HomeFront Weekly

Have you ever wondered where the blessings we post on our FaceBook group come from?  You can find them right in your own weekly parenting page: the HomeFront Weekly. 

The HomeFront Weekly goes home with your kids every Sunday.  This resource is designed to allow your family to have time in God's Word before you come to church on Sunday.  

Because we believe God's plan is for parents to be the primary spiritual nurturers of their children's faith, we want YOU to be the one to introduce the weekly topic to your kids.  

Many of you have been picking up and trying the HomeFront Monthly magazine and tool kit.  It's so much fun!   But I don't think many of us have tried out the HomeFront Weekly.   

 Let's take a look at what it is....

 Last night my family did the HomeFront weekly together and I thought it might be fun to share some tips for trying it out yourself.

First we started with burning off excess energy.  Because with 3 boys, there's usually lots of that!   Hopefully your kids really like to sit quietly just for the fun of it...   ;-)

  If you do have kids like that, please feel free to skip this step entirely. 

Ok, but seriously; we start out by setting our kids expectations.  First we build up their expectations of what they can expect from God: a meaningful experience of feeding our soul with His Word.  Then we explain what we expect from them (open ears, minds and hearts, restful mouths & bodies).

They need to know this is a special time for us all to get into God's Word and to find out what cool message God's Spirit wants to share with us!  

We pray a simple but practical prayer of release.  Kids open their hands to God and a parent prays, "We release all our distractions to you, Lord.  Move in us."

We let our littler kiddos color or do something quiet with their hands.  

But we expect them to listen and participate with their ears and mouths.  

Here are our littles coloring the weekly FaithBook.  

1st-6th Grade kids take a FaithBook home every Sunday.  It is like a journal of the things they learned at church.  

  The last 2 pages of the FaithBook are the HomeFront Weekly Parenting Pages.   It leads families to interact with the topic coming up in Sunday's lesson.
This week it's "God's Spirit Unifies."

Hey!  Look there!  The red arrow is pointing right at the Prayer of Blessing.

The Tru Story (1st-6th Grade) HomeFront Weekly has the weekly scripture printed on the first page.  We had our older kids look it up in their Bibles and take turns reading it out loud for us.

It kind of makes a kid feel good to read God's Word aloud to his family.  

Then we discussed the questions under the "Teachable Moments" section on the second page.  Somewhere along the way we read the "Did You Know?" section for fun too.

There is a HomeFront Weekly for each of the four age-groups: TruBlessings for Toddlers (Birth-3 years), TruWonder for Preschoolers (3's-Kindergarten), TruStory for Grade-Schoolers (1st-6th) and TruIdentity for Students (7th-12th grade).

3 of our 4 kids are in grade-school so we did the TruStory HomeFront Weekly for grade-schoolers all together.  If your kids are in a variety of age groups, you can also do them as one-on-one devotional time with each child separately.  

The idea here is that it is really fun to talk to your kids about God in the middle of the week.  And we want you to have the resources that make it fun and easy to do!  Try out HomeFront Weekly some time soon and let us know how you liked it.  Post on FaceBook or email me anytime: jennal@vccfresno.org

If you can't find yours at home - email me and I'll send you one! 

HomeFront Monthly: February 2015

Happy Valentine's Day!  What a perfect day to reflect on the biggest love the world will ever know: the unending, far-reaching, never-giving-up love of GOD!

This month's HomeFront Magazine can help us take a minute out of our busy week to Remember and Celebrate the priceless LOVE of God.  

Our group chose to do the activity on pages 6 & 7, "Love Letters" of this month's HomeFront Magazine (a Spiritual Parenting Resource).

We read about God's love from our HomeFront Magazine (page 7), then picked 3 favorite verses about love (out of the hundreds God put in there).  

Several kids volunteered to read the scriptures while we soaked up what they meant to us.  I simply wrote them out on little paper hearts like a love letter from their Heavenly Father.

