I was reviewing some data recently for a project that will soon lead to another book. As I analyzed that data, it made me think about excellence. I pondered what it means to live a life of excellence. What are God’s standards? Excellence is important in education, in your parenting, and in your business. Whatever your task is today, excellence in that task is of utmost importance!
The Little Things Matter
Maybe you don’t think that all of the little tasks that you do in a day matter. There are little things that seem menial to us but which make a big impact on others. Maybe it’s something as simple as making breakfast for your kids each day. Simple to you, but a big deal to them. Without breakfast, they’d starve!
“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Colossians 3:23-24
Do Your Best
You have a unique assignment from the Lord. You need to run that race without falling into the trap of comparing yourself to someone else and their race. Don’t measure your best against someone else’s standard! That person has a different focus and different skills from what God has given you. Run your race to the best of your ability.
Don’t Grow Weary
It’s easy at the beginning of a new year to have big goals. Maybe you’ve chosen this weighty word to define your coming year. And then just a few weeks into the year, now you may have waxed and waned. Or maybe you are just plain tired. It’s tempting to say that good is good enough. Nope. Your best effort is what’s needed.
Leading Your Kids
When I decided to homeschool my kids, there were still some remnants of the myth going around that you couldn’t teach your own kids without a formal degree in education. Well, that’s been thoroughly debunked now. What you really need are conviction and passion. After that, you just have to do the work. Learn and figure it out along the way. But, you’re selling your kids short if you don’t teach them to strive for excellence. I’m not talking about perfection. Perfection isn’t achievable or attainable. That’s unrealistic. Excellence on the other hand is attainable because it’s about doing your best with what God has given to you.
Persevere
Sometimes life is hard. Caregiving for an elderly family member. Living with a difficult diagnosis or illness. Dealing with a wayward child. You have to get up each day and do the best you can. Tomorrow might be different. You might be able to do more or you might have to do less. Either way, you’re going to do your best. Rinse, repeat. Do your best again. The results of this perseverance are hard to see when you’re in the messy middle. I can look back now and see how things that were started years ago have turned into something put together by God. Press on, doing your best.
“What God calls you to, he’s going to equip you for it.”
Connie Albers
Stop Making Excuses
Your goal in life is to be able to stand before the Lord and have him say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Your life does not need to be a hot mess. Sure, life is messy, but you don’t have to be a hot mess! No one can know it all or be it all. Run your race in your lane. There are reasons and there are excuses for not doing your best. Are you making excuses? Are you afraid to fail? Afraid to succeed? Take some time to examine the reasons why you make excuses for not doing your best.
Living with Excellence
You can do what God has called you to do. It is possible to live equipped. Work on gaining knowledge and skill for your tasks. Listen to the Lord’s leading. Learn when to say yes and when to say no. Be wise and discerning.
When I decided to homeschool my kids, it wasn’t because I was running away from something. No, I was actually running towards something better. I was aiming for excellence for my kids’ education. There was a lot I didn’t know, but I put in the work and showed up every day to do my best for them. This is how we should live in all areas of our lives. Strive to live a life of excellence in everything that you do!
What’s in a name? You could call it leaving a legacy or building a heritage, but are you casting a vision to your kids for what you want your family to be? Are you building a family name that has lasting meaning to your kids? What do you want your kids to say about your family after they’ve left the nest? You can start making changes now and cast that vision to your kids of who you want your family to be.
When you think of the name of Jesus, what comes to mind? Some things that come to my mind are:
Hope
Salvation
Comfort
Truth
Refuge
Guide
Provider
Protector
There’s a lot in a name!
What’s in a Family Name?
What about your family name? I thought about this a lot before we started having children. Some people now refer to this as your legacy or heritage. My husband and I wanted to break some generational dysfunction and be a witness to our extended families. What did we want the Albers name to mean? We knew our family name didn’t mean perfection. We knew we didn’t have it all together. A kid can throw you a curveball at any second and shatter that perception!
Building Your Family Name
You and your children represent your family. It’s not the way a brand would build its reputation with a tagline. Sure, maybe you’ll get labeled from time to time, but this is not about what others have to say about your family. This is about what your kids say about your family.
What does your family name mean to your children?
Have you communicated that to your kids?
When my kids were younger I’d say things like: “We are the Albers. This is how we live life. We’re honest. We don’t steal. We help people. We care for others. We serve each other. We walk with the Lord. We pray for one another. We take care of each other.”
I’d regularly made lists of these things. The beginning of a new year is a great time to think through this and make your own list. Start by writing down your family name. What are the things you want your kids to know or say about your family when they no longer live with you any longer? Think about things like:
What does your family name represent?
What does your family name represent to your kids?
