Podcast Recommendation

I have been downloading sermons by Gregg Harris of Household of Faith Community Church for a little while now and enjoying them very much.

If you have high speed internet (I wouldn't try it if you don't) you can go here and download recent sermons given by Gregg and some of the other elders of their church.

Here's my system...I download recent sermons into a folder dedicated for these. Then I put a few on my MP3 player. I take this with me when I go grocery shopping alone or if I make some sort of little trip/walk alone. I love listening to something meaty and useful while doing something necessary and monotonous. I walk through the produce aisle with my headphones on, I don't care. I'm multi-tasking.

I have really been ministered to by Mr. Harris. I recently listened to his March 4th sermon called The Root Causes of Religous Persecution and loved it. Well, I was both disturbed and encouraged I guess. Check it out.

One third of education is discipline

"The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; on the other hand she who lets habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction."


"If we fail to ease life by laying down habits of right thinking and right doing, habits of wrong thinking and wrong doing fix themselves of their own accord."

- Charlotte Mason

I see the wisdom in this thinking and I do strive for this, but I must admit, it's HARD to do. It's so much easier to just sit back and let the day happen. But when that happens there is usually chaos and clutter. (Let's face it, there is usually chaos and clutter anyway!) I want to give my children good habits, so that they are easy to continue in as they grow older. Charlotte Mason talks about habits as laying down train tracks. When the rails of habit are laid down lessons/routines can go along easily and smoothly along them. But laying down the rails takes a lot of effort.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. - Galations 6:9

Training

Family devotions

I just wanted to share a family devotion book that I have been using with the boys in the mornings (when things work out). It's a very short little read but filled with deep truths. It's called Training Hearts Teaching Minds by Starr Meade. I have read it's geared toward ages 6-12 year olds, but I am getting good information from it so I would say teens would enjoy it as well. They are family devotions based on the Shorter Catechism. I really like it. Sometimes just the idea of doing a "FAMILY DEVOTION" can seem overwhelming. But what I've found is just having a consistant time each day makes it easily accomplished without taking a lot of time or effort. I will admit, I have have not been as consistant as I would like in the past, and am making an attempt again.


What are catechisms and why should I teach them to my children?
Here is an excerpt from the book that explains it a bit.

A catechism is simply an instructional guide. It is a handbook of questions and answers designed to teach principles of religion. To "catechize" children is to teach them to memorize the answers found in a catechism, so that when the catechism questions are asked, the children can reply with the correct responses. Because a good catechism is at the same time concise and thorough, when children have learned it well, their understanding of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith can be tested and found to be complete. One excellent catechism is the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In concise fashion, it gives children key biblical teachings about God, scripture, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer.

Once, catechisms were used routinely. Church and family worked together to provide the most effective teaching possible for children growing up in Christian circles. Parents would work with their children at home, requiring them to memorize the answers to the catechism (and memorizing the answers themselves, as well). Families would discuss together the meaning of the questions and answers. Pastors would preach on topics addressed in the catechism and would systematically visit each family, asking the questions to see how well family members had learned the answers.

Unfortunately, the practice of catechizing children has fallen out of favor, both in families and in churches. One reason for this is a fascination with new educational techniques that stress experience, student participation, and choice. Rote memorization has fallen out of favor. Yet, the things I remember best from my childhood are the things I memorized. The "ABC" song we all sing when we have items to alphabetize, the multiplication tables, common nursery rhymes, even lines from Shakespeare that I memorized just because they were beautiful, long before I understood what they meant, all these are indelibly fixed in my memory. I can call them up any time I need them, confident that they will be there to serve me.

It is said that if we require our children to memorize by rote, they will only memorize meaningless sounds and words without understanding them. Certainly we do a disservice to our children if we insist they memorize words they do not understand, while we fail to take the time to discuss, teach and explain the meanings to them. The solution, however, is not to discard memorization as a teaching method, but to faithfully supply meaning by discussing and explaining.


Each weekly devotion has one question for the week, and then a short daily reading that builds on that question throughout the week. Here is a sample:

Question: What is Man's primary purpose?

Answer: Man's primary purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.


MONDAY
What happens when you use something for a purpose other than its real purpose? For example, what if you wanted whiter teeth, so you tried to brighten them up with white shoe polish? Would it work? Of course not! Shoe polish is for whitening shoes, not teeth. What would happen if you put marshmallows in your toaster? You would have a terrible mess, because toasters are for toasting bread, not marshmallows. Things work best when we use them for the purpose they were intended.

God had a purpose in mind for human beings when He created them. God intended for people to know and enjoy Him. Rocks and trees and kittens cannot enjoy God - but people can!

Read Psalm 16:11. This verse describes the joy and the pleasure people have in God when they live according to the purpose God has for them. Some people live as though their purpose were to have a good time or make a lot of money. People like this are never satisfied. They find that the joy of fun times or of having new things wears off. That is because they are not living according to the purpose God has for them. When we live to enjoy God, we are doing what God made us to do and our joy in Him will last.


What I do is keep two papers as a bookmarker in the book. One has the questions we are memorizing and the other the scripture verse we are memorizing (Psalm 127). We go over them each day, and it's surprising how quickly they memorize them. It's fun, I ask them the question and they try to give the answer (exact wording). They race to try to answer it. For example, right now I have these questions we are working on:

Part I - Questions about God, Man and Sin

1.Q. Who made you?

A. God made me

(Gn 1:26, 27; 2:7; Ec 12:1; Acts 17:24-29).

2. Q. What else did God make?

A. God made all things

(Gn 1, esp. verses 1, 31; Acts 14:15; Rm 11:36; Col 1:16).

3. Q. Why did God make you and all things?

A. For his own glory

(Ps 19:1; Jer 9:23, 24; Rv 4:11; 4:15).

4. Q. How can you glorify God?

A. By loving him and doing what he commands

(Ec 12:13; Mk 12:29-31; In 15:8-10; 1 Cor 10:31).

5. Q. Why ought you to glorify God?

A. Because he made me and takes care of me

(Rm 11:36; Rv 4:11; cf. Dan 4:39).

6. Q. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is only one God
(Deut 6:4; Jer 10:10; Mk 12:29; Acts 17:22-31).

7. Q. In how many persons does this one God exist?
A. In three persons
(Mt 3:16, 17; Jn 5:23; 10:30; 14:9, 10; 15:26; 16:13-15; 1 In 5:20, 2 In 9; Rv 1:4, 5).

8. Q. Who are they?
A. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
(Mt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2; Jude 20, 21).

9. Q. Who is God?

A. God is a Spirit, and does not have a body like men

(Jn 4:24; 2 Cor 3:17; 1 Tim 1:17).

10. Q. Where is God?

A. God is everywhere

(Ps 139:7-12; Jer 23:23,24; Acts 17:27,28).