Surviving the Holiday Stress: Just Give Up

     Christmas is less than a week away. School is out. Store shelves are picked over. Your kids are probably waiting anxiously to jump out of bed on Christmas morning and unwrap their gifts sitting under the tree. We can all remember that feeling, but that kind of anxious excitement is hard to match for adults.

     The Christmas season can bring a different kind of anxiety for us. Instead of night-before-Christmas excitement, we might feel anxious about keeping up with bills, finding the present that our kid really, really wants, or losing that inevitable holiday weight. Recently, I had some unexpected car trouble. When I got the estimate for the repair, my knee-jerk reaction was to worry. “How am I going to pay for this?” In all of our lives, we have things that stress us out. So how do we handle this anxiety? The answer: Just give up.

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

-Matthew 6:27, 31-32

 

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

-Philippians 4:6

     These classic passages from the Bible tell us to give up on anxiety and worry. I must admit that in stressful times, I’m not always thinking of how God is at work. If I do, it’s often in a sarcastic “How on earth is God providing for me right now?” Knowing that God cares enough about us to provide for our needs is a comforting truth. But there’s a difference between knowing this truth and acting on it.

     Jobs change. Cars change. Health changes. Friends change. These verses remind us that God’s love and kindness is not affected by the seasons or our situations. In a world of inconsistency, God doesn’t change. Instead of giving into worrying and anxiety, we need to hand over control to the God who can do something about it. We just need to give up.

Web Catch of the Week: The Most Important Routine of My Day

     In our last blog post, Pheaney outlined the importance of establishing routines that work in order to help us focus on the important parts of life. This got me thinking about one of the most important routines of the day - what I do when I get up in the morning. If you’re like me (and 90% of all 18-30 year-olds), you check your smartphone within the first 15 minutes of waking up. What I fill my mind with from the minute I get up affects the rest of my day. It also reveals the attitude and longings of my heart. This week I challenged myself to answer these two questions:

How does checking my phone fit into my morning routine?

Why do I go online immediately after waking up?

     Tony Reinke outlines Six Wrong Reasons to Check Your Phone in the Morning in his post on DesiringGod.org. As I read through the list, I found myself convicted about the number of reasons I tend to go directly to my smartphone in the morning. I frequently check my phone for entertainment or to get the latest news. But let’s face it, I don’t need to know what people said about the Minnesota Vikings the second I wake up. Reinke also gives us three reasons why we need our mornings to connect with God. Think of what a difference it could make to start a day by getting into God’s Word instead of getting distracted by emails, Facebook, or the news!

     I also found an article on the tech website cnet.com that gives some easy steps to keep our mornings cell phone free. Even once I realized that my phone habits were hurting my morning routine, I still found it easy to rationalize immediately reaching for my phone when I wake up. The author, Sarah Mitroff, calls out some common excuses for keeping your phone near you at all times. One of my favorites: "I don't want to be out of reach in case of a late-night emergency." Check out the article to see how she answers that objection. 

     In our technology-driven world, it may sound ridiculous to move away from your smartphone. Take some time to assess your morning routine. Do you need some boundaries for using your phone? How would your morning change with a little distance from your phone? What could you do with your morning instead checking your phone? Let us learn from you by leaving your wisdom in the comments.

Routines That Work

     I don’t know about you, but nothing makes me feel more on top of things than when I fall into a good routine. It's true for me both at work and at home. If I have a regular plan for how things should go and I execute that plan well, things hum along smoothly. On the other hand, nothing makes me feel more off my game than when I can’t settle into a groove. If my routines are disrupted, I get grumpy fast (you’ve been warned!).

     I don’t think this just applies me. Routines help all of us by letting us put the unimportant parts of life on autopilot. We all have laundry, dishes, cleaning, and a million other things that need to get done. When we have to spend time actively thinking about all of those things, we get dragged down. Honesty check! Have you ever had these laundry room thoughts: 

• “How many more days can I go without doing laundry?”  
• “I definitely did not buy this many pairs of socks for my kids. Where did they all come from?!”
• “That business about separating light clothes from dark clothes is probably an urban legend. I'll just dump all the clothes in together!”

Note: These examples have no correlation with my personal experience (No really, I promise.).

     Hopefully you get my point. If we have to give mundane but necessary tasks our full mental attention, it keeps us from focusing on what's truly important. I know that I’d rather focus on my relationship with God, my wife, and my kids instead of undone laundry and dirty dishes. Routines can automate the ‘need to get done’ parts of our life so we can spend more time focusing on what matters.

     The pitfall of a routine, of course, is that things can become so rote, so run-of-the-mill, that we stop caring. We all need a Parenting Wake Up Call from time to time to make sure we’re not putting all of life on auto-pilot. Our routines need to serve our families, giving us more focused time with them, and not robbing us of meaningful interaction. I recently heard a story of a husband who sent automated emails to his wife if he was working late. Let me go on record and state that I think that is a bad idea.

