My upcoming book:
Well Done, Mom & Dad!: How to Turn Good Intentions into Godly Legacies
Every Christian parent wants happy, godly kids, but few know how to turn those good intentions into a godly legacy. Since you cannot convince or force kids to be faithful, this book reveals how the key to godly legacies is making it easy for kids to know how to be faithful . . . and, more importantly, to want to.
Well Done, Mom & Dad! shows parents how they can one day hear, “Well done!” from both God and family. Instead of just breaking their kids’ habits, fixing behavior, and stopping drama, parents learn how to bond with their kids’ hearts, funnel beliefs, and shape dreams using the three bonds of well-done parenting: vision, character, and culture.
1) VISION: Choose Your Treasures
The first bond of well-done parenting is compelling family vision. Family members of all ages discover how to choose what they truly value – their treasures – using the 50-20-5-1 Embrace exercise. They select fifty pursuits that matter, which they funnel down to twenty priorities that matter most, then five passions they will live for, and one purpose they will not live without.
Like a compressed water hose, dribbling pursuits become a powerful stream of purpose. Parents also learn how to create fun, practical “vision monuments” that inspire kids to one day cast their own family vision.
2) CHARACTER: Treasure Your Choice
The second bond of well-done parenting is timeless family character. The 1-2-3-U Discovery exercise helps parents turn fulfilling passion into success, success into significance, and significance into faithfulness. This includes: one treasure of fulfillment, two forces of success, three choices of significance, and the real you (U) in fifteen character traits.
It is a progression, like moving up the pyramid below. However, unless others, not you, are on top there is no clear point. It is a progression, like moving up the pyramid below. Parents then learn three practical, fun ways to create their own family’s “secret sauce” that melds character qualities into their family.
3) CULTURE: Pass It On
The third bond of well-done parenting is a captivating family culture that prepares kids to be purposefully courageous and passionately contagious. In addition to vision monuments and character heroes, parents learn how to create captivating family cultures using three elements: unique family promises, memory tattoos, and two kinds of heavenly hugs.
For what could be greater than having your kids turn to you in heaven, squeeze you close, and say, “Well done, Mom and Dad”? That’s the moment your dreams have come true. You’ve done your job. You’ve put faithfulness on a tee so your kids can whack it. You haven’t tried to make them. You’ve made it easy for them to know how . . . and to want to.
But even if your kids don’t choose to be faithful, you’ve done your job. You’ve prepared them. You’ve done well!