Welcome His Heart: https://welcomehisheart.com/
MFP 165: Forgiveness Brings Freedom and Transformation
Videos - Evangelizing Your Kids and Forgiveness in the Family https://messyfamilyproject.org/course/pizza-and-parenting/watch/
Parents must be very intentional about evangelizing their children and bringing them into a relationship with Christ.
Marriage is a sacrament of service to the world. Our marriages are not just for us, they are an office of service.
Every mother and father is to act as “priests of the home” and take up the spiritual authority God has given them for the sake of their children.
Forgiveness is key to restoring relationships that have been broken and can teach children powerful lessons on relationships.
In order to transform your family you will need to start with these three things - create habits to support your goals, make Jesus the king of your home, and build community to support your family.
How are we leading together in the home? Have we taken up that call to spiritual leadership?
What is my understanding of forgiveness? How can we live this out better within our home and our relationships?
How is our marriage serving others? How are we giving from the well of our sacrament?
What are 2 resolutions that we can make today to start living a transformed family life?
“You and your spouse are a team that GOD wants together!” - Art and LaraineBennett
The first step in creating a dynamic family is to know the people who are in it! That starts with knowing yourself, then your spouse, and then your children. One of the tools that we love using for this knowledge is the classic four temperaments - choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. The leading Catholic authors on the temperaments are Art and Laraine Bennett, authors of the book The Temperament God Gave You and many other great resources! In this conversation we pepper them with questions about what the temperaments are, why knowing the temperaments are important, and how they can change your parenting. This podcast is FULL of great tips and resources of parents of any age. Listen in!
Temperaments are only ONE aspect of our personality. Many things make each one of us unique.
Temperaments are part of the wisdom of the ancients, but they also have been extensively studied in modern psychology
Your temperament is the way you REACT. Knowing our temperament helps us to learn how to RESPOND to others in love.
As a parent, knowing our children’s temperaments helps because we can teach them how to mature by focusing on their strengths and helping them process their weaknesses.
When we react we will fly, fight, or freeze. Learning the “art of the pause” will help us respond in love and get out of “reaction mode”.
You and your spouse can help each other by knowing your gifts and giving each other alternatives to handling difficult situations.
Take the quiz at https://temperamentquiz.com and link your account with your spouse.
Observe your children this week. During a date night, talk about the temperament of each child and how you can encourage their strengths.
What are our gifts as a couple? How can we better use them for the good of our children?
Your authority in the family does not come from perfection, it comes as a grace from your parenthood.
There are two kinds of families - those that are frantic and those that are fruitful. As Catholics we have an incredible grace to be fruitful families, but often our families don’t look much different than the secular, frantic families around us! How can we live family life differently? There are so many different parenting philosophies out there. Which ones should Catholics follow? In this podcast, we give an overview of The Catholic Parenting Course - a guide for parents who want to have a roadmap for raising their families to be in the world, but not of the world. The two parts of this podcast are how to parent like God the Father and then the secret weapon of the Catholic family (our regular listeners can guess what that is!). Listen in!
Book: Abba’s Heart
Podcast: MFP096 and 097, Elements of a Family Culture and Building a Family Culture
To parent like God the Father, we need to start by conforming our hearts to His.
Unity within your marriage needs to flow out and encompass everyone, all of your children giving them purpose and belonging.
More than anything else, our children need us to delight in them.
Forming the hearts of our children is our sacred task. Our goal should be to hand over the locus of control from us as parents to them.
When lived intentionally, the culture within your home can be a powerful weapon against secular forces arrayed against us.
Do we see our Heavenly Father as delighting in us? Why or why not?
On a continuum from isolation to oneness, where are we now? How unified are we in our home?
What does it mean to delight in our children? What does that look like for each of us, realizing that we will do this differently?
What are the values that our family culture is communicating to our children?
Summary:
In this episode, we explore several listener's questions about how to manage friendships when personal values differ, particularly in situations where children are involved. Mike and Alicia are joined by their daughter, Katie to dive into the challenge of maintaining friendships with those whose lifestyle choices may conflict with Catholic teaching, while still modeling love and compassion for others. The conversation focuses on how to love the person, hold true to your beliefs, and balance protecting your family’s moral development.
Couple Discussion Questions:
How can you love friends or family members who hold values different from your own while protecting your children’s development?
How do you explain complex adult relationships to your children in a way that aligns with your values?
What boundaries do you set when it comes to relationships that conflict with your beliefs?
Resources:
For more information on this and other topics visit: https://www.messyfamilyproject.org/
Beauty resets our compass. It reminds us of who we are and what we are made for. ~ Andrew Peterson
Our children will grow no matter what, but how they grow and what they learn is heavily dependent on their environment. Parents can shape the world of their children to include beauty, freedom of artistic expression, and space to wonder. In this podcast, we talk to Andrew Peterson, singer, songwriter, author, father and now grandfather. Over the last 25 years, Andrew has used his creative talents in the world of music and fantasy books for kids. He has done this out of the firm belief in the power of art to commuicate eternal truths and draw people into relationship with God. Our family has been blessed by his work over the past 25 years and we hope that all our families will be too!
Parents need to shape the world to be beautiful for their children. Beauty evangelizes even to the very young child. Art, in all its expressions, is essential to life.
Beauty resets the compass. It reminds us of who we are and what we are made for. It awakens within us the desire for the Kingdom - God’s Kingdom here on earth and in heaven.
Delight in your children. They need to know that they are wonderfully made and they learn that by how we respond to them.
Sin is when I forget who I am. Our kids need to be solid in their identity as a child of God and so do we!
We need to learn to desire things in the right order. Sin happens when we live a life of disorder. As parents we can help order the lives of our children in the right way.
How does our family experience art (music, literature, movies) in our home? What do these things communicate to our children?
Do we delight in our children? How can we do this more?
What are we doing in our home to help our children “desire things in the right order?” How can we shape the environment in our home to do this?
God in the Garden
Wingfeather Series (books)
Wingfearther series (series on Angel studios)
Andrew-peterson.com
Music list on spotify