Who do you stand for?
What do you stand for?
What do you believe?
What character traits do you want your family to have and display?
Who are The Albers?
I talk more about family identity in Parenting Beyond the Rules, but to help you with an example, here are the three things that were important to our family name:
We wanted our children to love the Lord and understand the difference between relationship and religion.
We wanted our kids to do life with us when they didn’t have to any longer.
We wanted our kids as siblings to know they could lean on and count on each other.
Cast the Vision
I encourage you to cast a vision of what your family is and stands for to your kids. Talk about it often. Let your kids see where they fit in your family. They are in your family by design and not by accident. God uniquely placed them right where they are on purpose. They are valued, loved, and celebrated! Through this, you are building a family name that your children will be proud to be a part of as they grow into adulthood.
A new year always brings some kind of change that must be embraced. And there have been so many changes in these last couple of years of disruption! Maybe you’re homeschooling or distance learning now, but you weren’t last year. Maybe you’re still working from home or maybe you’re transitioning back to the office. How do you adapt to these changes? Are you holding on to the One who can help you be stable in the midst of disruptions? Are you confident in the One who can help you with embracing change?
The rules of life seem to be constantly changing. How do you adapt without losing your focus or losing your why? To thrive and not just survive in 2022, it’s time to take a look at our thinking patterns of why we do what we do. Let’s walk through how you can embrace change this year.
List the Rules
Start by listing the rules that you have in your life and that of your home and family.
Why do you work the way you do?
Why do you have the curfew set that you do?
Why do you have the rules for your household that you do?
Other rules?
What is Not Working?
Make a list of things that you are struggling with in your family:
Are you struggling with sibling squabbles?
Is there a broken relationship?
Rules and practices that aren’t working?
Something else?
What Could Change?
Allow yourself to think outside of the box to make the relationships in your home better. Think about these kinds of things:
Why do you have the rules established the way that you do?
Do you need to pivot and adjust anything because of how the world has changed?
What if you had different thinking that still fit the narrative of what your family values are?
What if you tried something different?
Could you…
Listen more
Set new boundaries
Talk more as a family
As a parent, you set a lot of the rules and habits in the family. You control the zip code you live in, the shopping day, the cleaning day, the bedtimes, etc. Your kids are often left out of these decisions. How can you involve your kids in the changes and new rules?
Challenging Times
The reality of this new year is that your faith is being challenged in the midst of this culture shift. There’s pressure for you to change how you think, feel, and behave in relationship to God’s Word. Your kids are caught up in this too.
How are you teaching and protecting your kids in the midst of this change? Depending on your family and the area in which you live, your kids will have a different awareness level of what is going on in the world. Are you teaching them to be kind? Are you teaching them to be mindful of what others think or feel and how they process the world around them? Are you teaching them to be respectful without bending to the whims of what everybody else is saying or doing?
There’s a cost to standing up and being different. You have to be careful that you don’t become bitter or angry. Maybe you’ve had hard times or lost friends in standing up for your family or convictions. Remember that God is not absent. He is your refuge and gives you wisdom. You have to figure out what standing up looks like for you and your family. For some of you that will mean speaking out more. For others of you that will mean more time spent on your knees in prayer.
May God bless and lead you as you are embracing change in 2022!
Your tweens and teens have been through a lot of change. They need you to help them cope with these changes. Society at large says that they will be fine because they can handle more than their parents think they can handle, but can they? While kids are resilient, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have wounds from what happens to them. What they really need is a parent. Their parent. They need a parent who will stand up to culture and do the unpopular hard work of real parenting. How can you be the parent your child needs?
Nowadays, parents are being ganged up on by educators, government leaders, changing cultural norms, and their peers. There is a blatant attack on morals, values, and character. You are told to accept what’s happening. So basically: “Shut up, Mom and Dad. We know what’s best for your children.” Yikes!
Drinking. Casual sex. Experimental drug use. Gang activity. It’s all on the rise. But, don’t be discouraged. You can still be the parent your child needs so that they enter adulthood with strong convictions, reasoning skills, and relationships.
We can’t go back to what might seem like simpler times. Technology dominates our lives and we probably can’t reverse that. So, what can you do?
Push back!
It’s time to push back! Some of you will feel called to speak up and speak out. I know that some of you will not in the same public way. But, all of you will have to fight for your family in ways you didn’t have to before now. You have to put boundaries around you and your children. You have to decide which battles to get involved in for your family.
When the government officials and education union leaders are no longer hiding their agenda, you know they believe they are big enough to defeat you. It’s a battle of David vs Goliath. But, God is on your side!
How to Be the Best Parent for Your Child
These issues come back to who you are as a parent and what you’re willing to do. I have a few starting suggestions.
