Have a movie night with the family! Make some popcorn and watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” together. Afterwards, take a few minutes asking each person what they think is wonderful about their life and what the movie shows about the things we value. Take the time to really listen to what your child values. Then plan a big New Year’s time with your family like this:

What are your core values? It’s easy to say, “I just want my family to follow the Bible,” or simply quote the fruit of the Spirit (see Gal. 5:22-23). Often, we find that when we say we just want to follow the whole Bible, or a preset list of qualities, we end up practicing none of them. We end up emphasizing none of them. It’s more effective to create a list of about three to five values upon which to build your family name, heritage and practices. What are the actions and attitudes that you want reflected in everything you do? What do you want the foundation of your family to be?

Identifying your list of core values requires that you and your spouse think through the question, What kind of kids do we want to raise? If nothing else, what are the four or five characteristics that you would like to roll off the tongue when people think of your family? More than anything else, what do you want to instill in your kids and see them identify as their code of values?

Katie and I created our list when our kids were very young. We came up with many qualities, or values, and realized the list was too long. In Proverbs 22:1, the Bible talks how a good name is hard to find; it’s more valuable that silver or gold.2 Based on that proverb, we asked ourselves, “What do we want our lives and our family reputation to stand for?” We reduced the list to four values and backed up each value with a passage of Scripture that best embodied each idea.

It’s a common practice in the business world for a business, in order to shape its culture, to establish core values and rally every employee around those values. Doing this begins to actually change the culture of the workplace. You can’t just change the culture because you want to; you must get the people to accept and support these values.

I began to wonder if the same concept might work in my family. So we decided to establish some values. We didn’t just say, “These are our values.” We got the family to really shape their lives around them. After doing all the work in advance, and thinking through what our four values would be, and selecting the Scriptures that best represented who we wanted to be, we decided to make the family core values a great unveiling.

We made it a big event for our family––a defining moment. Cameron was about three, and our daughters, Hannah and Charity, were only eight and nine years old. We told them, “A week from today, we are having a big family celebration. It’s going to be something exciting that we’ve never done before.” When we said that, they would shout, “What is it? What is it?” And we’d reply, “Sorry, we can’t tell you any more. It’s going to be a big surprise.” Each day we would tease them a little bit more. “It’s going to be so great. We are all going to get dressed up!” They would say, “Really? Can you tell us what it is?” Then we’d say, “Sorry, we can’t tell you more. It’s going to be on Friday night, and it’s going to be great! We’re going to have a special meal. Oh, sorry, we can’t tell you any more . . .” We built up great anticipation in the kids.

When the big night arrived, we all got dressed up and had a big meal together. Katie and I cooked something really fancy that we knew the kids would like. Then we had a large mysterious something set up in the living room, covered with a tablecloth. We lit lots of candles to add to the vibe. After the nice dinner, we brought everyone into the living room. We said, “We care about our family name, and we care about all of us going in the same direction together. It’s important. A good name is hard to find; its more valuable that silver or gold. We care about the character of our family.” I took a brick and a hammer and––SLAM––broke the brick in front of them. I said, “See this brick? It’s not strong in itself. What’s inside the brick is what makes it strong. It is what’s inside our family that makes us strong––and what’s inside is our character. Tonight, we’re talking about what will make us a strong family so that we can build something strong together. Mom and I have been thinking and praying about what we, as a family, want to stand for. So we want to show you our four core values . . .” And with a grand swoosh, we unveiled the masterpiece. Plan something similar for New Year’s to kick off 2010!