And as we chose our yarn colors, glued them onto the wooden letters and wrapped the yarn round and round the edges, I believe our hearts were remembering that God IS love.  LOVE is His very nature.   There are so many "Love Letters" in His Word, written to tell us that His Love will never end.

And to remind us that even when we don't get it right, even when we make a mess, His love is always  bigger and stronger than anywhere we fall short.  His love is a love we can model our lives after.

Because sometimes when a 4 year old tries to follow your lead, it gets a little jumbled (note the "L" below).  But God's love is bigger than perfection, it is God's power made strong in our weakness.

And its message reminds us that "Love comes from God and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God."  {read 1 John 4:7-10}.

How can we model God's love today?  Everyday?  

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us."  ( 1 John 3:16a)

Read a few of God's "Love Letters" today with your kids:

Romans 8:28, Ephesians 3:17-21, 1 John 3:1,  and 1 John 4:16.  

HomeFront Monthly: January 2015

This month's HomeFront magazine covers the environment of Course Correction.  The environment of Course Correction teaches us that "When I get off track, God offers me a path of healing."

There are some GREAT ideas in this month's magazine to help you have a family night in your home and help you create the environment of Course Correction in your family's life.  

This week our CARE Group did the activity on page 9 "A Word to Guide".  The idea behind this activity is to pick a word that will guide your family through out the year.  

Each family decides what their guiding word will be and prints it on paper to tape to a repurposed piece of wood (ours were from an old pallet).  

Then begins the noisy job of hammering nails into the outline of the letters.

The younger kids can actually do some of this project with a little guidance.  And even if they mess up, It's OK!  Just little correction will get them back on track.  ...{Ahem} Another small way to practice course correction!

Once the nails are all in place, you can tear the paper away and string the letters with whatever color your family likes.  Each family picked their words (and colors) for reasons that were special to them.

One family chose the word "You" to remind them to take their focus off of "me" more this year.  What a great way to lead our children to think "How can I bless YOU?" 

Every time they glance at it on the hearth, it will help guide the course of their hearts for the year.

  

Our family chose "hope" to remind us that our hope is in The Lord.  We want to continually look to God for our hope in each circumstance.  (Psalm 25)

 If you haven't tried something out of this month's HomeFront magazine, this is a great one to try! We may just make a yearly tradition in our family.  What guiding word is God putting on your heart for this year?

(You can find the free January HomeFront Magazine here)

Get Me To The Church On Time

The kids and I were late to church this Sunday.  Have you ever been late to church? (I assume this is a rhetorical question.)  Since we can all relate, I'd like to start a conversation about how you get to church on time. 

And this is probably a timely discussion because…

This Sunday the children’s Christmas choir (4 yr olds-6^th grade) will be performing in both services.  So we are asking families to get to church a little early this Sunday so we'll have time to arrange the kids before going on stage. 

There are probably some of us that would say it is harder to get the family to church early than it is to pass a camel through the eye of a needle.  But surely it’s not impossible.  For goodness sake, we have the power of GOD on our side, right!?   “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

How do you get your family to church on time?

In the Livingston home, have a pretty solid routine.   Saturday we pretty much wrap up whatever we are doing and make sure we are home, eating dinner and taking showers by 5:30.   We roll a die to see which boy showers first, because naturally they try to argue about it.  The dice idea was Matt's - it's just a little parenting judo.  We try to head off all disasters before they happen.  We lay out the Sunday clothes before going to bed.  It is early to bed, early to rise for us on Saturdays and Sundays.  Kids are in bed by 8:00pm Sat and up by 7:00am Sunday.  In the mornings, nobody plays until they are fully ready.  The first person ready often earns extra screen time for the week. 

