Building Family Ties with Faith, Love & Laughter 

Building Family Ties with Faith, Love & Laughter, by Pastor Dave Stone

This book gives many practical ideas for creating a foundation of love, bonding, and family values for parents. He then goes on to elaborate on using teachable moments, every day opportunities, and eternal focus for families to establish routines, traditions, and intentional decisions that guide daily habits and Biblical values. He touches on such subjects as the importance of family dinner (see info below), to being thankful for small and large things, dealing with conflict, the power of words (both to hurt and to bless), being generous, and serving others.

A few ideas:

Family Mission Statement:

Pastor Stone starts simply by suggesting that every family have a mission statement… 

• Get each family member’s input into the statement (as age-appropriate!).

• Pray for God to give clear direction & unity.

• Discuss goals that are important to your family.

• Talk about your family’s legacy – how you want to be remembered.

• Write down some possible statements.

• Narrow it down to the best one and then pray about it.

• Schedule a regular family time to pray & evaluate your progress of living into your family mission!
  
  

Sample Family Mission Statements: Faithful Families: Family Mission Statement

Importance of Family Mealtime:

“What is one thing you can do as a parent that accomplishes all of the following:

• Gives your child a 40% greater chance of getting A’s and B’s in school

• Helps teenagers know that their parents are proud of them

• Helps teenagers to realize that they can confide in their parents about serious problems

• Helps reduce your child’s obesity by 40%.”
  
  

Answer: Having family dinner! Dr. Catherine Snow, professor of education at Harvard, concluded after an 8-year study that having dinner together as a family was of more value to child development than playtime, school, or story time.

If you need some encouragement in your parenting or are looking for creative ways to bring transformation in the relationships in your family, this short read may be worth your perusal.

~ Review by Lyn Shingledecker Wheeler