Entries Tagged 'Parenting' ↓

I recently wrote about Andy Stanley’s book, Choosing to Cheat (see “Choosing to Cheat” 1.0). As I said, I want to share some personal reflections on how Joleen and I plan to cheat strategically so that we do not cheat our family.

To review, Andy essentially says that all of us have a limited amount of time, and certainly not enough time to do everything that is demanded of us, or everything that we’d like to do. Therefore, we’ve all got to cheat somewhere. The question is, who do we cheat? Many times, we cheat our families. The question the subtitle of the book poses is, “Who wins when family and work collide?”

This is an important question for all families to address. It’s certainly an important question for us — two full-time pastors, and now, two full-time parents. In the past, we’ve always tried to be intentional about taking time to spend with one another, and now that we have brought a child into our home, we will have to be even more intentional about family time.

Here are some commitments we’re considering as we move forward …

Be *more* focused in our work/ministries. We have a limited amount of time. In the past, if it took us extra hours to accomplish what we wanted/needed to accomplish in a week, that might not have been so bad. With a child in our lives, we will have to be more focused in our work. We will have to spend our workweek on the most important tasks (actually, focus is a good thing; we all should focus on the most important tasks, or what some call MITs). Our family life depends on it.

Prioritize Family Time. Periodically (and this will become even more important as Ethan gets older), we will schedule in family time on our calendars. We will place family events (or school/extra-curricular activities that Ethan will be involved in) on our calendars, and will treat them as any other important commitment in our lives. A few months ago, Joleen and I started more intentionally coordinating our schedules and blocking out time each week that we would both take off. We did this partially in preparation for life with a child. Click here to download a PDF of the “block schedule” we’ve been using.

Protect our evenings. It’s not uncommon for one or both of us to have 2-3 evening meetings each week. We will need to be more intentional about coordinating our schedules so that, if possible, at least one of us is home each evening, and both of us are home at a decent time to go through our evening routine (story time, prayer, and putting Ethan to bed).

Keep family commitments. Obviously, there will be times when things come up that interrupt family life. That’s true for everyone. It’s especially true for pastoral families, and particularly for families where both parents are pastors. However, we must do our best to keep family commitments as much as possible.

We will have to be intentional. Both of us are mission-driven people. God’s call and mission are extremely important to us. That won’t change. But the way we live that out may, naturally, need to undergo some changes.

We once heard John Maxwell, founder of Injoy, define success, saying, “Those who are the closest to me, love and respect me the most.”

That kind of success requires cheating strategically. What commitments have you made to give priority to the place of your family?

Awhile back, I read Choosing to Cheat: Who Wins When Family and Work Collide? by Andy Stanley. The book is must-reading for anyone who is busy AND has a family.

Incidentally, I try to read everything by Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. Previously, I’ve posted thoughts on two other books by him including, Communicating for a Change and Making Vision Stick.

I’ve been thinking about the book again now that we’ve brought Ethan home and have a few weeks to immerse ourselves in, and adjust to, this new way of life. Here are a few quotes quotes and thoughts on Choosing to Cheat …

So, what does it mean to cheat?

“When we cheat, we choose to give up one thing in hopes of gaining something else of greater value” (9).

Andy makes the case that none of us can do everything that we think we should do, or everything others think we should do. Therefore, we’ve got choices to make. In fact, he says …

“Daily you make decisions to give up one thing in order to gain something else. This is especially true within the arena of your schedule. You face a variety of responsibilities and opportunities: work … family … hobbies … clubs … leagues … the list is endless. Each competes for your attention. Each competes for your most valuable resource, your time. But to give each of these the time it demands or deserves would require more time than you have” (10).

As a result, every one of us must make choices. Since we can’t do it all, we’ve gotta cheat somewhere. Basically, we choose who we cheat. Why? Because …

“The problem is there is not enough time to get everything done that you are convinced–or others have convinced you–needs to get done” (21).

Choose wisely!

“Everyone is busy. All of us have more to do than we will ever get done. We all have to cheat along the way. When you cheat strategically, you leverage your busyness for the sake of what’s most important. Cheating strategically allows us to communicate the message our families long the feel–you are important to me. You are more important to me than anybody or anything else in the world” (58).

Andy argues that “the length of your workweek does not play as significant role as you might at first think” in your professional success. On the other hand, he says, “With family, success is always related to time” (99).

To help busy spouses make adjustments to their priorities, Andy suggests the following question …

“What change would your spouse most like you to make in regard to your schedule?” (93)

That may be a tough question to ask, and you may not be able to make the needed changes overnight, but it may be a good place to start, and you can at least begin working toward the goal.

