"I have a senior party at a professor's home in Winter Park. Can you meet me there?" Diego asked Rose. "The directions are complicated so meet me at the park."

Rose, knowing it was a dressy party, wore a beautiful red dress.

When she got to the park, Diego met her at her car. "Can I show you something first?" he asked. 

He led her to the park's gazebo which was covered with rose petals. Along the perimeter of the gazebo were photographs of Diego and Rose together. 

There was also a basin of water and a towel. 

After sharing with Rose why he admired her as a woman of God, he washed her feet. 

As he washed her feet, he told her that he wanted to serve her, to lay down his life for her, and to always point her to Jesus. 

Making memories together builds unity in a group. Remembering the members of your church on special days and helping to make them special gives them a sense of value and worth. God calls His Church a family. Families celebrate special times together. 

Here are some ideas to make special days special.

Birthdays:

Call and sing "Happy Birthday" over the phone for a church friend’s birthday.
Gather birthdates of all church members and remember each person's birthday with a card, note, or postcard.
Let small groups celebrate all the birthdays from that month in one of the group meetings. Have a birthday cake with everyone's name on it. Pray over the birthday people. Thank the Lord for them and ask for God's blessings on their lives over the coming year.
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Anniversaries:

The Church is composed of all believers in Jesus throughout the earth and in your area, the Church consists of all believers in Jesus living in that vicinity. This large, diverse group is divided into local churches where people live out the teachings of God revealed in His Word. 
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Purpose of the Local Church:

God is a relational God. He wants to have a relationship with us. He wants us to have relationships with one another. When we are planted in a local church, we are able to build relationships and live out the commands addressed to Christians in the New Testament. We can love one another and meet one another's needs proving to the world that we really are His disciples. There is the protection of accountability. There are stronger Christians who we can model our lives after and weaker Christians we can help grow to maturity. Small groups foster relationship building.

While the is a common purpose and goal shared by all local churches (making disciples, worshipping God, reaching the lost), each local church has an unique calling and purpose. One local church might be very strong in teaching the Word of God and strong doctrine. One local church might be actively reaching a poor neighborhood meeting practical needs and sharing the love of Jesus. One church may be filled with gifted artists, actors, and musicians who are winning the lost to Christ through the arts:  drama, music, paintings, and sculpture. Most local churches attempt to be balanced, but truthfully, one church cannot do all there is to do.

Experiencing the Call on your Local Church
 
The local pastors, elders and others leaders attempt to hear from God and determine His vision for the church. Then they motivate and equip the rest of the congregation to fulfill that vision. 

There will be a desire to care for the flock, reach the unsaved and love the Lord through worship, but these things may have an unique flair or style that is different from other churches. One local church's worship may be especially enthusiastic and demonstrative. Another church's worship may be more formal and dignified. One church may feel called to make disciples of the nations by reaching out to international students, taking lots of short-term mission trips and spending lots of their revenue on foreign missions. Another church may just support one missionary but be very active in training their congregation to share the Gospel and do lots of contact evangelism.
Small groups are a place to learn what beats in the heart of the church. 

Living out our Family Responsibilities:

While pastoring a church is a high calling, it can be a career filled with loneliness, frustration and burdens. Many people do not understand the great demands and responsibilities placed upon a pastor and his family. The encouragement, love and respect of a congregation can go a long way in making pastoring a joy and delight rather than a burden.

My husband has the privilege of pastoring a wonderful group of people who make his job of leading the church a blessing,not a burden. Not only do they express love for him, but for the children and me! 

Since our church family is so good at loving and encouraging us, I thought I'd share some things that they do. Be sure to try some of these things to bless your pastor and his family!

Believe the Best  

When you hear anything about anyone, believe the best rather than the worst as the flesh often would have us do. When people assume the best possible scenario, we are set up for success rather than failure. When people hear or see things and automatically assume the worst, we feel like a hunted animal—people are just waiting for us to mess up.

Let your pastor know that you believe that God has brought him to your church and will use him to do great things!
Let your pastor know that you support him and will stand with him as you move forward as a church to accomplish all that God has for you to do.
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Don't Expect Perfection  

​Decision-making can be challenging when you find yourself married to someone who thinks differently that you do.

Wanting my teens to grow up to have healthy, happy marriages, I gave them a taste of the challenge of husband-wife decision-making. And I wanted it to be fun.​​
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Here is the game I came up with.

The idea is to keep it lighthearted so everyone can laugh together. 