     Here are three Lindell family routines that work wonders for our sanity (and with 5 kids, we’re taking all of the extra sanity we can find!).

• Laundry Sorting Wednesdays. Every Wednesday evening before we start our bedtime routine, we all get our laundry to the washing machine and sort it into piles. Huge piles, like mountains. We get the first load started right away. Getting that head start allows us to have all of our clean laundry fully put away 24 hours later.  
• Bedtime Clean Up. Most of our bedtime routine is pretty standard: PJs, brushing teeth, reading stories. However, before we start those things we begin with a whole house clean up. Getting all the toys and general clutter picked up before the kids go to bed makes everything feel so much more peaceful. When we forget this part of the routine even for a night or two, things get messy fast!
• Grocery Shopping. We go grocery shopping every two weeks. We always go on the same day at the same time. Our shopping routine has two benefits. First, we don’t spend time wondering when we’re going to the store next. Second, we save money. The less we shop the less we spend.

     What about you? What routines have you found that work for your family? We’d love to learn from you! Leave a comment and share your wisdom.

Winter Camp 2015

     It's much easier to believe that the holidays are right around the corner with the first seasonal snowfall behind us. Did you take advantage by building snowmen, going sledding, or lighting your first fire under the mantle? Even if you didn't get a chance to enjoy the early snowfall, it reminds us that Christmas break is approaching, and that means it's almost time for Winter Camp!

     Winter Camp 2015 will have two sessions over Christmas break. We'll have plenty of your kids' favorite activities from summer camp, including crafts, Bible lessons, singing theme songs, and classic gym games. We'll also include some fun winter specific activities for your kids to enjoy while on break! Session 1 will run December 21-23, and Session 2 will be December 28-30. You can register for a single day, or get a discount when you register for a whole session. You can choose from one of our three available sites: East Peoria, Pekin, or Peoria Christian Center. Click the button below to start your online registration, or download the paper form if pen & paper is more your style.

Paper Registration Form

     Help spread the word about Winter Camp 2015 to your neighbors, coworkers, and friends by sharing this post on Facebook or sending a quick email. Brand new campers get their first day free! We can't wait to celebrate the Christmas season with you at Winter Camp 2015. 

Web Catch of the Week: Make Creative Christmas Gifts with Your Kids

     The holidays are supposed to be all about family, but my calendar says otherwise. Every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I fight a battle to make extra time for family when everything else is fighting for more of my attention. I'm sure you've felt this pressure, too. I may not have the secret formula to help you conquer everything on your Christmas to-do list, but here's a few tips to make creative Christmas gifts while making memories with your family.

     Michael Corley gives us a creative way to make 3D pop-up Christmas cards in his blog post on My Kids Adventures. His simple step-by-step instructions make it easy to create these unique cards. Your kids can be as creative or as simple as they want, since a pop-up card offers the flexibility to let your kids' personalities shine through. No matter who you send it to, a card like this is sure to earn a prominent place on the fridge. This would make a great gift with an added personal touch for friends and family you don't get the chance to see during the holiday season.

     When my wife and I were first married, we were in college and didn't have a big budget for Christmas gifts. Instead of buying something unique for every person on our Christmas list, we made gift bags filled with different homemade candies and baked goods. Making these treats at home was not only much more cost effective than buying them from the store, they were much, much tastier! We made a lot of gift bags out of just a few items, and I still have the memory of spending time with my wife while assembling the gift bags at the kitchen table. You can make tasty, budget-friendly, and memory-making gifts like this with your kids by using some of your favorite holiday recipes. If you need some inspiration, check out these 3 blog posts for ideas:

• Peppermint Crunch Puppy Chow
• Christmas Caramel Popcorn
• Chocolate Cherry Clusters - No Bake Cookies

     Hopefully these ideas aren't just another thing to add to your growing to-do list. I hope that you can use these to accomplish your tasks while including your family in the process! Leave a comment to let us know how you get your kids involved in the Christmas season tasks. Other families would love to learn from you!

Web Catch of the Week: Parenting Wake-Up Call

     Although we would never admit it, when it comes to parenting our children, it can be very easy to put things on auto-pilot. As parents, we want the best for our kids, and we strive to actively love and care for them. But if you're like me, real life often gets in the way of our desires. When the day-to-day grind comes in with its endless tasks lists, countless distractions, and continuous running to and fro, we put active and caring parenting on the back burner. What we end up trending towards is parenting by default - putting in less time and energy instead of more. We start doing less, despite our best intentions.

     I don't know about you, but I need a parenting wake-up call. Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries regularly writes about parenting on his blog, Cup O' Joe with Bill. He has some hilarious takes on parenting (like this one here), but more importantly, he provides the wake-up call that I need on a regular basis. In his post "The Disciple-Making Dad," he challenges us dads to be active players in raising our kids (instead of passively hoping that school teachers and youth pastors can do the job for us). Bill does a great job of balancing his challenges with encouragement,

"Great news dad. You don’t have to be perfect to be a Deuteronomy 6 disciplemaking dad. You do have to be present AND engaged though." 