When Andy asked his wife, Sandra, this question, shortly after starting North Point in the late 1990s, she said she’d like him to be home around 4:00 pm to help with their two young children. It was tough for Andy, the lead pastor of a new church, to do, but he did it. In fact, he also committed to working a 45-hour workweek. He prayed …

“Lord, feel free to build whatever kind of church You can with forty-five hours of my time. You know that’s all I have right now” (95).

This one might be tough for many Christ-followers, particularly pastors, to swallow. But if you know anything about North Point, it is an incredible church. God isn’t looking for workaholics and overachievers to build his church; he is looking for people of character and integrity, and part of that integrity is commitment to one’s family.

In 2.0, I will offer some personal reflections on how Joleen and I hope to cheat strategically so that we do not cheat our family.

I started to call this post A Rough Day. Much of the day was committed to Ethan’s first doctor visit since leaving Korea (he had just seen a doctor before being released to us on February 12). We wanted to get his medical record started here (in fact, we made today’s appointment before going to Korea).

Our visit with Dr. Allen Ettenger (Huntingdon, PA) was a real time investment, but a worthwhile one. We learned a lot.

Ethan weighed 21.7 pounds (in an earlier post, we said he weighed 24.3 pounds, but that was based on wrong information from the caseworker in Korea) and was nearly 30 inches long. Those numbers put him in the 70th percentile in the weight category and the 95th percentile in the length category. IOW, only 5% of boys his age are longer than he, and 30% of boys his age weigh more.

While we learned a lot today, it was also a painful day. Ethan received two vaccinations, one in each leg. He made his displeasure known throughout that part of the building (did we tell you he has strong lungs?!). BTW, Korea’s vaccines, unlike some nations, do not need to be repeated in the States, so we’re simply picking up where Korea left off (Ethan should be happy about that!).

We also just learned that Ethan had a flu shot in January, which may explain why he didn’t catch the flu from us this past weekend. Of all the things we want Ethan to “catch” from us, viruses are not one of them (i.e. important things, like character, are better caught than taught)!

If getting two shots wasn’t bad enough, we decided, with the doctor’s encouragement, to do a lead screening blood test (to establish a baseline), partly because we live in an old house that probably has lead (paint). We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t chew on the paint or pick up paint chips. This could be a real challenge, as he seems to put everything in his mouth.

A lead screening blood test involves drawing blood from the arm. It took two nurses to find a vein they could draw blood from (and, fortunately, the first time was successful!). It was rough — Joleen held him (including his other arm) from behind in a bear hug, one nurse held his arm still, and another nurse drew the blood from his arm. Since there was no room for me, I just watched and listened!

As painful as all of that was, though, the amazing thing was how quickly Ethan recovered, especially from the blood test. As soon as the needle was removed, it was almost as if nothing had happened — although he was pretty emotional/clingy for the rest of the day.

So, yes, it was a rough day. But I’m calling this a new day, because we are making a transition from being reactive to being proactive with Ethan, especially with his sleeping schedule.

Up to this point (naturally, we think), it’s been about survival, which has meant that we’ve given Ethan whatever he’s needed/wanted. FWIW, I think we’re discovering that either, (1) he’s always gotten what he’s wanted, or (2) we look like gullible people.

Dr. Ettenger recommended reading at least a couple chapters of Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems (by Richard Ferber) that deals with helping children develop new, healthy sleeping habits.

Obviously, we don’t have the book yet (we ordered it tonight), but we still began to be a little more proactive tonight. Rather than waiting for him to let us know when he was ready for bed, we were more intentional about our evening routine, starting at 10:00 (we’ll eventually bump this earlier, but for now, 10:00 pm is an improvement over 1:00 am, plus we’ve only been in the States about 6 days, so far).

10:00 — Play with Ethan on living room floor.
10:15 — In Ethan’s room, get him ready for bed, read a Bible story, pray, and give him his bottle.
11:00 — Ethan is asleep (for now!)

The goal (with the Ferber book’s help) will be to wean Ethan from going to sleep with the bottle (which is how his foster mother put him to sleep). We also want to help him learn to put himself to sleep in his crib, rather than us putting him in his crib after he’s fallen asleep (in Korea, he slept beside his foster mother on the floor/mattress, which may particially explain why he’s so fussy whenever he wakes up).

It’s a new day. And, it’s all part of the learning experience!

Ethan’s big challenge right now is having to train two new, sometimes clueless, parents!

Think about it, Ethan had invested six months (of his 8-month-old life) in training a foster mother (an experienced mother of three grown children) to read his signals and meet his needs. Now he has to start all over with two newbies.

To help with the transition, we were supplied information by the foster mother about sleep schedule, eating habits, and things like that. Of course, now that we’re home, in a different time zone, where the food is different, we’re really having to learn everything new anyway, it seems.