The game does require at least 6-10 teens with half guys and half girls.

You make a circle of chair pairs. The outer chair is empty. Each girl takes an inner chair. She will remain stationary and the guys will move girl to girl when the buzzer sounds.

Next, each teen is given the same piece of paper with four scenarios on it. Each scenario requires decision-making as a team.

Now, every guy takes a seat next to a girl. When the buzzer sounds, you will have five minutes to make a decision together. When the buzzer sounds again, the guy moves to the next girl and every team moves on to scenario two and makes the next decision together. The guys keep moving until the scenarios are finished.
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Here are the scenarios. 

I love meeting moms who have raised godly children who are raising godly children. You see, I want to learn from women who have done it right and have good fruit to show for it. I also love meeting moms who are funny and spunky.

So, for me, reviewing this book was not like other reviews because I got to meet a happy, energetic mom who has run the race and is now enjoying her grandchildren. Her daughter is carrying on the principles her mother lived by and heartily endorsing them.

Secret Cody Time: Creating an Unbreakable Bond between Parent and Child by Sky McNeill and Paula Stevenson is a book about relationships. This lovely book is not just for homeschooling families. Any parent that wants to forge a close relationship with his/her child will appreciate this book.

Secret Code Time is written by Paula and Sky, a mother/daughter team who believe in the relational principles of Secret Code Time and practice what they preach. Well written and engaging, the book is 142 pages long. Not a long book to get through. You will enjoy all the photographs through the pages of the authors and their family. The book itself looks lovely and would make a great gift for another homeschooling mom for birthday or Christmas.

When Sky was a baby, Paula purposed in her heart to begin building a lifetime friendship with her daughter. The foundation of the this relationship is loving communication.

When Sky needed to talk to Paula, she would say, "Secret Code Time 305." Paula would drop everything. Sky was able to say anything she wanted without fear of punishment, reprimand, or any other reprisals. Sky could talk to Paula about anything, any place, any time.

This established complete trust as the foundation of their mother/daughter relationship. They remained close through the middle and high school years. Today, they remain dear friends and Sky has continued this tradition with her own children.

Paula did instruct, encourage, and help Sky walk through issues in her life with Biblical principles, but Secret Code Time was simply a time that Sky could share her thoughts and feelings freely.

Another relationship builder was a weekly date with Mom and a weekly date with Dad. Though Paula admits that weekly dates would be impossible with large families, she does encourage monthly dates instead for parents of many children. Paula did everything she could to make these dates special by dressing up, going some place fun, and even shopping for special treats.

Paula began these all these habits with Sky when she was a very young child and calls it "Advanced Parenting." She set the stage early in life for Sky to know that she was valued and loved unconditionally.

What about Boys?

While some boys are great talkers, willing to share their emotions with Mom and Dad, others would rather visit the dentist than share their feelings. So, can this work with boys too?

There is advice given to help with boys who are more active and less likely to want to sit and chat. Recommendations include throwing the football together or engaging in an active pastime together first. But, the authors believe that Secret Code Time is just as important for boys as it is for girls.

Does the Book Talk about Anything Else?

"There is just so much to cover this year!  How can I get it all done?" has been asked of me more times than I can count. 

  My favorite subjects to teach are music and history!  What fun we have had exploring these subjects over the years. But I have found that it is important to "major on the majors" and "minor on the minors."

There are subjects and then there are tools and skills that are needed to learn all subjects.  When we give our children the tools of learning, they can explore every subject to their heart's content. 

After homeschooling for 21 years with a sixth, eighth, and eleventh grader still being educated at home, I have found that there are seven things (7 R's) that make a big difference in the success of our family's homeschool.  From Kindergarten through twelfth grade, I try to keep these things predominant in my homeschooling: relationships, rhetoric, reading, (w)riting, (a)rithmetic, research, and right living.  I weave them in to all that I teach or that our family explores through unit studies. These are not the only subjects in our homeschool curriculum, but they are the ones that get priority.

Relationships

Lives are changed in the context of relationships!  People, including your children, hunger and seek to be loved and understood.  The security that comes with healthy relationships allows people to learn and grow, reaching their full potential and destiny. 

The most important relationship that your child will ever have is his/her relationship with the Lord. Let your little ones see how much you love the Lord, especially by setting aside time each day to spend in prayer and Bible reading. Be committed to church, tithing, obedience, and serving because you love Jesus with all your heart.  Teach your children to have a relationship with Him too!