But this last weekend was more like a comedy of errors than a well oiled machine at our house.  Our good plans went up in smoke.  We were out Christmas shopping Saturday afternoon when, on the way home, someone had to pee.  NOW.  Did you know CVS doesn’t have a public restroom?  And evidently our kids don’t really like peeing in the bushes, at night, in a parking lot.  Who knew? They sure like to pee in the bushes at home!  So after going on a “searching for a potty adventure”, we were home 30 minutes later than expected.  There was only time for 3 kids to shower before bed.   It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but the little snowball of chaos grew…

In the morning nothing went according to plan.  It started when our sweet little girl refused to take a bath because she really wanted to “stay stinky”.  After that fun discipline issue, Matt left early so he could start the Sunday morning duties at church on time.  And so here I was alone … and we all know how children try to go crazy on Sunday mornings, forgetting all rules and common sense.  Here are a few things I actually found myself saying:

“Don’t lock your brother out on the porch!”

“Stop squirting your sister!”

“Nobody is riding that bicycle inside the house.”

And after seeing one boy bouncing down the hall on our giant exercise ball:

“Put. Your. Pants. On.  NOW!”

So, this Sunday when you think about getting your kids to church early for their performance, know that we all understand what it takes.  Plan ahead.  Have a strategy.  Stay strong.

Go to our Facebook group: “VCC Families” and join the conversation:

“How do you get to church on time?”

12 Days of Christmas

If you are doing our "12 Days of Christmas" devotionals these are the videos we've found to correspond with each of the cards in your set.  We pray these touch your heart, fill you with awe and joy.  Enjoy!

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "CANDLES".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "ORNAMENTS".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "STAR".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "SANTA"

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "ANGELS".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "GIFTS".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "CHRISTMAS CARDS".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "THE NATIVITY".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "BAKING".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "LIGHTS".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "CHRISTMAS TREE".

Click here for the video that goes with the devotion for "CANDY CANES".

Don't forget: you don't need to do the 12 Days of Christmas in any particular order or on any particular day.  Just do one whenever you find your family needs a little "pause" to rest and remember the true Spirit of Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!

HomeFront Family Night: Words of Identity

This month's HomeFront magazine explores the environment of Identity.  

This week our CARE group tried out the
"Resting on the Truth" activity on page 12.

Each child got a pillow case and a marker.  

After inserting cardboard in between the layers, 

we filled the surface with words of identity.

Some of those words of identity in Christ were chosen by the kids, 

others were chosen by their parents.

In the end, beautiful truth covered each child's pillow case.  

As they lay their heads down each night, our kids will rest on a reminder 

of who they really are in Christ.

They are loved.  They are chosen.  They are special.  

Courageous.  Strong.  Anointed.  Saved.  Redeemed.  

This was a meaningful and fun activity that would make a wonderful family night this month!  Try it out with your family.  You can find the free HomeFront magazine here.  The kids in our group ranged from 3 to 13 but I think older teenagers would enjoy this too.  Some people even got quite artistic, decorating with pictures and fancy lettering.  

Can you imagine how special such a keepsake would have become to you as a child?

We want these words of truth to sink deep into our kids. 

Knowing who you really are in Christ can make ALL the difference 

when facing the many labels the world tries to give.

HomeFront Magazine

HomeFront Magazine is an incredible resource full of crafts, games, recipes, stories, conversations and ideas to help you start a monthly (or weekly) family night in your home.

Each month the magazine focuses on one of ten spiritual environments.  Think of these as 10 essential Biblical truths that you can build your family's spiritual life upon.

We've been using this resource for the last 2 years in our CARE group.  I wanted to give you a peak into a couple of the cool things we've done.

For the environment of Service we made Thanksgiving garlands with "Acts of Service" written onto our leaf cut-outs:

For the environment of Responsibility we made "Blessing Bags": gift bags filled with treats and essentials to give to some of the homeless people we drive by in our cars.

You can get the monthly HomeFront magazine on your smart phone.  Search "HomeFront" in your app store.  You can also sign up here to receive it free each month right to your email inbox.  And we will even have some printed copies at the VCC Families table in the courtyard.