It’s that time of year again. The lights, wreaths, ornaments, mistletoes, and if your lucky; snow! Christmas is here, and with it comes the challenge some Christian parents face in regards to how to deal with Santa Clause? Do we mention Santa? Do we talk about the historical Saint Nick? How about the reindeer, presents, and Elves! When Brittany and I first had Liam it seemed like the opinions, perspectives, and thoughts were everywhere and we were faced with the somewhat daunting task of making a decision for our family. In all honesty, we are in a different place now than we were four years ago. We first made the decision that we would not engage Santa in any way. We felt that putting any emphasis on Santa would distract our kids from Jesus.

It wasn’t soon after that I listened to a sermon by Mark Driscoll about how we engage our culture. Driscoll states that we can accept, reject, or redeem culture. As I began to evaluate how we engaged Santa it seemed that our first approach, to reject, was not as practical or beneficial as we initially thought. In fact, in some ways it was harmful. Ultimately, I would encourage every parent to do what is best for their children in light of the Gospel. For Brittany and I, this meant changing our approach to redeeming the concept of Santa. When I say redeem it, I mean that we can take the concept, identify aspects that are helpful and in some ways actually point us to Jesus. In the same way we can take aspects that can be harmful and address them. Here are three reasons Brittany and I choose to redeem the concept of Santa.

Santa Provides An Opportunity to Engage Culture In A Meaningful Way

As we attempted to reject Santa, we faced the overwhelming challenge of all the Santa discussions, commercials, videos, and Santa imposters at the mall. How were we going to reject Santa but have our kids see it everywhere they turned? Then It dawned on us, what an incredible way for us to engage our culture through something that is so saturated at Christmas time! You don’t have to have any religious background to celebrate Santa. We have an opportunity to utilize Santa as a missional bridge to engage our loved ones and neighbors with the beautiful gospel message of Christ.

One of the common objections and resentment’s that I hear about Christians from non Christians is the perception that Christians can’t relate. It almost feels like Christians live in some other galaxy. We have an opportunity to show our culture and society that we are involved within culture and care about the development of culture within our society. In fact, this very much resembles how we are made in the likeness and image of God, Who after speaking all creation into existence, does not step back and out of human history. Rather, He steps into human history humbling himself to human flesh in order to engage and love humanity in the most personal and intimate way possible. As Hollywood began to produce Biblical epics and put them on the big screen I discussed how our engaging with theses movies are actually helpful and not harmful.

Related: Why I Love The Movie Exodus: Gods and Generals

Santa Provides Us With An Opportunity To Point To Jesus

Another serious problem Brittany and I faced was the reality that there was some hypocrisy in how we handled Santa. For instance, my kids love Avengers, Spiderman, Superman, Star Wars, anything that has good guys and bad guys they are into. I don’t reject these things. In fact, I love them, so I engage with them and pretend and play and we enjoy the story line of good and evil and watch how good always prevails. To take it a step further, how many of us have been to Disney Land? Here we are grown adults with our children taking pictures next to Mickey and other Disney characters. Is that wrong? No! For us, Santa falls in the same category. A fictional character similar to Superman or Batman who has some historical roots.

I love Hebrews 3 and I think as we read through the Bible we find that the common theme is simply, Jesus is better. One of the things I try to do with my boys is point out while we are watching super hero cartoons that as awesome as superman is, he is pretend and not real. However, we have a real Jesus who conquered sin and death and did real miracles who loves us! We have someone who is far better and real! As we talk about Santa and how people love the fact that he brings gifts, what a great way to say that there is someone even better than Santa. Jesus came and gave us the perfect give of salvation. One of the most important things that we can do is know who Jesus is.

Related: Seminary 101: Christ as Prophet, Priest, King

Santa Can Encourage Our God Given Gifts Of Imagination

God who is the definition of creative, gave us creative minds. It’s not a bad thing to exercise this creativity. In fact, as adults I think we have lost some of the wonder of imagination. When I watch my boys play and see them tie a towel around their neck as a cape and pick up whatever is around them as weapons and super hero gadgets I am reminded of how important imagination is for us. In fact, so much of what is in the Bible requires us to use our imagination as we wait in eager anticipation for coming of Christ. What does Heaven look like? What will our bodies look like? What do relationships look like in Heaven? Exercising our imagination now and allowing our children to exercise within some safe boundaries will only help them as they engage the scriptures.