Children (and adults too!) want to model people they admire and trust, especially if they believe those people have their best interest at heart. When your child enjoys a healthy relationship with you, he/she is more likely to try to imitate your life, as well as attempt to please you!  This desire to please parents is present in almost all children, but ebbs away in teenage years if the relationship does not remain strong.

Rhetoric (verbal communication)

Rhetoric refers to communication both written and oral, but I'll use it to refer to verbal communication from casual conversations to formal speeches. 

Casual conversation, questions, and answers are the beginning of education for young children. "Why is the sky blue," your toddler asks you and prattles on with more questions.  From the time your little ones can talk, engage them in conversation. "Did you like the pretty pictures in the book?" you might ask after you finish reading them a book.  "What was your favorite part of our day," you query as you and your toddler set the table.  Don't shoo children away--talk to them about everything!  Speaking requires thought processes that stimulate intellectual growth! Ask questions and answer them!  Put down what you're doing if you need to and give your child undivided attention. But learn to talk with your child as you wash dishes, run errands, and cook dinner.

Before formal speeches, give your children plenty of practice reading the Bible, stories, and poetry aloud.  Encourage expression, inflection, and enthusiasm in the presentation. It is a great idea for older siblings to read to younger siblings, especially for the three years after they've learned to read. 

Eventually you will graduate to speaking in front of people to formal speeches to debate.

Reading

Listening to well-written beautifully illustrated story books make toddlers and pre-schoolers look forward to the day that they will read for themselves. As Christians, what joy there is in reading and obeying the Word of God!  No matter what career they choose or lifestyle they live, we all want our children to be Bible readers, understanding everything the Lord has to teach them. Reading is a necessary skill for growing in your walk with the Lord!

Phonics is the method I have used to teach all my children to read (Sing, Spell, Read, and Write) and they have all learned in about a year's time. The goal was to get them reading!  My son was less enthusiastic about reading then all his older sisters, so I had to "make him read."  I had to search for books he liked.  The "Three Cousins Detective" series and "Childhood of Famous Americans" were both series that he enjoyed, so I bought every book I could find in the series. 

To foster a love for reading, I allow the children to choose the books the want to read within parameters.  I have book lists for various ages (feel free to download these lists:  http://joyfulandsuccessfulhomeschooling.com/readinglists.aspx ) that are based on my actual bookshelves. 

Reading aloud is fun to do together as a family or with only one child at a time. We love reading aloud and snuggling. Reading and speaking lay the foundation for writing.

'Riting

Writing concretely, concisely, and graciously is the goal of Understanding Writing, the writing curriculum I have used through the years. Written by a homeschool mom, she stresses writing to glorify God. We have added poetry, stories, journalizing, and other fun writing assignment to our writing lessons over the years. 

Reading good writing and expressing yourself clearly through speaking set children up to write well. You need both to lay the foundation a writer needs. 

Start with sentences. A sentence has five things. (noun, verb, complete thought, begins with a capital letter, and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point) Teach your children to examine their sentences for these five things.  Once that is down, help them to write clearly. Teach them to use adjectives and adverbs to express themselves and to avoid clutter words such as very, a lot, and really.

The next step is paragraphs. My children write a paragraph once a week from second grade until sixth grade.  Sometimes they write longer papers, but they always at least write a paragraph, I correct it, and then they rewrite it. Re-writing should be part 2 of every writing assignment. A good writer always rewrites! Don't be negative about it, though. Praise their papers and then move on to the next part of the assignment--making their paper better!

'Rithmetic

"The cheerful heart has a continuous feast!"  (Proverbs 15:15 NIV).

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones," (Proverbs 17:22 NIV).

Okay! It's time to share my deep dark homeschooling secrets with you! There are many!  Here are my confessions!

I don't fix breakfast for my children. Yep, it's true. As soon as my children leave the high chair, they are on their own for breakfast. If they want a hot meal they have to pull a stool up to the stove and cook it themselves or bribe an older sibling. My children don't even realize that there are mothers in the world who cook breakfast!

I would rather be shot in the head than teach my teenagers to drive. There! I admitted it! My children are all great drivers, but I am a terrible passenger. By the time we have backed out of the driveway, I am ready to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. I beg and plead with my husband to teach the children to drive. They seem to like learning from him better, anyway. Go figure.

