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 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.

November 2014: The Environment of Identity

Who are you?  Do you know?  Did you know that you are Chosen?  Holy?  God's Special Possession?  It's all true.  You are highly favored!

This month we focus on the Environment of Identity which invites to us to hold tightly to the truth that "I belong to God and He loves me!" so that it can come alive in our families.  Every month of the year we will focus on one of Ten Environments.  Each of these ten captures an essential Biblical Truth that all work together to provide our children with an intentional faith foundation.

How will you weave these environments into the atmosphere of your home? This blog will be here to help you figure that out.

The Environment of Identity highlights who we are in Christ.  According to Ephesians 1, we have been chosen, adopted, redeemed, sealed and given an inheritance in Christ... all of which we did nothing to earn.  This conviction allows children to stand firm against the destructive counter identities the world will offer.

We can start adorning our homes with the Environment of Identity using this month's Family Verse.  At our house, we write the monthly verse on a chalkboard in the dining room.  That way we can read it a few nights a week at dinner and, by the end of the month, we usually have it memorized.  Our friends like to write it on their bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker or a taped note.  However you do it, display the verse, read it aloud and talk about it once in a while.  

Ask your kids: "Do you know who you are?"  "Did you know that you are chosen?  Holy?  God's Special Possession?"  It's all true.  You are highly favored!