Ethan has developed some signals to indicate different things and we’re in the process of learning what they mean. Sometimes when he’s hungry, he smacks his lips. Yesterday, when he wanted a bottle, apparently, he started crawling toward the kitchen. When he’s getting sleepy (but doesn’t really *ever* want to go to sleep) he rubs his eyes with his hands or on a blanket.

But this training process that we’re involved in is a two-way street. As we build a stronger relationship with Ethan, and as we become more confident about what we’re doing, our challenge will become ‘being trained by Ethan’ to ‘training Ethan.’

We’ve been pretty lenient in our first week together, mainly because our first priority has been survival. But now that we’re getting to know each other (and getting well), it’s time to start our own training program.

Part of this training will involve working on Ethan’s sleeping schedule as well as his diet. We will take Ethan to his first doctor’s appointment here on Wednesday, where we’ll probably try to get some help with these two areas.

The training continues …

We would appreciate your prayers for our family’s health, especially that Ethan doesn’t get what we had last night!

Joleen and I had the flu last night. My case of it was pretty severe — it was the sickest I’ve ever been. I spent 6 straight hours in the bathroom.

Thankfully, though, Ethan seems to be well, so far.

Our first full day home, I woke up around 7:00 am, after 10 hours of sleep, and wrote the four posts on the blog (while both Joleen and Ethan slept till around 2:00 pm) that I scheduled to appear every few hours, including one this morning. I had no ability to write a post this morning!

Overall, today was a good day with Ethan, even though Joleen and I laid around on couches most of the day. Ethan does pretty well with entertaining himself. Mostly, he likes to grab on to things (e.g. end tables, TV stands, anything!) and pull himself up. As he was once described by his caseworker in Korea, “He’s a very active little guy.”

The roughest things for Ethan now are the times he wakes up during the night. That’s when we hear his terrified crying. While he normally gets up once during the night (according to his foster mother), he’s been up three times so far tonight, and we have several hours to go before he gets up. But, during the day, he laughs a lot, and seems to be adjusting well.

Anyway, pray that Ethan doesn’t get what we had!

I think I am going wrap up this discussion of the kind of culture we want to shape in our home with this post. I’m sure there are parts I’ve missed but I think what I’ve written so far is more than enough to get us started!

“Everything we have is a gift from God. Everything.” (Sweet)

Shaping a Trustee Culture. In a trustee culture, people see themselves as having been entrusted with gifts and resources from God to be used in ways that honor God and further God’s work in the world. IOW, our stuff is not really our stuff, it is a gift from God to be used wisely.

Good stewardship has always been important to us. We’ve written about Teaching Good Money Management and Our Best Money Practices.

Leonard Sweet talks about trusteeship in his book, SoulSalsa …

God owns everything: the cattle, the car, the IRA, the TIAA-CREF. You and I own nothing. Not even ourselves. … We prove our nonownership when we die. You can’t take it with you because it isn’t yours to begin with.

Shaping a trustee culture will require us to be good trustees (or stewards) ourselves. Then we will need to teach Ethan to view himself as a trustee — someone blessed by God to use his God-given resources in ways that honor God.

Well, as I said, this will wrap up a look at the kind of culture we want to shape in our home. Previously, I wrote about shaping a God-centered culture, a learning culture, a high AQ culture, a leadership culture, and a servant culture.

This series has given us an opportunity to be intentional about the kind of culture we want to shape, but now it’s time to put it into to practice with Ethan!

Christ-followers are servants!

We want to raise Ethan in a culture where serving God and others is part of the DNA. A culture where serving God/others is part of the DNA is a culture which says …

It’s not about me!

Rick Warren begins his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, with the words, “It’s not about you.”

“We want to raise Ethan in a culture where serving God and others is part of the DNA.”

We all come into the world, it seems, thinking everything revolves around us. And it first, maybe it does. In fact, for the first 8+ weeks of our time with Ethan, we will both be on parental leave. During this time, we will very much be focused on Ethan! And we can hardly wait!

But as Ethan grows, we want his world to expand beyond himself. It’s an unhealthy attitude for any of us to have that believes, “it’s all about me.”

To help instill a servant culture in our home, we will need to find ways, as a family, to serve — God, each other, others in our church family, and others in the world.

A servant’s heart is a surrendered heart. Jesus demonstrated total surrender like no one else. Perhaps it was because Jesus was reared in a home with a servant culture. He had a mother and father who showed him what surrendered lives look like. As a young (betrothed) wife, Mary was approached by an angel with a mind-boggling opportunity to raise God’s Son. (See Luke 1.26-38.)

Mary, more than a little confused, tried to figure out what it meant. In end, she demonstrated total surrender, saying …

I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said.

Now, that’s the kind of attitude we want to help Ethan develop! Of course, that means *we* will need to model that kind of surrender. IOW, shaping a servant culture, a culture where serving God/others is part of the DNA, comes with a pretty big price tag!