Idolatry Can Be Found In Anything

Ultimately, the fear we had was of idolatry. We were afraid that Santa would steal the attention from Jesus and his birth. The reality is, there is so much idolatry going on in our lives all the time. Idolatry can be anything and will always rob us of the joy of Christ. The issue is never the object of our attention, rather our inner motivation. What an incredible opportunity to teach our kids that we can enjoy fun things which in turn cause us to be stirred up in our affections for Jesus.

The post Should Christian Parents Talk About Santa Clause? appeared first on Joel's Travels.

Parents,

Let’s take this advent season as an opportunity to lead our families well. God has given us a great responsibility and privilege to lead our families. I know the challenges that we face in regards to this all to well. We work long hard hours, we get home and we are tired and exhausted.  We run through our checklist of things that need to get done before dinner, and we find our selves scrambling to play catch up on everything else after dinner before we go to bed just repeat the same thing tomorrow. In this process many of us, myself included, neglect leading our families in Bible study. Somehow, the most important thing we can do as parents becomes the most neglected. There is nothing more important that I can think of than opening up the beauty of God’s Word and sharing this marvelous Christ with our family.

It’s Time To Change Things

Rather than waiting for next year or for our “busy season” to die down lets take this Advent season as our opportunity to intentionally lead our families and enter into eager anticipation of the celebration of the coming of the promised messiah. I know some of the objections that may come up. Things like:

• I’m not a Bible scholar
• I don’t have any formal training in theology or studying the Bible
• We don’t have the time to add something else, this will definitely take a serious time commitment that I don’t have

There’s good news! You’re not on your own and there are some incredible resources that can walk you through the process of leading your family regardless of your knowledge, training, or time availability. This is something that we all can do!

My Commitment To You

During Advent I am planning on sending out a weekly Advent Bible study that can be a help to you as you lead your families through this season. Each week expect to see an Advent study that you can repurpose and use to teach your family or engage in conversation. These studies will build on each other and include some great visuals, background history and information, and discussion questions. Getting this each week is incredibly simple! Just sign up to my advent newsletter and you will be all set!

Further Resources

I’d recommend that you also invest in some resources to help you dig deeper and encourage you along the way. I’d highly encourage you to check out and dig into the following resources:

Good News Of Great Joy: Daily Readings For Advent (John Piper)

Prepare Him Room: Celebrating The Birth Of Jesus Family Devotional (Marty Machowski)

The Adventure Of Christmas: Helping Children Find Jesus In Our Holiday Traditions

*(All opinions are my own. I make a commission off of the affiliate links, however I do not endorse products that I do not use myself or believe in)

The post Parents, Lets Lead Our Families Through Advent appeared first on Joel's Travels.

We are in a really fun season of parenting. Liam and Levi love to read and watch movies. They are finally in a season where we can start working through chapter books. Brittany and I decided to start working our way through the C.S Lewis books. The boys happened to see that the books were made into movies so we started watching the movies. As we we jumped into the story of Narnia, I spent more time watching the reaction of my boys than actually watching the movie. Their eagerness to understand why Edmund would betray his family and even more incredible, their eager anticipation to see this majestic lion named Aslan. There is so much that I was reminded of by watching my boys response throughout the movies, and even more encouraging, I began to relive and recollect that simple wonder and awe that my kids were experiencing. As I reflect on what we learned as a family from C.S Lewis, we came across the following.

Eager Anticipation:

The opening scenes of the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe leads us on a journey to find this majestic and powerful lion named, Aslan. Every scene and at the turn of every corner we are anticipating the return of Aslan. Each character that we meet describes Aslan in a unique manner, but they all conclude that he is the only hope for the tragedy and turmoil that Narnia is in. Then, it happens! We see this large, glorious, beautiful, and fierce lion. Aslan is both terrifying and loving at the same time.

So what did the anticipation cause in us? It caused us to be sharp and aware because we didn’t want to miss when he came. As we unpacked this with my boys we discussed how we are now waiting for Jesus to come back. Jesus is even better than Aslan. He is coming back to live with us so we could enjoy Him forever. Our anticipation of Christ coming back causes us to consider our life. I am reminded of Phil 1:27 where Paul calls us to live a life worthy of the Gospel.

As we wait in eager anticipation for Jesus we can reflect on our life and are motivated to live in light of the goodness and mercy of Christ. Further, our anticipation causes us to be diligent and fruitful with our time. We don’t know when Christ will come back, and we have much to do today to advance the Gospel. There are real hurting and broken people that are in desperate need of the Gospel. Therefore, our anticipation causes us to be faithful to the great commission.

