much and how fast even a small statement could change as it passed from ear to ear or from mouth to mouth. This is a great illustration and reason why I find the unity of the message from different human sources one of the best arguments that to Bible is the Word of God.

Looking closer at the readings from Dr. Towns this week we learned that " there was approximately 1600s years during which the various authors wrote the books of the Bible." (pg. 8 article Arguments that the Bible is the Word of God) The "Bible was written over 55 generations, yet remains a singular unity." (pg. 8 article Arguments that the Bible is the Word of God) Also, there were at lest 36 to 40 authors which held a "great diversity of occupations." (pg. 8 article Argument that the Bible is the Word of God) These authors were not located in one city, however they were spread out in time and locations, yet there still remains a singular unity/message throughout the Bible.

If you keep in mind the telephone game and how one statement, in one room, over just a few minutes changed and lost it's original idea completely then it would be impossible for the Bible to have been composed with such a unity (given the above mentioned facts of the telephone game) without the guidance of a greater source guiding them from the beginning to the end.

Modern Day Fatalism

“Fatalistic” God

I'm sure I could sit here all day with you guys and list and discuss ways in which modern cultural is "fatalistic" (as defined by the Greeks). Even Christians today can have a "fatalistic" view of their God at times as the Greek's did with their Gods.

I would like to take a look at some questions I have asked myself many times in my life as well as outside my own life that demonstrates this "fatalistic" view that was displayed by the Greeks.

"God, can You hear me? Where are You when I need You the most? And Why do bad things happen to good people?" I could go on, but I think you know exactly what I mean as these are all questions we have asked at some point in our lives.

Habakkuk 1:2,13 (paraphrased)

How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen! "Violence is everywhere!" I cry, but You do not come to save......But You are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will You wink at their treachery? Should You be silent while the wicked swallows up people more righteous than they?"

Sound familiar? Perfect view of a "fatalistic" Christian feeling and thought that still applies today.

God created us with free will and the freedom to choose good or evil, right or wrong. God knew we needed to have the freedom to choose even though it would cause some injustice to the innocence. The Greeks knew and experienced this feeling in their own times as well have many people all the way throughout history. We live in a fallen and unfair world which at times makes it very easy to have a "fatalistic" view of our world and God. We feel abandoned, ignored, not good enough, not connected and as if we are being punished for our past mistakes. We feel that sometimes God is not personal, loving, compassionate, and forgiving. We feel the pain of injustice or what we feel is unfair. We even ask these questions and feel this way as the Greek did when it comes to our judicial system and political system even down to our everyday work environment. "Fatalism" in the modern world, as defined by the Greeks, is very much alive now as it was then. All we can do is put our faith in God's plan and our hope in His promise to redeem our fallen world if we wish to change this Greek "fatalistic" view that lingers on today. God loves you!

Reflections from Theology

Introduction:

Today the world is filled with injustice, fear, and temptation.  Living a Christian life is not just about acknowledging and inviting Christ into your life as your Savior.  It is a continual quest for a deepening of your relationship with Jesus, a quest for the grace of the Holy Spirit.  Your journey begins on the day you accept the Lord into your heart.  You must always strive to learn more, pray more, study His word more and love Him more.  There are many areas we can discuss from this point, but for now there are three pertinent points I want to highlight.  They are as followed:

I.                    Why are personal testimonies important in sharing the gospel?

II.                 Does it matter how Christians live their lives?

III.               What can your local church do to better communicate God’s love to your community?

My prayer is that by the end of this paper you and I both will have more understanding of how to share the gospel with others through our personal testimonies, what it means to actively live as a Christian, and how Christians’ involvement in their church can help share God’s love in their community. 