Learn About Growth and Development
Learn what you can about growth and development in adolescent children. You need to understand what they’re facing. I know you don’t have time to read every resource out there. Find a few trusted sources of information (like the Equipped To Be show!) to help you focus on what’s most important for your kids. Understanding how your children think and process the world around them will give you a greater understanding of their point of view.
Help Your Child Develop Their Identity
Help your child develop a healthy sense of self and identity. Both of these help a child learn how to become an adult. Teach them that their identity is first found in Christ. It’s also important for them to know where they belong. They have a place in your family.
“We are designed for and defined by our relationships.”
Connie Albers
Set Limits. Teach Manners and Morals.
Be an assertive parent by setting limits and by teaching your children manners and morals. Don’t be surprised when your children get angry and protest the limits and boundaries you’ve placed for your family or lessons you’re trying to teach them. But, also, don’t allow their protesting to make you believe you’re parenting poorly! On the contrary, it’s an excellent opportunity for you to communicate your family goals and vision. And like I say in Parenting Beyond the Rules, it’s an opportunity for you to “paint pictures of possibilities” for your children. They will ultimately appreciate knowing that you care about them even if they don’t show that gratitude right now.
“Your children are a masterpiece! … They’re a masterpiece and every masterpiece is unique. You do not use the same color scheme. You do not use the same brush strokes. It’s unique. Your child is unique and God has called you to help create the masterpiece.”
Connie Albers
Focus on the Why
When you can tell your children the why behind your instruction and why they might not like it initially, they will come to respect you for being willing to be the parent. Don’t make it about a set of rules but instead focus on the principle behind the rules. Don’t be afraid to adjust if you learn new information you would like to consider and implement. That is part of your children learning what it takes to be an adult. It’s a process.
Focus on the Goal
Now that my children are grown, it seems like the years of teaching and training were just a short season in my life. When things get tense in your home, try to remind yourself the season of parenting littles, tweens, or teens, is but a few years. This type of thinking helped me stay focused when tension and stress entered our home. Interestingly, I actually find that I am just as involved in the lives of my children now as adults as I was when they were kids.
Parenting tweens and teens is a comparatively short season in your life. Be the parent your child needs. Don’t be afraid to be the parent that God has asked you to be. If you know the Lord, the One who created your child, then you have what you need to raise that child!
“Parenting is an opportunity for you to paint pictures of possibilities for your child and for your family.”
Dr. Chris Hughes from Citizens for America is back on the show today. He shares more about his background, what Citizens for America is, and encouragement for you as a believer in our current culture. Tune in for a couple of exciting developments coming in 2022!
Dr. Chris Hughes shares more about his background in this episode. He talks about his days as a celebrity BBQ chef and how food often opens the door to sharing the Gospel. He’s been involved in planting churches and, hopefully soon, a Bible college in India. In 1992, he ran for political office for the first time. These things led to a burden for seeing Christians engaging in public policymaking.
Citizens for America Foundation
Citizens for America Foundation was created for the purpose of helping Christians develop a biblical worldview. It’s also dedicated to impacting the culture for Jesus. They desire to protect religious freedoms and preserve our Christian heritage. It’s about strengthening families and defending the sanctity of human life through education and public policy.
From Podcast to Radio
Dr. Hughes began a podcast in June 2021 called The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. The podcast features guests addressing topical issues in culture. God opened doors for Dr. Hughes to begin a weekly radio show on Saturdays of the same name in October 2021 on the Truth Media Network. Now, plans are in progress for a weekday hour-long radio national radio show to launch early in 2022. I’m excited to announce that I will be a weekly co-host on the Friday broadcast of the radio show!
About Dr. Chris Hughes
Dr. Chris Hughes is one of America’s most important, influential and respected voices on cultural and political issues. Chris Hughes is the Founder and Chairman of the Citizens for America Foundation, one of the nation’s leading advocacy and grassroots public policy organizations. A powerful communicator, Chris Hughes is a Christian Political Advocate, Second Amendment Defender, Christian Apologist, and Author. He is the host of The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes.
In his travels, Chris Hughes works to inform and mobilize Pastors and Christians to be proactive in restoring a Biblical worldview framework in their communities and across the nation.
Chris Hughes lives his life to the fullest as a Father, Husband, Culture Warrior, Public Speaker, Celebrity Chef, and Author. When the family is not changing the world on the road, they make their home in Boone, North Carolina.
References and Links
The following may contain affiliate links.
Visit the Citizens for America Foundation website. Sign up for their newsletter, check out their podcasts, and support them.
