a family roadmap resource

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about building a family road map, I want to share with you a great resource that you are probably going to want to get your hands on. Joe and Aime McGinnis, the authors of “The Family Road Map,” have been dear friends for the past 9 years. We’ve seen these guys up close and personal on multiple family vacations, late nights playing cards and Settlers of Catan, serving together for 5 years at a mega-church in the Midwest, and co-teaching parenting courses. I can tell you first hand that they are the real deal. The tools you’ll find in “The Family Road Map” are born out of real life stuff and will help you build a plan to help you get where God wants your children to be.

Many parents want to lead their children on a spiritual journey, but they just don’t know how. “The Family Road Map” answers the question, “But how?” This workbook is designed to be a step-by-step guide for parents in planning the purpose and direction of their family. “The Family Road Map” will guide parents through creating a family purpose statement, establishing family values, identifying key mile-markers for their children, and thoroughly evaluating the yearly personal growth of each of their children. “The Family Road Map” will serve as a guide for parents in raising their children to become all that God wants them to be.

Get a free look inside the Family Road Map

Get your own copy of The Family Road Map

Posted in Family, Leadership, Spiritual Formation

1

building a family roadmap

Monday, April 12, 2010

A few months ago I had the opportunity to spend a week in San Diego with some Executive Pastors who serve in large Churches from all across America in a round table conversation about life and ministry. As we built the agenda for our conversation a request came from the room down the hall where many of our wives were meeting, “Would you please discuss coming up with a better plan to minister to your family while ministering to the Church?” A fair request, but in a room full of driving, get it done guys who have a tendency to be addicted to progress it quickly became a sobering conversation.

The concern that arose in that room is the classic case of the shoemakers’ kids going without shoes. Call it a priority problem, neglect, or just plain sin the truth is that most of us in ministry know that conversation all too well. So is it possible to build an intentional plan to minister to your family while ministering to others?

Some time ago my wife came to me with a similar concern. The conversation pretty much went like this, “You help plan teaching series for thousands of people, mission trips, multimillion dollar budgets, hiring and staffing plans, and strategies to move an organization with over 6,000 people in it forward, you think we can come up with a plan for our family?” I had nothing. She was right. I was a schmuck and needed simply to repent and lead more effectively. After all people write business plans, marketing plans, financial plans, education plans, personal development plans and so on. Why not a plan for our family? So we went to work discussing the following categories:

Posted in Family, Spiritual Formation

0

a mile deep and an inch wide

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Maturity is not what you know, but what you do with what you know. It is God’s people acting in obedience to what has been revealed to them! You see, knowledge is not the same as discipleship or spiritual maturity, it’s just not. For years I’ve heard people shout in protest and warning to the mega-church movement, “It’s possible to be a mile wide and an inch deep.” Thank you for pointing that out “Caption Obvious” I’ll affirm and heed the warning. But what scares me to death for the Church of America today is the more subtle and more probable trapping of being a mile deep and an inch wide. Or, at least the appearance of it. For years in Churches across America we’ve concerned ourselves with dumping more information into our people through countless sermons, bible studies, Sunday School lessons, and prayer meetings. Information, information, information, and oh yes, a little more information. What the Church needs are leaders who will call people to action and motivate people to stop just simply coming to church and start being the church. To be obedient to what they know. How sad is it that many Christians I know will forget more about the Bible in their lifetime than most people will ever hear about or have the opportunity to know? The Scriptures would seek to teach us that knowledge that does not lead to obedience ends up leading us to an arrogant attitude, an exclusivist mindset, a judgmental spirit, and all sorts of sin that destroys the work of God in the Church and around the world. At Verge 2010 Ed Stetzer gave a talk that should stir your heart up on this issue more than a little bit. So you can process this a bit further I’ve put in a couple of short clips and quotes from that talk for you below.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

1

A shot worth taking

Monday, April 5, 2010

A couple of weeks ago Lisa and I went on a date to a fundraising dinner for an organization called Hoops of Hope, I was grossly outbid on a mission trip to Africa that Lisa desperately wanted to go on. I hung in there until 5k, but couldn’t come up with the 10k or so that I think it ended up going for. But we did walk away with a soccer ball that a boy in Uganda made by hand from some banana leaves. More than that, we walked away inspired by the courage and faith of a young man that is literally changing the world. The following is his story.

Posted in Spiritual Formation

0

Heading towards burnout Part-2

Monday, March 22, 2010

This post is part-2 of a conversation that we began together last week. It would be worth checking out part-1 of this post to catch up. So let’s go ahead and dive back into how you can know you’re heading towards burnout.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation