family

Natural in a Normal Family

May 17, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Welcome back to the Raising Health Families series, join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

read more about positively real media here

Written by Sara from Your Thriving Family

Many of us are trying to eat real food and get back to natural products, for what we believe to be the best for our families. The wall we sometimes hit, unfortunately, can be our well-meaning and loving extended family.

How do you continue along your journey and keep the peace with the extended family? Natural Living in a Regular Family, is about finding the balance and putting relationships first. Click on over for finding the grace in what goes in and on your family.

Next week is learning about the power of tea and some great homemade recipes.

Note: This series is designed as a fun and informative compilation to help you and your family thrive. Each post is the opinion of that particular blogger, not necessarily mine or Positively Real Media’s.

Filed Under: healthy living Tagged With: choice, family, food, health, kids, natural

Lead Your Family Like Jesus

March 24, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

I am so pleased to be a part of the Launch Team for Lead Your Family Like Jesus: Powerful Parenting Principles from the Creator of Families by Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges, and Tricia Goyer.

This is a leadership book.

This is a child-training book. A book on parenting.

And I love how those two things are meshed together and help me to analyze and express how I want my family to look in the future.

It’s all about goals, vision, values, priorities.

You need to see that future picture of success for your family to know what you must do now to get there.

An important question for family leader to ask is, “What do we want to influence?”

The key is specifying what carrying out your priorities looks like.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 67

By examining your future picture, you can make a plan to implement for success. Jesus must be the foundation for your goals.

A wise man noted that it was only in the past century that the word priority went plural. Jesus had one priority: glorify God.

Everything Jesus did was about…Exalting God Only. It was an act of worship…He pointed those around Him to God.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 63, 33, 34

My husband, Aaron, and I have been using this book to teach our Sunday school class for a while now and we’re enjoying it and learning so much about leadership from Jesus! We’ve all had some lively discussions. We’re convicted to “put our egos on the altar” and align our attitudes. I adore having some older couples agree with the book’s teachings and describe how they raised their children.

A parent’s attitude, I realized, is the foundation for how every day is lived out. And those days are the building blocks of childhood memories.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 93

What memories will your children have? Do you need to make some changes in your attitude to reflect your family goals?

We’ve all heard “Do what I say, not as I do.” But we are the examples to our children and actions speak so much louder than words. Does what you do and say match what you believe?

Life, family, and leadership are all about choices. What do you stand for? How have you chosen family activities to match?

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 65

The book has four parts – The Four Leadership Domains – that all interact like a flowchart {Indeed, I made one for my Sunday school class}:

The Heart: The character and the values
The Head: Your viewpoint and beliefs
The Hands: What you actually do
The Habits: How you continually refocus your desire

Throughout the chapters, there are Pause & Reflect sections that invite discussion and real deep down thinking of your motives as a parent.

For example, in the first chapter, we’re asked:

What is Temporary Stuff? What is Important Forever? It encourages us to keep everything in eternal perspective.

Great quotes from other Christian books help drive points home. The authors tell stories of how they dealt with difficult circumstances, how they trained their children, how they modeled Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom values.

At the end of each section are reviews over the Leadership Domain – Points to Ponder. Great summaries!

I believe this book especially appeals to men, to dads. It’s a leadership book. I know my husband’s only reading material is online…or leadership books. This book really targets dads in ways they can understand, especially if they’re not regular readers – with bullets, flow charts, pyramids, headings…all this makes it easier to read and comprehend the material.

It’s a call to action for men to step up and lead. But we wives need to learn to let them and support them, even if we may have a different (not necessarily better!) way. We need to clamp our mouths and listen respectfully to our husbands’ points of view. See Tricia’s video clip below!

Do you help your husband feel comfortable leading your family? Tricia has lots of edifying videos! Subscribe to her YouTube channel so you don’t miss a one.

What’s your family’s vision? It must say who you are (your purpose), where you’re going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values). {paraphrased from p.48}

Write it down in your dining room or family room. Get it pretty-fied and frame it!

Rank-ordered values alone won’t accomplish your family’s purpose or turn your picture of the future into reality. You need to translate those values into behaviors.

~Lead Your Family Jesus p.61

Read the interview with the authors:

Click for Part 1 Q&A
Click for Part 2 Q&A

Download and print out this press kit to take to your pastor or Christian ed director. This book is perfect for a sermon series or parenting course! {And I hear they’re working on a curriculum for it right now!}

Check out the Lead Your Family Book Website for more free resources!

Ken, Phil and Tricia will be on the Focus on the Family radio program Monday, March 25, and Tuesday, March 26! You can listen to your local radio station or click the link above.

The book is available now! Purchase your copy of Lead Your Family Like Jesus: Powerful Parenting Principles from the Creator of Families here. It retails for $19.99, but sells for $13.59 on Amazon right now, or $9.99 for Kindle. Download a Sample Booklet to see how amazing it is!

Here’s a great review and giveaway from HEDUA.

Join Tricia Goyer and Tracey Eyster for a Live Webcast event on April 16 at 8 pm EST: Lead, Momma, Lead. Be encourage to “Be the Mom” & “Lead Your Family Like Jesus”! You can register and set a reminder on the Facebook banner below.

And Tricia has joined Good Morning Girls. There’s a Living and Leading like Jesus study going on right now! Register and join me as we read through Luke.

Filed Under: Daddy Time, Living the Word, Mothering Tagged With: Bible study, family, future, Jesus, kids, lead, leadership, parenting

Raising Healthy Families: Avoid Unsafe Flu Shots With Pepper Juice

February 22, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Welcome back to the Raising Healthy Families series, join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

Visit our first article in the Raising Healthy Family {series} by Paula Miller of Whole Intentions this week!

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The FLU.

For the past few years no other word has struck as much fear during the winter months as this one. According to the media, the flu is right up there with the Black Plague of Death! Avoid Unsafe Flu Shots with Pepper Juice is Whole Intentions‘ time-tested home remedy to taking back our health and turning up the heat.

Filed Under: healthy living, Raising Healthy Families series Tagged With: alternative, family, flu, healthy, natural, pepper

Raising Healthy Families {Series}

February 15, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

Raising Healthy Families

Are you looking for ways to improve the health of your family?

Do you suffer from allergies or environmental toxins?

Trying to find recipes for more natural yet tasty food to serve your picky eaters?

Are you concerned about switching to natural healing methods?

We’re here to help! We hope to answer these questions and more in the next few months.

Beginning next Friday, February 22, 2013, 16 bloggers will share with you each week, wrapping up on June 21. Make sure to subscribe to one, two, or all of these blogs so you don’t miss a post. And to wrap up our series, you will get an eBook with all this info and more FREE!

“The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” -Thomas A. Edison

Blogs participating:

Whole Intentions

A Jewel in the Making

Creative Christian Mama

Royal Little Lambs

Learning and Yearning

Filed Under: healthy living, Raising Healthy Families series Tagged With: authentic, family, health, living, natural, positive, real

Love Even Your Enemies

January 24, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Our Wednesday family nights at church are a success.

My husband is the self-proclaimed “culinary minister.” We’ve set theme dinners to encourage fellowship and we’ve had some exciting foods the last three weeks!

Here’s the menu we set for the next couple months.

Baked Potato Bar
Taco Bar
Soul Food
SOUPer Bowl
Pasta Buffet
Pancake Breakfast (for Mardi Gras)
Hot dogs and Hamburgers
Sandwiches and Salads

So, last night was soul food night, and I’ll tell ya – that was some of the best greens, mac and cheese, and coconut cake I’ve had in years! We made a pork loin with gluten-free gravy and another gal brought some fried chicken. There were biscuits, cornbread muffins, baked beans, salad, cole slaw, and banana pudding. It felt like home.

I teach the children, ages 3-10, after dinner while adults are attending various Bible study classes. It’s a challenge to engage all those different age groups in one lesson.

Last night, I taught the kids about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I focused on Agape.

We only talked about a brief history background. I could have rambled on for hours about Gandhi and the history of the South from before the Civil War, but these are young kids.

I really just wanted the kids to understand that Dr. King was influenced and stood by the teachings of Jesus. He preached to love others, including your enemy.

And I don’t think Dr. King saw the white man as his enemy. No, I think Dr. King’s enemy was the idea that people could be treated differently because of the color of one’s skin.

I needed the kids to understand that Dr. King focused on changing the world non–violently. Whereas he was criticized for taking too long and being so righteous by even other black leaders, Dr. King remained non-violent, preaching the love of Jesus for everyone, while exerting that racial equality was of paramount importance.

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tuniceither. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. ~Luke 6: 27-31

And Dr. King was martyred for his beliefs.

I used this egg visual to help the kids understand and appreciate racial diversity. I think even the little ones understood that it doesn’t matter what color your shell or skin is, but what’s in a man’s heart. It was beautiful.

I thank God that these children really don’t know what it was like living in the South during Dr. King’s time. They cannot fathom that kind of hate.

Ah, the innocence of children.