What our kids need, more than a perfect parent, is a parent who is willing to disciple them in the every day moments.

     My wife regularly reads Jess Connell's blog, Grow on Purpose. In a recent blog post, she shared about some of the struggles that moms go through. I love that she fights the cultural norm of go-go-go and says it's fine (and even good) to spend time with your kids. She says:

"It is a HUGE thing to 'just' spend time with your children. Christ Himself spent three entire years with 12 grown men and some of them still took a while to really get it." 

     Take some time just to be with your kids. Look for potential disciple-making moments, but also realize that intentional focused time is one of the best things you can do, regardless of any cool stories or outcomes.

Here's to waking up and parenting to the best of our abilities.

Holiday Traditions That Matter: Point Your Kids to Jesus With Your Family's Holiday Plans

“What does your family do for the holidays? Anything special?”

     I asked a friend this question just this morning. I'm sure you've started to hear this question more now that winter is closing in. It usually sparks nostalgic conversations of childhood memories and time together with family. My friend answered my question by sharing some of his family traditions of going to basketball games, cooking food, and spending time with his grandparents. It got me thinking about my own family’s traditions, and I had to ask myself, “Why do we do all this stuff?”

     As I thought about it more, it was helpful to break things down into town categories: rituals and traditions. Most of us, myself included, fall into the habit of rituals: setting up a Christmas tree, giving presents to family, and saying what we’re thankful for at Thanksgiving without much intentionality. Rituals aren't bad, but they can have so much more meaning when they're rooted in a tradition. Simply giving my kids a gift at Christmas is performing a ritual. But, I can pass on a meaningful tradition by giving my kids a gift because it is a reminder that God gave us the ultimate gift by becoming a man in order to die in our place. God perfectly established the tradition of giving, and I can pass that on in a small way through giving gifts to my children.

      Traditions are much more than performing an empty ritual— they are passing on a truth from one generation to the next. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:2,

You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.

Starting traditions grounded in Scripture is an important aspect of discipling my own children, especially during the holidays.

     Here are a few ways to help us remember and teach our children the biblical truths behind some of our holiday rituals:

• Give each member of your family a chance to share how God has blessed them this year before you eat Thanksgiving dinner (It will be a chance to practice self-control too!).
• Use an Advent Calendar to keep the weeks leading up to Christmas focused on the truths behind our traditions and rituals. If you’ve never done this before, check out John Piper’s free ebook Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent. 
• Read the story of the wise men (Matthew 2:1-12) while wrapping presents for others.
• Read the Christmas story (Luke 2) while opening presents on Christmas morning.
• Read through the Gospel message of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Matthew 23-24) as a family on New Years to remind us of the new life we have been given in Christ.

     Keeping traditions focused on the Gospel can be both exciting and intimidating. Just remember that the goal is to simply remind ourselves and our family about the truths contained in Scripture. So let’s get creative to make this holiday season all about Jesus! What traditions does your family celebrate during the holiday season? How can we point our kids to Jesus in the chaos of Black Friday, school programs, and family gatherings? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Web Catch of the Week: What's on Your Kid's Phone?

     As a kid, I remember when the internet only seemed to be a long sequence of weird noises that sounded like the slow death of a robot - dial-up, AOL CDs, and having to log off the computer so my mom could make a phone call. Now, like almost everyone else, I have an iPhone in my pocket that gives me instant access to the internet. This technology is cutting-edge, but so was dial up internet to my parent's generation. What we consider cutting-edge is already commonplace to our kids. They know how to use a smartphone or tablet without any kind of instruction, and they know how to use it better than you do.

What's on your kid's phone? How do you protect your kids from the dark places of the internet? What apps do your kids use on a daily basis?

     These questions can seem overwhelming, and that's where great websites like iParent.tv come in. iParent.tv, founded by Craig Gross, gives parents reviews about the latest apps, devices, social networks, and websites that your kids are using right now. "iparent.tv allows you to learn what’s safe, what’s not, and what you need to do about it." Check out their site to explore what your kids are doing on their smartphones, and how you can help guide them to live safely in a digital world.

     Maybe you've passed the point of prevention. Maybe you've seen your kids internet history, you know who they follow on Instagram, and now you don't know how to address the situation. XXXChurch.com is another website you want to check out. XXXChurch, also founded by Craig Gross, provides help for people of all ages dealing with pornography and sex addiction. For specific advice on how to talk to your kid about pornography, check out "I Just Caught My Kid Looking at Porn." You can also find resources on their site for just about any scenario you might find yourself in when it comes to adult content. 

     To be sure, this is a very sensitive topic for most people. Honestly, I'm fearful for the day that I have to talk to my son about pornography. It's been a temptation of mine since I was young, and there's nothing I want more for my children than to avoid the mistakes of their dad. My prayer is that I'll be able to communicate the severity of this sin while at the same time showing unconditional love. I'll cling to the words of Jesus, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." -John 16:33 (NLT)