There are millions of paper piles around my house. When I get rid of one, ten more take its place. My heart is to keep my home neat and tidy. File folders in the untold millions are labeled and in file cabinets, but still these piles appear! You can tell where I am and where I've been--just follow the paper piles.

A day at the beach by any other name is a field trip. Yes, it's true. I have put away the school books, loaded up the minivan, and driven over to the Florida coast for a day in the sun. Forgetting my cares, and sometimes my name, I have fallen sound asleep while the kids play in the sand and body surf in the waves. Sometimes they look for shells or capture poor innocent sea animals. I will go home, lather on aloe, and convince my husband that we went on a field trip.  "The field trip was a nature study on marine life." I can look my husband straight in the eye and say this. He begins to have doubts after the tenth nature study on marine life in one school year.

Technology is a necessary evil in the world we live in, but it is not my cup of tea. There are too many remotes in my house to understand what each one does, so I can't even turn on the  DVD player by myself.  I don't even like mechanical pencils. My computer can do fifty million things that I can't even comprehend, let alone make them happen. I force myself to learn one new thing each year on my computer. One year I learned that you can hit "reply to all" and respond to EVERYONE at the same time. It was a miracle and changed my life. This year I've already learned three new things--I'm way overwhelmed!

Starting a project is more fun than finishing one. Things are much more fun at the beginning of the adventure than when it is winding down. I have millions of unfinished sewing projects, novels, craft projects, and songs that I have never finished. Likewise, I enjoy the beginning of the school year more than the end. I love the fresh new start when we are eager to begin again after a long break. By February, I'm counting the days until summer.

When I was pregnant, I always fell asleep while homeschooling the other children. I would try so hard to keep my eyes open, but he minute I started reading aloud, I lulled myself right to sleep. Once the baby was born, nursing my new little one would put me to sleep too! It was so amazing when I weaned my youngest son. Two months later, I woke up one morning and, for the first time in twelve years, I had energy! It was wonderful! I don't fall asleep anymore while I homeschool. Now I fall asleep watching movies.

My children would rather play than do their schoolwork. They are not as eager to learn as all the self-motivated children in the homeschool books I've read. My children actually complain about school sometimes and I've had to discipline them for complaining. In the books I've read homeschooled children discover new stars, invent computer software, and rake lawns for all the elderly citizens in the town where they live. My children are just normal children, but I do like them!

I don't use math manipulatives--they are too much trouble. Yes, I own them, but I find that dragging them out of their special box onto the table to show my children a visual demonstration is just too much for me to handle. So, though I believe that hands-on math is the best way to learn, my children use workbooks with brightly colored pictures instead.

_  "Hi, Mom. How was your meeting?"

"Well, it didn't go quite as I had planned?' I answered my middle daughter, Jenny-Rose, a senior in high school.

"I'm so sorry," she replied empathetically. "What happened?"

"If you don't mind, I don't want to rehash it. Needless to say, there were several people who did not see eye to eye and the meeting had many awkward moments."

"Can I pray for you?"

"Yes, thank you, Rosie. Please!"

Yes, this is a real conversation that took place in our home. My Rosie is gentle and sweet, noticing when I need some encouragement. When she is discouraged, we talk and I pray for her. I have four daughters and we all pour our hearts out to one another. There is always one of us girls who needs to talk and another who is willing to listen.

Strong relationships are built upon healthy communication. How can we improve communication with our teens?

Put a Tent on Their Forehead

_ "Place a ten on their forehead," Pastor Mike was explaining. "Let people know that on a scale of one to ten, they rate a ten in your eyes. When you look at your children, picture a ten on their forehead."

Laura had a puzzled look on her face.

"Is something wrong?" my husband asked.

"Well, I understand your point, but I don't see how picturing a tent on Zack's forehead will help me value him more," Laura answered referring to her son.

We all laughed and, to this day, we speak of putting a tent on someone's forehead.

Place value on your teens! Let them know that they are A-#1 in your eyes. Remind them over and over of how much joy and blessing they bring to your life.

Speak Respectfully to your Teens

Treat your teens with respect as people. Thank them, apologize to them, and honor them whenever it is appropriate to do so. Try saying, "Would you please take out the garbage?" instead of "Are you ever going to get this garbage out?" Talk to your children they way you would talk to friends that you really admire.

Respect is really a heart issue. No matter how hard we try to cover it up and how good of a job we think we are doing, teens can always tell when you are frustrated with them. The only way to overcome frustration and anger is to go to the Lord and keep praying until His love floods your soul!

Control your Voice Level