This is the fifth part in a series of reflections on the kind of culture we want to create in our home, especially for Ethan. Previously, we’ve written about shaping a Leadership Culture, a God-centered culture, a learning culture, and a high AQ culture. I have a couple other ideas on my list. I’ll try to write about those in the next few days as we prepare to bring Ethan home.

One of the things I look forward to as a parent is raising Ethan in the context of a leadership culture. Leadership is important to us; we’re both leaders. While we don’t yet know what gifts God has given him (and others God may develop in him in the future), we certainly want to provide an atmosphere where God can grow him to be a leader in whatever areas he discovers his giftedness.

In the Scriptures, particularly with the leaders in the Old Testament, there are so many examples of children following in the footsteps of their parents. Often when the parent was a bad leader, the child was also a bad leader, and vice versa. There were exceptions, of course, but they seem to be few and far between. The challenge for us is to provide the best environment we can so that Ethan will be an effective, godly leader.

Role Models
Everybody needs good role models. As parents, we’ll automatically be role models for Ethan, and that will include modeling leadership. We’ll also ensure that he is exposed to other good leaders so that he can learn from them, too. Having good role models is essential for learning leadership!

Opportunities to Lead
Learning leadership from others is necessary, but it’s not enough. You can’t develop leadership without actually leading. IOW, leadership skills are best developed on the job, putting them into practice. That means we’ll need to give Ethan opportunities to lead as he grows and matures (although we’re not exactly sure what that will look like yet).

Again, we don’t know what God has in store for Ethan, but everyone, regardless of giftedness, can benefit from a strong leadership culture. Everyone leads in some capacity — in school, in the workplace, as a parent, or any number of other contexts. May God help us to take our task of providing a leadership culture for Ethan to heart!

Well, this is part of a series of posts written in preparation for bringing Ethan home. Previously, we’ve written about shaping a God-centered culture, a learning culture, and a high AQ culture.

Parents, in particular, will recognize these three words: Some assembly required!

We’ve already gotten a little taste of them, too, as we prepare to bring Ethan home. We both put a crib together a few weeks ago, and my (Randy) latest project was putting together a stroller. Actually, I took on the task of choosing the stroller, too. I wanted to make sure it was tough enough to go anywhere. It even comes complete with its own tire pump in the basket underneath!

Joleen is going to try to use the same logic in choosing a “tough” looking diaper bag. We’ll see.

Anyway, when I took the stroller out of the box, it came in a number of pieces. For the fun of it, I tried putting most of it together without looking at the directions (which I did), but toward the end, the directions became necessary!

Now this is a stroller!

Shaping culture. That’s what we’ve been thinking about lately as we prepare to bring Ethan home in a few weeks. So far, we’ve talked about shaping a God-centered culture and a learning culture. Next up, we want to shape a high AQ culture.

Behind this idea of a high AQ culture is an excellent book, Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities, by Paul Stoltz, who suggests that one’s AQ is more important than one’s IQ. “AQ is a measure of how you respond to adversity.” (Paul Stoltz)

While IQ measures one’s intelligence, AQ measures how one handles adversity. AQ is about resilience, how you react when things don’t go your way.

Stoltz says there are 3 kinds of people …

1. Quitters simply quit climbing at some point along the journey.
2. Campers may start out okay, but somewhere along the way, they get tired and take a much-needed break (which we all need from time to time). However, they enjoy resting and camping out so much that they decide to stay right where they are. They decide they’ve gone far enough.
3. Climbers keep climbing no matter what obstacles get in their way, no matter what kinds of temptations or distractions come along. Sure, they take regular breaks and camp out from time to time, but their camp is a temporary location, not a permanent residence. Their eyes are on the destination, and they keep climbing!

While Paul Stoltz wrote Adversity Quotient in the 1990s, the concept of AQ is nothing new. The Apostle Paul (and others in Scripture) talked about (and modeled) the importance of high AQ centuries ago …

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1.2-4)

Paul also wrote, “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” (Philippians 4.4; see also 1 Thessalonians 5.16).

The basic idea is that no matter what you’re going through — when you feel out of control — you still get to choose your response. Scripture, life’s manual for living a God-honoring life, is full of examples of people who handled adversity well (as well as examples of people who didn’t) that we can learn from.

We want to cultivate a high AQ environment so that our child will have a AQ. We want to raise a climber, a person who’s resilient and keeps pursuing God’s plan no matter what.

Shaping a high AQ culture is going to be challenging, but the stakes are pretty high. In order to shape a high AQ culture in our home we must teach and model how to handle adversity. We’ll have to be aware of how we react to things (what we say, how we act, what we do afterward, etc.) because our little one will be watching!

Of course, we’ll never have perfect AQs. We’ll mess up at times, but we hope to do our best, with God’s help. We believe the quality — and the impact — of his Ethan’s life depends greatly on his AQ!