Family Teams

This past weekend Margaret Ellen and I were able to attend the Family Teams conference. Family Teams is a group of two families that put out resources for making your family into a team. They approach this topic from a biblical perspective that is drawing from the Old Testament and the Jewish culture. At first, many of the things they teach about can seem foreign coming from our very individualistic culture. Yet the more I study and research it the more I am convinced that we need to be a family team instead of a family of individuals.

My family is still relatively young. All of our boys are from ages 5-9. However, it feels as though time is flying by and they are going to be out of the house next week. With time passing by it is important to be intentional on how we raise our kids. I know for Margaret Ellen and I, as a couple, our main goal is for our family is to not simply be a springboard for individual success for our boys. Our goal is to raise boys that love each other well, who want to be around each other and us as they grow older, and to grow the Kingdom of God. I can’t think of anything more exciting to me than reaching those goals as a family.

I think that when people hear those goals in our culture some think, “that would be awesome, but that is a pipe dream.” My question is, why? Look throughout the Old Testament at the families you see there. They weren’t perfect, but they were a team. Why can’t we achieve that in our culture today? Why can’t we be a team that actually enjoys being together and working together? To me, the answer is simple. We can be! Will it be hard? Absolutely. Will there be trials and errors along the way? You bet. Yet, creating a family team is worth all the trials, hardships, etc. that we face along the way.

If you are a parent or grandparent and want to talk to me more about this idea of a family team I would love to talk with you about it. Just send me an email at joel@nwcoc.org and I will send you some resources. I plan on talking more about this with our families in the coming year and have some ideas for helping form our families into teams. You are not in this alone! Let’s do it together!

Joel Harper