The Failure To See God:

In Prince Caspian we came across another interesting twist. Lucy see’s Aslan and as she tries to tell her siblings that he is in fact there, they tell her off. Why is it that Lucy was able to see Aslan but the others were not? We find that that the kids, like all of us, were motivated and driven by their own desires. It’s dangerous to pursue our own desires. While Peter was consumed with proving himself as the famed “High King” he neglects Aslan and pursues his own selfish motives. Something we can all relate to. Augustine says it well, “For men see Him just so far as they die to this world; and so far as they live to it they see Him not.”

The more we live our lives for our gratification, motives, desires, and wants we will see less of God. This extends to hearing from God. I hear so often, “I just don’t hear from God” or “I don’t know His will for me”. I’ve said this! The reality is, in my life, one of the key problems is the distraction of my selfishness. Matthew 16:24 speaks to this reality. That our pursuit must be Christ. As we deny ourself, carry a cross, and follow after Him, we will see him clearly.

Meditating On The Sacrifice of Christ:

As we were leading up to the moments when Aslan was preparing to sacrifice himself for Edmund my wife and I looked at each other with panic. We remembered how hard it was to see this beautiful, powerful, Aslan subject himself to this wicked witch and get slain. We quickly looked at each other and began to debate over whether or not the kids should see this. We ended up coming to the realization that they should, and we had to clearly communicate what was happening. Needless to say, there was crying, sobbing, anger, so many pure emotions from a little 4 and 2 year old. I can’t begin to describe how awesome it was to see them respond when Aslan comes back victorious. As we talked about what took place with Aslan we told the boys that this is what Jesus literally did for us. We were just as guilty as Edmund, and Jesus was perfectly innocent. However, he sacrificed himself willingly on our behalf. But he didn’t die! He conquered sin and death and promised to come back for us. What a simple way to explain the doctrine of substitutionary atonement to a 4 and 2 year old (thank you C.S Lewis!).

We have to keep the reality of Christ’s sacrifice in front of us. This is why I think its wise to do communion each week. We are putting into practice a system of remembrance that causes us to consider, think, and thank God for his goodness and sacrifice. Further, we can take hope in His promise to come back as a victorious King to reconcile his people to Himself.

If you are a parent, I would highly recommend that you take some time to read through the Chronicles of Narnia. If your kids are old enough read as a family with them. However, don’t just enjoy the literary excellence of the book without meditating on the beautiful Gospel themes that C.S Lewis implements so intentionally.

The post 3 Lessons Learned From Narnia appeared first on Joel's Travels.

As a kid I hated consistency. Actually, the more I think about it, I still hate it. But I know it’s good for me. It’s even more important for my kids. Traveling threw the concept of consistency for a spin for our family. There are times when Dad is not home for dinner or breakfast. There are times when he is. The night time routine can get changed, which can become a big deal for our kids. I learned quickly that I don’t read stories like momma.

We quickly began to see the toll that inconsistency had for our kids. The boys became anxious and began to question everything. Liam is the king of “but why dadda?”. At first I just got mad, then I realized that this was a symptom of inconsistency in his life. So why is consistency important for kids?

1. It builds a framework for them that they can rely on:

As much my kids fight the routine they need it. In many ways consistency serves as a safety blanket that they can rely on. Without this framework there isn’t anything that is anchoring them down. This creates a perfect scenario for them to start spinning out of control.

In fact, my inconsistency creates the opportunity for chaos in my kids life. @Muddamalle
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Kids need boundaries, they need guidelines and rules. Possibly the biggest challenge I came across as a youth pastor was the epidemic of parents that wanted to be friends with their kids and not their parents. Here’s a little secret that I found out. Friendship with your kids will come as they get older. If you focus on building a strong framework for your kids to rely on it will only result in a better friendship and further trust as they become adults. My mom never fooled around with me as a kid. There was never question if she was my parent or friend. Today, I enjoy a friendship with my mom, which is a blessing. Don’t worry, she still knows how to throw down on me if I need it!

2. It creates discipline:

Our pursuit of consistency results in much needed discipline for kids. This discipline is crucial for them as they develop into adulthood. As we focus on creating disciplined children not only will our kids thank as they become adults, but their spouses, kids, and bosses will owe us one!

While I was in New York I had a great conversation with the Hillsong NYC pastoral team. An observation that we both have seen is the expectation that teenagers and young adults have for instant gratification. They want what they want, now! Possibly a big part of the challenge is a lack of discipline and patience during their childhood. The best part of this is sitting back and watching our kids become responsible adults.

