Money Matters for Kids : Scott Travis and Tim Eisel

The Toys R Us Big Book came to our door a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving; my children could not wait to circle everything they wanted in that catalog. We often talk to our them about likes, wants and needs. We do not allow them to say “I want that”, but encourage them to say “I like that.” We have had long conversations about the differences between needs and likes; these are just the first easy steps to intentionally discussing money issues with children.

This past Sunday, Tim Eisel and Scott Travis taught the parent equipping class for parents of 11-year-olds. They shared the Biblical perspective on money and some practical tips to help parents discuss money in their home. Did you know that 2,350 verses in the Bible talk about money? Clearly it is important to God how we talk to and teach our children about money.

It becomes a matter of simply being aware of how we talk and process thoughts about money: Is it ours or Gods? Do we have good limits and habits when spending, saving or giving money? Do we see our finances as a way to honor God and do His will on this earth?  Do we bow our needs and wants to His will for us? Are we willing to process these questions out loud in front of our children? If we do not, how will we ever expect them to believe they can trust Him with everything, including money?

Parenting Tip:

Younger children: Use the word choice to talk about money. Children are more apt to see money as a responsibility and a choice if we use those words. “We are choosing not to buy toys today, we are choosing to put our change in the red kettle for the Salvation Army because they help people; we choose not to pay for renting a movie when we have movies at home” etc. This is more helpful for them than “I’m not buying that” or “you can’t have that.”

Older children: Set up three jars labeled giving, saving and spending; kids like to see their progress in each area. Have them first put a portion away in giving and allow them to decide how to give to church and to God’s kingdom around the world. Talk about the blessings we get from giving, saving and spending according to the Bible.

Parenting Resource: Money Matters for Kids by Larry Burkett and K. Christie Bowler

Learn to leave the lesser things undone: The Parizek Family

Bill and Donita Parizek are longtime members of Vista. They have four children ranging from 19 years old to 8 years old. I continue to be blessed by their willingness to share what God is doing in their lives.  Donita told me that wisdom-filled devotionals from the Girlfriends in God website have been an encouragement during her parenting years. She desired to share one of her favorites from that website by Mary Southerland and hoped we find it as much of a blessing on our personal journeys.

Priorities by Mary Southerland of Girlfriends for God

Learn to leave the “lesser” things undone. This lesson is especially hard for me because I actually believe I can do it all. The key to Godly discipline and right priorities is learning what my “all” is and doing all of that; my trusty “Superwoman” cape is never far away.  Admittedly, it is a constant battle for me to ignore the presence of that cape, choosing to embrace and employ God’s priorities – not mine.  But it is definitely a battle worth fighting.  Families, marriages and souls are on the line.

A right perspective is the direct result of Godly discipline. In order to have right priorities, we must have right perspectives. Godly discipline brings a holy scrutiny to priorities and perspective: Does it really matter? Is it eternal? Will it impact lives for God?

Parenting and renewing our minds: The Pride Family

Jamiya and Amanda Pride are part of the original church plant team for Vista. They have two girls in Kids Community: Jillian and  Jada. Their hearts for prayer, authentic worship and multi-ethnic relationships continue to challenge me to daily follow the example of Jesus.

Over the last few years, my husband and I have experienced the Lord transforming us by His word. Around the 7th year of marriage, we hit an all-time low, and neither of us could see how we were going to recover from such a dark place. Through a lot of hard work, prayer and encouragement of others, we slowly started walking out of the darkness. One thing we both began to do was turn to God and take Him at His word, despite how we were feeling and thinking.

As we began to replace our fears, anxieties, frustrations, lies etc. with the word of God, we began seeing our lives and marriage transform. We watched hope, peace, comfort, confidence, power and victory rise up in our hearts; we continue to press on. As a wife and mother, I’m thankful that we have the word of God to lean on to shape our family. I truly don’t know where we would be without the hope God brings through His Spirit and written word.

Lately, we have been praying Psalm 91 as a family as we combat the fears all around us. I encourage you to place your family’s name in this Psalm and begin praying/speaking this truth over your family daily. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind!

Psalm 91:

_________ who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. _______will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely He will save _____ from the snare and from pestilence. He will cover _____ with His feathers, and under His wings will _____ find refuge; His faithfulness will be _____ shield and rampart. _____ will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 1000 may fall by _____ side, 10,000 at ______ right hand, but it will not come near _______…If ____ makes the Most High their dwelling – even the Lord, who is _____ refuge then no harm will befall ______, no disaster will come near. For He will command His angels concerning ______ to guard in all ways; they will lift _____ up in their hands, so that _____ will not strike a foot against a stone…”Because ____ love me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue _____; I will protect _____ for the acknowledgment of my name. _____ will call upon me, and I will answer _____; I will be with ______ in trouble, I will deliver _____ with honor. With long life will I satisfy ______ and show _____my salvation.

