I am not a big game person myself.  I am like everyone else who lets their brain go numb while watching something entertaining, especially after trying some games that weren’t competitive enough.  Board games were fun for an “unsophisticated generation,” like when I grew up.  Now it seems we have a very sophisticated society, and we need to be attentive to that.  Video games fit the bill, right?  Maybe, maybe not.

Video games can be very addictive.  There is data that shows that many people who start gaming when they were young continue into their 20s and 30s.  They spend endless hours playing really competitive games that lead to nothing.  Of course, there are video games that you can play against each other in the living room, but that interactive playing may or may not happen, even though that is the intention.  There are other really some good interactive board games that will engage your kids’ attention, like Mad Gab, Catch Phrase, Apples to Apples, Imagine If, Clue, Scattergories, Monopoly.  And there are lots of great card games that are fun and force you to think and engage with your kids: UNO, Phase 10, Pit, Spoons, Hearts, Spit, Hit the Deck, Skip Bo, to name several.

You can create some great memories while playing interactive games or reading funny books aloud.  We used to read at the dinner table.  I remember laughing about a story we were reading and discussing the issues the story brought up.

Try to stay away from having every family night be about watching a video.  That is the easy way out.  There are always so many movies to pick from, and we ourselves have had to guard against only watching videos on family night.  Think about an indulgent time spent absorbing Hollywood’s values versus laughing hysterically together throughout a competitive game.  Which would you choose?

Sometimes you all just need to relax and let your hair down.  But if you get in the habit of doing that, and not engaging your kids, you will end up with 16-,17-, and 18-year-old couch potato slugs absorbed by media because all their family time was spent silently in front of a viewing screen.

Christmas Day after opening presents, gather together and read the story of Jesus Christ’s birth in Luke 2:1-20 from the Bible. Afterwards serve others by volunteering at a soup kitchen or evangelizing to the homeless with hot chocolate and the Gospel.

All throughout our kids’ growing up years, we had a special Christmas morning tradition. After eating breakfast, we got ready to leave the house for what my wife and I felt was one of our most important holiday traditions before opening gifts: We would serve the meal at the local Salvation Army. We did this to send a message to our children that Christmas is about serving, not just indulging ourselves. Inevitably, we would end up having some conversations with people who were really hurting, listening to them and praying for them. Look for various ways to plant seeds in your kids about being others-centered.

One of the greatest things you can do is help your kids want to serve and impact other people. You can provoke this by giving them experiences that are way out of the box. Sending them to summer camp is great, but finding a camp that doesn’t indulge them makes a bigger impact. Look for something that teaches them to be closer to God or gain a skill. Some examples would be leadership camp like Student Leadership University, basketball camp, acting camp or anything that will give them a skill they can use even in their high school years to serve others and become excellent at something.

One of the greatest things you can do is help your kids go on a missions trip to another part of the world. There they can see how other people live who are far less fortunate than we are in America. Start doing this at a young age. (We started taking kids on Global Expedition trips with Teen Mania at just 11 years old.) In 2 days, nearly 300 teens will leave to go on a missions trip with us. Please pray for them.

If MTV is targeting kids at younger and younger ages, then so must we. We must plant in our kids a desire to really make a difference and change the world. Give them opportunities to reach out in a very practical way. This may mean digging a well in India, reaching out to orphans’ in Africa whose parents have died of AIDS on missions, or feeding the homeless, and ringing the Salvation Army bell with you this Christmas to help the community. Whether it’s a two week mission trip or a day of service, they realize that life is more than the stuff they accumulate. Even though they may not become a missionary later in their life, at least this experience gives them a taste of doing something that is definitely not self-centered.

Letting our children have this experience is a test for us as parents, a test of our trust that God will take care of our kids. Allowing them to go out of the country sends our children a message while they are young that they were born for greatness and destined to impact the world.

On Christmas Eve gather around the tree to open one present each. Then have everyone write down what gift they would like to give Jesus for His birthday. Allow them to dream big in what they offer to Him.

98 percent of people are followers; 2 percent are the shapers of culture. The 2 percent are the dreamers. One of our biggest responsibilities as parents is not only to protect our kids from culture but to help them be the shapers of culture. A lot of this book so far has shown you how to insulate your kids and proactively instill your values in them. The point of doing that is not just so you can have a ‘good family’ with great values, but to teach your family to take those values and begin to impact and shape the rest of the world.
 
How do we get our kids into the 2 percent who are the shapers of culture? How do we get them to be the dreamers for their generation, inventing the gadgets, writing the songs, driving the businesses, running for political office and sitting on school boards? It starts while they are young. As moms and dads, we need to be about the business of sparking the desire and planting the seed in their heart to creatively dream when they are very, very young.

We have told our kids from the beginning that they were born to change the world. They were born to make a difference. We put them to sleep at night praying over them, “God, use Hannah (Charity, Cameron) to change the world. Use her to make a difference . . . to touch people’s lives.” From the youngest age, that seed was planted in their minds and hearts; they grew up believing they really can change the world and make a difference.

Our goal as parents is not just for our kids to become “good” members of society. We need to raise them to be change agents. We need to raise them to take the values we have instilled in them, harnessed with a passion for God, and inspire them to reach out to people. We multiply the impact we have had on their lives to countless others, as they reach out. Getting them to think deeply about what they want to do to honor God this year is a great first step on their way to becoming dreamers!

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!