3. It facilitates an opportunity to make significant accomplishments:

I am constantly amazed at how much Liam (almost 4) and Levi (2) are absorbing. My wife Brittany recently decided to start working through a easy “teach your kids to read” book. She simply decided to consistently work through a page or two in the book each night. Now, when I’m home Liam reminds me that he has to do his “work” like dadda does work. So every night he grabs his book and sits with me and momma to practice his reading. Oh, and my 3.5 year old can legitimately read 15-20 words. Is it purely because he’s a genius? Well, yes. But more importantly is because of a consistent pattern each night.

Our kids have the ability to absorb, learn, and accomplish a lot. As parents we have the great opportunity to focus in on specific areas. This can look different for everyone. For some it may be reading, for others it could working on brushing teeth or cleaning up toys. Regardless, you can accomplish a lot simply by being consistent.

Finally, grace.

Give yourself grace. Please don’t take this post to mean that we have to be perfect. Inconsistency is part of life. Things happen, routines change, and life goes on. Give yourself grace, and remember to give your parent friends grace also!

More posts from the Traveling Dad Series:

The Challenge of Discipline

Will I Mess Up My Kids?

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The post The Traveling Dad: The Pursuit of Consistency appeared first on Joel's Travels.

When Brittany first told me that she was pregnant I quickly went through the following emotions.

Shock – Excitement – Panic – Oh Crap.

You may have read previously that I am not necessarily a fan of kids. Now I found myself responsible for the life of this little human being. Not only that but I instantly fell in love. All of a sudden I had these intense affections for this gift of God. Then, I had the “Oh Crap” moment. The conversation in my mind went something like this.

Will I be a good dad? Am I ready to be a dad? Does being a dad mean I can’t play air-soft or Modern Warfare 2? Crap…what if I mess up this kid?

The fear of messing up my kids skyrocketed as I realized I did not have the luxury of working a eight to five job and home every afternoon. Being a traveling dad threw our entire household into a tailspin for a bit as we adjusted to this new dynamic. I typically found myself up late at night at hotel rooms thinking about my kids (its hard for me to sleep when I’m on the road). Sometimes my thoughts revolve around the future. What type of men will by boys grow up to be? What type of lady will they marry and bring into the family? How will they interact with their kids and wives? All of these thoughts hinge on the questions, did we do enough raising them?

Both Brittany and I realized a couple things quickly:

1. We have to be intentional with our kids – When people say your kids grow up in a blink of an eye they are being serious. I’ve tried to be intentional with my boy’s in a variety of ways. I’m intentional about commenting to my boys how beautiful their momma looks. This creates a standard for them as they get married.

In many ways my intentionality with my boys is an investment into their future outcome. @Muddamalle
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We intentionally talk about the goodness of God and why we love Jesus. I want my boys to always remember a love and affection for Christ. The greatest gift I could give my boys is a childhood filled with affection, wonder, and awe of Jesus.

2. Our kids foundation has to be the Word of God – If I am really honest with myself, my own wisdom, insight, and intellect is not good enough. It never will be. The best thing we can do for our Children is saturate them in the Word of God. I love Proverbs 1:8-19. Many parents and pastors love using this verse to point out the importance that kids listen to and obey their mother and father. I read this verse and am reminded that kids can only listen and obey when parents are faithful in instructing and teaching their children in the way of the Lord.

3. Praying is essential – Ultimately, our hope for our kids can’t be in our ability or skills. If this is the case we are all in trouble. As we realize that we don’t have everything under control we are left with our only hope being in the Holy Spirit. As a result, it is essential that we spend time in prayer for our kids. My mom spent countless hours praying for me, and I firmly believe that her prayers made a difference. In fact, as we turn to God we can place our hope in the creator of the universe who spoke all things into being. 1 Thess 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing and Hebrews 5:7 points us to the example of Christ to prayed and was heard because of his reverence. Our prayers makes a difference and we can take hope in the fact that our God is good.   I love that God is faithful and a good father. The scriptures are filled with this reality.

 Will I Mess Up My Kids?

Yea, most likely to some extent, but I’m thankful that Brittany and I can turn to God who gives us direction and a hope not only for our future but for our children also.

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Don’t forget to read the first post of the series that covers discipline!

Helpful Resources:

These two books have been game changers for us as we jumped into this crazy life parenting 3 little boys!

• Give Them Grace
• Shepherding a Childs Heart

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The post The Traveling Dad: Will I Mess Up My Kids? appeared first on Joel's Travels.

I was on an airplane with Brittany, Liam, Levi, and Lucas heading to Houston. Liam turned to me suddenly and said:

“Ohh…Dadda…so this is where you live!?”…

Never saw that one coming.