Personal Testimonies:

We are commanded to witness to others (Mark 16:15 NIV).  We are commissioned to witness to others (2 Cor. 5:19-20), and we should be concerned about the souls of those who are lost (Roman 9:3).  One way we share His love is through our own personal testimony.  Just as unique as we are in God’s eyes; so are our stories.  Each story/experience is different, personal, unique, and effective in sharing God’s mission and love with others.  In Acts 22, 23, and 26 Paul gives us insight on how to share your personal story.  He states to briefly explain your life “before” you received Christ, “how” you came to Christ, and your life “after” you became a follower of Christ.  Since Paul (and God since the Bible was written with dual authorship) provided us with insight on sharing your personal testimony it must be important.  Many people can argue theology and opinions all day long, however, they can not argue your personal experiences.  As you begin to share your testimony, you open up a vulnerable moment which allows a person to feel what you feel/felt, and it allows them to trust you and gains their respect.  You are really providing a path for the Holy Spirit to work on their hearts with an “in the moment” example of your life and today’s times.  A relationship begins to build on both ends as you allow them into a part of your life that holds meaning and understanding and direction to you.  As you roll through the emotions of your story, they are able to relate and understand with you.  They join in and share and become curious.  The Holy Spirit starts tugging on their hearts as they struggle and begin to feel conviction, emotions, and relate and understand through your personal testimony.  You can not do the work of the Holy Spirit.  You can only share your story and connect with them in ways that they have never connected before.  Be honest, practical, and ready to answer questions.  Be patient and understanding and know that your story is unique and special just as you are and as their story is and will be.  Then always be in continuous prayer. 

Ready Set Go!

Does it really matter how a Christian lives their lives?  The answer is “YES!”  Christians should also put God on display.  If your boss sent you to cover his spot at a very important meeting, would you go in there without researching and understanding all the discussion points?  Would you wear flip-flops and ripped jeans and no shirt to the meeting?  Would you go into the meeting in place of your boss not prepared for questions, or even anything less than a positive representation of your company?  I would like to think you are shaking your head no, and wondering why someone would even think to do these things.  Well, we as Christian, tend to walk a little sloppy, be a little unprepared, and at times we tend to be bad examples for others in our representation of Christ.  We should accurately and effectively live a life that is pleasing to the one who saved/redeemed us.  For our Savior paid a debt that we ourselves in our time on earth could ever come close to repaying.  So we are to be obedient, love our Father (in action, in thought, in words etc.), love our neighbor, seek out lost souls, and be an active follower of Christ.  We are His examples.  When He says “Go,” we go.  You never know who is watching you.  So, it is very important to live actively and obediently so that others will want to follow.  We have chosen to do His work, even when it is hard and how we live is what others first see.  We can not share the gospel yet live a life that is unpleasing to God and an inadequate display to others.  So, we need to make sure we are being positive representatives for Christ and His kingdom.  “He paid it all, and all to Him I owe.”  Live with this thought in mind and your actions will reflect.

The Church

So, how does all this play out in the church and your local community?  Well, when we are actively living our lives as followers of Christ, and we gather as a community under the Lord’s house (with the same desires and goals) His name and Word is raised and unstoppable.  Everything I have talked about is important and plays a role or has an effect on your local church.  The Bible states, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them,” (Matthew 18:20) and “if our God is with us then who could ever stop us.” (Chris Tomlin) We must help our local church practice, teach, display and defend the Word of God everyday for it to have a positive influence in our community.   We need to be actively participating in the church and its mission instead of criticizing and judging the church for not doing the job that we ourselves are not doing.  What we do individually reflects and impacts what we do and how we represent God when we gather as a church.  God has redeemed us and wants to enroll us in His mission in our individual lives and through our Church and flood that love into our community.  Strong individuals lead to strong a church which leads to amazing changes in your community and around the world and they are unstoppable.  By setting an example with the foundations scripture has laid out for us and being actively involved in the mission and change of your local church will bring about less confusion and misunderstanding and amazing results pouring out of you and your church family.  As important as it is for an individual to be an example it is the same with the church.  A church that leads by poor judgment or falls short to earthly sin has little power and will not prevail in the mission of the Church and of God.  The church must be Christ-centered and not self-centered.  They should preach the word of God, and set an example for those to follow in.  They should be an exciting and relevant church for un-churched people.   The church has a huge role in your community, and you should be a part of it.  They are your family, and you should desire to help it grow and bring comfort for those searching for answers, hurting, or in need of a little extra love.  

Conclusion:

So, everything we do and say should be a reflection of Christ.  We should only seek to please Him not the world.  How we live is a direct reflection of who we are and what we believe.  You can say many good things, but if your actions don’t reflect then it is meaningless and confusing to others who are trying to believe and understand.  It’s not about you.  God loves us all, and wants us all on His mission not sitting back on the sidelines watching.  Get in His race, and run it proud, run it humble, and help others along the way.