I mentioned earlier today that I just finished Patrick Lencioni’s book “The 3 Big Questions for the Frantic Family.” I’m also nearing the end of a small group built around “Revolutionary Parenting” by George Barna. Both book, written by two different authors from two different perspectives and two different end goals seem to have one major thing in common.
Success isn’t going to happen without intentionality and planning.
I got the very strong feeling that families who are intentional and plan around the development of their family and kids are peculiar (not that this is a bad thing at all). I remember several years ago (before Titus), Sara and I went off for an overnight trip in Dallas to develop a mission, vision and core values for our family and people thought this was kind of weird.
The conclusion I’m coming to is that families that proactively go after the spiritual development of their kids are the types of families that have whiteboards in their kitchens. Maybe it’s not that extreme, but maybe they have sticky notes all over their bathroom mirrors (not reminders of when to pick up the kids from school) or giant sheets of paper taped to the wall in their home office outlining their goals, plans or improvement plan.
So, are you a whiteboard family? If you’re one of these types of families, how do you chart, write or display your family strategy?
Great post Kenny!
My wife (Sarah with an h) and I read Lencioni’s book a few years ago and really liked the idea. I’ll admit, that it was a little weird for us to write our a family mission statement and stuff like that but we did it and it has helped us out tremendously. I blogged about it a bit here: http://jeffmcclung.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/helping-families-find-meaning-at-home/
I highly recommend the principle for anyone that is struggling to bring order to the chaos that is family life.
We have an iMac in our kitchen. Does that count?
Yes. A big white board is a centerpiece in our kitchen/family dining room. One of the first things we did was develop our own family plan in each circle of our life – spiritual, financial, social, school and activities.
We keep an update about each area on the white board at all times and we’ll typically talk about something on the board at dinner. Don’t know what we did without it.
P.S. It’s also perfect for family pictionary game. I have a pic loaded on my facebook page.
Jeff, thanks for the link to your post. That’s great… especially the example of your family scorecard.
Matt… it doesn’t suprise me that you’d post what you did… but it only counts if you’re using it for family strategy… not facebook and twitter updates.
Reagan, thanks for sharing. Good to know you’re a peculiar parent as well… and I love it for dinner pictionary… or hang man. 🙂