Where`s the owner`s manual: The Bontrager Family

Crissy and Brian Bontrager are members of Vista Community Church. Crissy is a frequent guest blogger for Kids Community Parents with years of parenting wisdom and a passion for helping families navigate how to follow Jesus Christ together. You can read more about their family at crissybontrager.blogspot.com.

I remember being so excited as the day of my first son’s arrival came. The anticipation of having a little bundle to love and care for was almost overwhelming. However, I know now, that I was not completely prepared for all that motherhood entailed.

Within the first week of being home with my new baby, I quickly felt like I had no idea what I was doing.  During the late night feedings, a million diaper changes, and sleep deprivation I found myself wondering why the hospital neglected to give me the owner’s manual for this child. This is a question that I still find myself asking at times. (My boys are now 10 and 7.) Every time I think I have my boys figured out and I am getting this parenting thing down…we enter a new stage.

I have spent a lot of time reading parenting books in order to understand the job that I hold as a parent. I still have not found any book that offers a complete overview. However, in my search I have come to the realization that God has given me all the insight I need through His word. Although, the Bible does not tell me what to do if my little one throws a fit in the grocery store, or how many minutes a time out should be, the bible does give me Godly wisdom, encouragement, and the peace I need in those situations. I have learned to lean on this verse from James 1:5 (NIV)

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God,

who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

I have prayed more times than I can remember (Honestly, this is a daily prayer for me) for God to give me wisdom regarding parenting. I will continue to read parenting books, and gain insight from others more experienced than myself. However, I know that I will not find the wisdom I need in any manual…I will find it in God’s word!

Javelin Prayers

I have had the privilege of praying for my children and their school with  some friends I met while in a “Moms In Touch” group. Moms In Touch is an international organization started by Fern Nichols encouraging and empowering moms to pray together for their children and their schools. I learned the value of  javelin prayers through MIT.

Here is something my Mom, a prayer warrior, sent me when Justin started school. I believe it came from one of MIT’s early publications but do not have a source or author of it. It exemplifies the concept of javelin prayers.

As you pack your child’s lunch bag, PRAY!

Pray he/she will hunger for God’s word daily.

As your child climbs the huge steps in the bus or drives away and you wave goodbye, PRAY!

Ask God to keep him/her on the path of righteousness always.

As the day goes on and you wonder what she’s/he’s doing, PRAY!

Ask your heavenly Father to protect her/him.

As you look over the papers your child brings home, PRAY!

Pray that his/her mind will grow in the knowledge of the Lord.

As you empty the backpack and find scraps of paper, bits of crumbs, broken pencils, PRAY!

Pray that God will take any broken pieces from the day and bring healing and wholeness.

Much like an athlete hurling a javelin skyward, I strive to launch little prayers imploring God to nurture my children all day long. The old hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus states “what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer”. Your family can join with other local moms bombarding the gates of heaven with prayer for children and schools in Ohio. On November 17th Liberty Presbyterian Church is hosting a prayer and fasting event from 9 am-1 pm called Arise and Cry Out for all Ohio moms to come together and pray for all the children and schools.

Family Prayer Craft: Cut out colorful paper in shapes of leaves. On each leaf, have your family write out names of friends and teachers at school or specific prayer requests collected from people at their school. Tape or glue the leaves to a stick with branches, or place the leaves on a window in your house. As the leaves fall outside, take down one leaf each day to pray over as a family. Even children as young as one year old can help your prayer leaves “fall” so you can “send” them up to God.

Breaching the Dam

I wore my iPod headphones in the car tonight. I know – not a good practice. I had simply had enough of the torrent of discord flooding my car as we headed down I-270. The rain outside seemed to fuel the dissension inside. I took a moment to pray and then took off my headphones pronouncing “All of you are breaching the dam!”

Have you ever seen a dam that is becoming or has become breached? It is a fearfully awesome sight. There are great pictures of the Teton Dam breach taken by Eunice Olson at www.geol.ucsb.edu/faculty/sylvester/Teton_Dam/Teton Dam.html.  A small trickle turned into a deluge on June 5th, 1979 and unleashed disaster on many towns; the Teton reservoir took only four hours to spill through that little leak.

I showed these pictures to my kids to give them a visual of the picture painted in Proverbs 17:14. Little verbal leaks for the sake of argument can rapidly turn into spirit-killing confrontations.  Here is an example of a conversation that is breaching the dam:

• “you’re so smelly and I will vomit if you put that close to me!”
• “I will vomit if you continue to talk to me!”
• “I will vomit all over you and then you will know what smelly is!”
• “I will vomit all over myself and make sure you have to smell it all the way home!”