We’ve heard so much about CRT in the last couple of years, but have you heard about the sexualization of America’s children? Yes. You read that right. This is happening and it’s being funded by the federal government. Dr. Chris Hughes joins me in this episode to talk about this important issue.
As parents, we are responsible for the education of our children. For some, this might mean sending your kids into the public school system. But, choosing this form of education doesn’t mean that you are removed from involvement in what your children are learning. When Dr. Chris Hughes’ kids were growing up, he was paying close attention to what was being taught to his kids in school. He knew who their teachers, principals, and administrators were. He went to the school board meetings. This is when he started learning about the graphic sexual material being taught in schools and saw how few parents were choosing to opt out of this teaching.
Distance Learning Opened Our Eyes
Many parents started waking up to the reality of what was being taught in the public schools when suddenly their children were distance learning in their living rooms and at their dining room tables while moms and dads attempted to also work from home in 2020. For the first time, many parents were finally hearing what was being taught to their children. But, you need to know that this sex ed curriculum is also being used in private and even some Christian schools. You’re not safe from this issue just because you’re not in the public schools.
What is Common Sexuality Education Curriculum?
Sadly, this curriculum is much more than teaching about the birds and the bees. It’s called Common Sexuality Education Curriculum. It contains material that as believers, you likely do not want your children being taught and some of this material is being taught to children as young as five years of age.
Common Sexuality Education Curriculum came to be under the Obama administration. Legislators at the federal and state levels have been passing laws and mandates that have taken education out of the hands of parents and put it into the hands of teacher’s unions and liberal educators. It used to be that sex ed was something reserved for high school. Now this curriculum is being taught to your kindergarteners! From teaching children how to “pleasure themselves” to making them question their sexual identity and much more, this curriculum introduces ideas that you as a Christian parent should be in control of teaching to your children. And, you’d be horrified to find out about some of the corresponding graphic sexual books that are in your school libraries.
What Can the Christian Parent Do?
Dr. Hughes’ makes a number of suggestions for you as a Christian parent. You are not helpless or left hopeless!
1. Raise awareness
You can start by sharing this podcast with your friends. It’s an easy way to give an introduction to the topic of the sexualization of our children. But what about your larger community? Most communities still have local newspapers, even if the publication has gone completely online. You can write a letter to the editor. It’s easy to do. Just go to the newspaper’s website and follow the instructions for how to submit your letter.
2. Learn about parental rights laws in your state
How much is your state pushing this curriculum and how much is your school district implementing it? It really varies by state and even by local school district. Many school board members are not fully aware of what is going on with this curriculum in their school districts. If you need help finding out about the laws in your state, Citizens for America Foundation is available to help you.
3. Check Your School Library
Are these graphic sexual books in your local school library? Likely the only way to find is for you to go to the library yourself and start looking.
4. Host an Event
Invite someone like Dr. Hughes or Connie to speak to your church or parents’ group.
Sexualization of Children Doesn’t Affect Me as a Homeschooler
You’re not exempt from this conversation if you’re a homeschool parent! These sexualization of children concepts are even seeping into the homeschool world. Be sure to carefully examine your homeschool curriculum and support publishers who are standing up for a biblical worldview. Don’t forget that your friends and neighbors also need your help too. This still affects you if you homeschool.
Get to Know Your Local Officials
Not everyone has access to the President, but you can get to know your local officials like your school board members. Get to know them personally. Build relationships with these elected officials in your local area and make sure you’re praying for them. Dr. Hughes recommends looking at the resources from Morton Blackwell and The Leadership Institute. They have training for parents who need helping learning how to get started with going to school board meetings and how to address these issues.
Take a Stand!
It’s time to take a stand for your kids and their future. Stopping the sexualization of America’s children is up to you. What will your next step be?
Dr. Chris Hughes will be back on the podcast again next week to share more about Citizens for America.
About Dr. Chris Hughes
Dr. Chris Hughes is one of America’s most important, influential and respected voices on cultural and political issues. Chris Hughes is the Founder and Chairman of the Citizens for America Foundation, one of the nation’s leading advocacy and grassroots public policy organizations. A powerful communicator, Chris Hughes is a Christian Political Advocate, Second Amendment Defender, Christian Apologist, and Author. He is the host of The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes.
In his travels, Chris Hughes works to inform and mobilize Pastors and Christians to be proactive in restoring a Biblical worldview framework in their communities and across the nation.
Chris Hughes lives his life to the fullest as a Father, Husband, Culture Warrior, Public Speaker, Celebrity Chef, and Author. When the family is not changing the world on the road, they make their home in Boone, North Carolina.
References and Links
The following may contain affiliate links.
Visit the Citizens for America Foundation website. Sign up for their newsletter, check out their podcasts, and support them.