I realized quickly that traveling threw a couple wrenches into parenting. It was much more difficult being a traveling Dad than I anticipated. Some of you may be thinking:

“How does this apply to me?”

Whether or not you travel, it is impossible to be with your kids 24 hours a day. In that case, you may experience some of the challenges that I have in a different context. Most of what I write about will serve as principles that you can apply to your context. In fact, I’d love to hear about how you do that! Let me know in the comments section.

I’d encourage you to do 3 things as we kick off this series:

1. Share this post (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+) – It’s my hope and prayer that this will be helpful to seasoned parents, new parents, new couples, and even people who are just thinking about the implications of marriage and parenthood. We all have people in one or all of those categories, so hopefully these posts will help them!
2. Subscribe to the email news letter – Don’t miss a post. When you subscribe you will get each post delivered directly to your in box! I’m also working on devotional e-book and the only way to get it will be to sign up!
3. Check out the first post – This first post covers one of my first challenges, discipline!

The post Introducing: The Traveling Dad Series appeared first on Joel's Travels.

When Brittany and I first got married we always wondered who would be the tough parent and the easy parent. I quickly stated that I would be tough.

Moment of honesty:

I don’t like kids. It’s actually true. I’ve never been a kid person. That’s why I’ve always gravitated towards youth ministry and working with high school and college age students rather than little kids.

Hubris:

This experience lead me to believe that I would be immune to the charm, whinny voice, and utter smooth moves from these little creatures we call kids. Then I became a dad. Quickly it became evident that I was not the stoic father that was immune to childish charm. In fact, when it came to my first born, Liam, I fell pray to his wide eyed smile, cry, and whine almost every time. Brittany became the tough “cant get anything past me” mom. Then my second son Levi came. He has a different kind of charm. The kind where he does something incredibly naughty, looks at you in the face, smiles, and in a raspy voice says, love you daddy da. It gets me every time. My third son Lucas is only 4 months old. He already has the half smile with dimple smile down.

Traveling Life:

Then our lives took a twist. I transitioned into a new role at work where I spend a considerable more time traveling across the US and sometimes the world to present, speak, and teach workshops at conferences. One side affect I never considered would be how this impacted my desire to discipline my boys. I found myself on the road for 2-4 days at a time. When I came home my first thoughts were not about consistency in parenting or the 3-4 things Brittany had been working on the boys with. It was hugging, kissing, and playing with my boys. Even further, the simple thought of disciplining the boys was hard enough, I couldn’t really bring myself to do it. I became the dad who gave the “last warnings” and “second and ONLY chances”.

I quickly realized (Brittany helped a lot with this!) that my travel schedule was not an excuse for me not being present or active in the discipline of our children. In fact, my sons need discipline from their father. Proverbs 23 has it right, children should listen to their fathers instructions. The only way children can listen to their fathers instructions are if fathers are actually giving instruction!

Ways to be present in the discipline of my kids:

Here are a few ways I have tried to provide some course correction:

• Stay in the loop while I am away – Its easy to talk about surface level things with Brittany and the boys while I’m away. The best thing I can do is be intentional about what is happening in the lives of my kids and asking my wife how things are going with them. My wife serves as the window into everyday life when I’m gone. Our ability to communicate well is incredibly helpful as I stay in the loop on the wins and challenges at home.
• Engage in conversation with kids – While I’m away I want to discuss and talk about what has been going one during that day. I want to talk about what happened when Liam got in trouble for hitting his brother. Even though I am in a different state I want my sons to know that daddy is still present and cares about what they are doing. This type of daily recap and recollection is not only helpful for me, but also for my kids to consider the events of the day.
• Take your kids on dates – I give myself the freedom to have either a fun day. Basically, daddy takes the kids out to have fun. Typically, this just means we order pizza, have sword fights, throw the football around, or go to the park. Being able to just have fun with the kids gives me a release and is helpful as I step back into day to day dad living.

My kids need me to be their dad in all areas of their lives. @Muddamalle
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I’ve seen the disaster of parents that are physically or emotionally unavailable. It creates lasting challenges for their kids. The benefits of being godly and attentive parents are countless, and we will see those benefits played out as our kids become spouses and parents themselves one day.

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Related Posts:

• Four Ways To Stay Married With a Crazy Travel Schedule
•  Staying Dad While Traveling
• Being Road Sick

The post The Traveling Dad: The Challenge of Discipline appeared first on Joel's Travels.

2. Keeping a Journal

3. Praying for my boys

4. Don’t let the road consume you

The post Staying Dad While Traveling appeared first on Joel's Travels.