The creativity of the diatribe  increases with age. Most young kids start with the singsong “this is mine and you can’t  have it” while older kids may entice with “They love me best!” Regardless of how the conversation starts, the purpose  is enmity. It shows a heart of selfishness and hostility designed to cause strife. I did not want to deal with the consternation in the car, but God’s job for me in their lives is to train, even at the end of a tiring rainy day.

Stopping the breach is not simple, especially in the car where the purpose is to keep the vehicle on the road despite the surly children in close proximity to one another. We have discussed and trained for dam breaches. My kids know the heart consequences of breaching the dam and are aware that verbal violence can quickly lead to emotional and even physical damage. They know that Solomon knew what Thumper from the movie Bambi meant when he said “If you can’t say something nice… don’t say nothing at all.”

Proverbs 17:14 in The Message substitutes “leak” for breach and warns us to stop before the dam “bursts”. We practice how to stop the seepage before the burst and choose to focus on the heart damage when things have calmed down. This is why I had to utter only one phrase to stop the leaks from becoming a full-blown collapse. Conversations about heart changes came when we arrived safely at home. Just like a disaster crew cleans up after the flood waters recede, we cleaned up the emotional and spiritual wreckage of our dam breach. We then prayed for mouths, hands and hearts of loving-kindness.

Training Tip: Make your own dam after viewing the photos of the Teton Dam collapse. Read Proverbs 17:14 together. This is a great family project for the sandbox, the beach or the bathtub.

Resource We Like: Peacemaker ministries has many practical ideas for peacemaking strategies for families.

Loving my Kids – The Bontrager Family

Crissy has been a friend of mine since our kids were little. God has given the Bontrager family a heart for sharing authentically what God is doing around them everyday. I have learned many things from Crissy and Brian through the years as we shared different parenting experiences within a common faith perspective. They are part of the Vista Parent Equipping Team so catch for their class based on this blog at Vista. You can read more about the Bontrager family on Crissy’s blog – A Cracked Pot:Letting God hold it together at crissybontrager.blogspot.com.

Loving My Kids

Within, the last couple of years I have watched my 2 boys develop their own individual personalities. My oldest son, who is 10, loves video games, computers, and even coming up with his own design for video games. However, my youngest son, who is 7, is all about his friends, sports, and really anything that involves a ball or running.

However, what I didn’t realize is that both of my boys feel love in different ways. I came to this realization reading the book The Five Love Languages of Children. The thought had never occurred to me that my children would need to feel love from me in different ways.  The book suggests the five love languages are: Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Gifts, and Acts of Service.

I took some time to think about each of my boys and which of these love languages each of them desired the most. What I found was that my 10 year old son seeks out words of affirmation and physical touch. So, letting him know that I appreciate him helping with dishes or laundry is showing him love, or giving him a big hug when he gets home from school. However, my 7 year old responds more to quality time, and words of affirmation. He will often push away from a hug, (not that he doesn’t want one from time to time) and would rather play a game or go for a walk together. I began to change the way I interacted with both of my boys to show them each the love language that they desired.

As I began to be conscious of how I was showing love to my boys I noticed a difference in them as well. My 10 year old started helping me with housework more often, even when not asked, and my 7 year old began giving me hugs instead of pushing away. I also noticed an overall change in the behavior of both boys. Making this small effort made a big difference in the love my boys felt from me. I know my heart overflows with love for them, but now I am sure they know it too!

The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman, Ph.D and Ross Campbell, M.D.

Close the Door

I had eight children of various ages in my home the other day. To give you some perspective of the chaos, we used a whole loaf of bread for lunch. Somehow throughout the day, we had difficulty keeping the door shut with all that coming and going. Everyone and every bug had free access to the house. It was without protection from outside intruders. We were killing flies all afternoon.

We didn’t intentionally leave our home open to intruders, but we forgot to enact a plan to protect it. It reminded me to review how often we are intentional about the spiritual protection of our home and everyone in it. E. Stanley Jones coined this phrase, “When prayer fades out, power fades out.” I have power through Jesus to protect my house from the forces of evil, and I can choose to be wise about wielding that power through the Holy Spirit.

We are becoming more intentional in praying specifically for our own home as a place of refuge that embraces everyone, as a place of grace that allows mistakes, as a place of forgiveness and as a place of growth where each person’s unique gifting is encouraged. We pray to be a light of love to the neighborhood we serve. Several of our conversations with God include binding satan and his attacks on our home in order to allow us to stand as a vanguard for the gospel.

The battle is real, but the Holy Spirit provides tools for the fight.  We have the guidance and power of the Word of God for our protection and direction. If we are diligent in practicing protection, we will not be taken by surprise in all of our comings and goings. A good offense is the best defense.

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,

so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need

Hebrews 4:16

Sometimes I have looked back on a day where everything is going wrong to realize I forgot to take the time to cover our home in prayer. I have squandered the power given to me. I was lazy in executing my offensive strategy and had to rely only on defense; I forgot to close the door. On these days, only by God’s grace I see how much effort was wasted on chasing down flies.

• Family Tool for Prayer:  Create a prayer book for your family. Get a notebook and write down meaningful verses on the power of prayer. Also use it to write you own prayers for your home and each member. Take turns reading and recording family prayers.

• Books we Like: Habits of a Child’s Heart by Hess and Garlett & Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster

Changing perspective – The Hooper Family

Ali Hooper is our guest blogger this week. The Hooper family continues to be a huge blessing to Vista. I am often inspired by their hospitality and service to all in the name of Jesus. This entry from Ali exemplifies what it means to live at the intersection of Jesus and real life.

I recently gave birth to my second child, a daughter, and when I arrived home from the hospital, my son was sick with croup. Within a week, both my husband and I started experiencing cold symptoms, and within two weeks, my newborn daughter was congested. It wasn’t long before all four of us were miserably sick.

One night, as I wearily nursed my baby girl, I became overwhelmed with emotion, and the tears poured out. “Why, Lord, why? Why can’t we catch a break? I’m too sick and sore to meet my family’s needs (I was also recovering from a c-section), and my husband can hardly function as he suffers the flu. And my babies are miserably sick. Why us, Lord?”

I was exhausted, discouraged, and frustrated. But God was quick to respond. And, no, He didn’t say, “Okay, Ali, you survived my test and everything will be better in the morning.” Rather, He said, “Do everything without complaining.” (Philippians 2:14)

God commands us to refrain from complaining, and amidst my sniffles, tears, and sore abdomen, I knew He wanted me to change my perspective.

But He didn’t stop there; He wanted even more from me. As you might imagine, my first thought was, “Seriously, God? It’s not enough for me to shut my mouth and refrain from complaining?”

“No,” He said, “Be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances.” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18)

WHAT? Be joyful?! I’m miserable. And my son has a fever of 101 degrees. My daughter fights nursing because she can hardly breathe. Sure, I’ll pray, but what do I have to be thankful for?

And then it hit me. I have a FAMILY. I have a son and a daughter who are alive and well. I have a husband who is not deployed, deceased, or uninvolved. I have the strength to nurse my daughter, and I have the ability to care for my family even if I don’t “feel” like it. I have so much for which to thank God. I have plenty that brings me joy. And it is with that perspective that I was able to glorify God even when my tendency was to be discouraged and frustrated.

It is this perspective that God wants us to adopt in ALL things. As parents, this can be difficult, to say the least. We are quick to complain about our unruly toddler. We often forget to express joy when our teenager disappoints us. We fail to give thanks when our baby is up for the fifth time in one night.

Often when people ask me, “how are you doing?” I quickly respond, “I can’t complain.” Because, really, I can’t. But too often, I do. Sometimes I am quick with this response simply to remind myself that I C-A-N-N-O-T complain. Yes, we should have emotions – frustration, sadness, anger – but ultimately, we need to honor God amidst our sufferings.

Things did not automatically improve after that long night. In fact, we are still on the mend. But because of God’s Word, I am more likely to embrace my sniffling daughter rather than complain. I am more likely to cuddle with my snot-nosed toddler rather than be discouraged. And I am more likely to show my family God’s greatest commandment to all of us: Love.

You can read more about the Hooper family at Ali’s Blog: www.blessedtreehouse.com

Tying shoes

Our youngest, Aaron, had to learn how to tie his shoes for kindergarten; this become nessesary when the shoes with laces were cheaper than the velcro ones. Tim worked diligently with him for three days, and  Aaron mastered the task beautifully as God has gifted him with excellent fine motor skills. Through this process, we kept telling him this truth. Hearing our confidence in his fine motor skills allowed him to be diligent in practicing.

Speaking truth into a child’s life has lasting consequence. We acknowledge who God uniquely created them to be by affirming their gifts and talents; this affrimation helps them start to process the specialzed role that God has chosen them for. We believe that this is what God means by “the way a child will go” in Proverbs 22:6. Most schools have adopted this process in behavior modification practices. They say 3 affirmations about a child before attempting consructive criticism. How I wish I could remember to do that every day for my family!

We use 1 Thessalonias 5: 11 “encourage one another and build eachother up” to keep our thoughts on affirmation not critisism. Affrimation brings motivation. By focusing on the strengths of others, we push them closer to the person God has created them to be. This is true of tieing shoes, making the grade, finishing the project or  making wise choices. Much is to be gained by celebrating the unique giftings of the individuals in our midst.

Great book about questions kids ask about God: Does God Know How to Tie Shoes? by Nancy White Carlstrom

Resources we like: Words Kids Need to Hear by David Staal