10 Fun Winter Service Projects for Families

Let’s be honest. Winter can be depressing. One of the ways to get your family out of the doldrums is to serve others. As Christians, serving others and sharing our faith are two of the major things God wants us to do. Ironically (although not really), both have also been found to have a positive impact on our mental health. Thankfully, there are some fun service projects your family can do in the winter. Most are simple, low cost and don’t take a lot of time. For the recipient though, it can make a huge positive difference.

  1. Make a bird feeder and place it where someone shut in can watch the birds. You can get kits to build a regular feeder or make temporary ones out of pinecones. Make sure you fill it with food and provide extra if the person is physically able to walk out and refill it. If not, consider dropping by every few days to add food.
  2. Build snow people. You might want to ask permission first depending on the person. How much fun though for someone shut in to watch you build it and then have a fun sight out of their window for awhile!
  3. Shovel porches, sidewalks and driveways. This one is labor intensive, but great exercise! So many older people get stuck at home until the snow and ice totally melt because they are afraid of falling. After shoveling, you may also want to spread salt so melting ice doesn’t re-freeze.
  4. Take over some soup and corn muffins or homemade bread. The truth is that it is the thought that counts. Making homemade soup and bread – even from mixes – adds to the fun, but some cans of good soup and a nice loaf of deli bread or rolls will probably be just as appreciated.
  5. Take over hot chocolate and fixings. You can make fun things like chocolate spoons for stirring or even your own hot chocolate mix. Want to go the extra mile? Add a cute mug and marshmallows (they can be made from scratch too if you want to try it with your kids).
  6. Have a video call. A lot of people stay home during the winter to avoid germs. Since kids tend to be germ magnets, a personal visit is not always the best idea. Why not set up a video call, though? Depending on personalities, be prepared to get the conversation going between your kids and the person you are calling.
  7. Send some mail. Sure it’s old school, but who doesn’t love to get something fun in the mail? Have your kids draw pictures, write notes, send riddles or puzzles….anything that would be fun for someone stuck at home to receive.
  8. Gather up and give winter clothing to someone who needs it. Kids grow rapidly. Your kids and their friends may have a lot of winter wear they have outgrown. Get them to collect it and then give it to individuals, families or urban ministries who could use it.
  9. Take someone some flowers. Nothing brightens a room in the winter like fresh cut flowers. You can get inexpensive bouquets at grocery stores. Many places now sell blooming or ready to bloom plants that may last even longer.
  10. Plant seeds for food to give away. It doesn’t take much to grow many lettuces and spinach indoors in the winter. You can gift that food now or plant seeds for transplanting outside when the weather gets nice. Encourage your kids to care for the seedlings and discuss who might benefit the most from the food you grow.

Have fun with it. Bonus points if you include an encouraging Bible verse or point the recipients to God in some way as well. Make this a winter that is bright for everyone.

5 Hidden Benefits of Baking Cookies With Your Kids

Kids used to grow up helping in the kitchen. Now, many barely see their kitchens in use. We lost something important when we stopped cooking with our kids. We lost a fun way to help them grow spiritually.

For those of you terrified of the kitchen, you don’t have to get fancy. Buy a roll of those slice and bake cookies, some sprinkles and if you really want to have fun, a few tubes of decorator icing in different colors. Sugar cookies are best for decorating. You can find cookie cutters online or in craft stores like Michael’s for decent prices. Or borrow them from your mother or grandmother.

As you’re baking and decorating with your kids, there are five important benefits they are getting.

  1. An opportunity to talk to you when you are really listening to them. There’s something about kitchens that get people talking. Really pay attention to what your kids have to say – even if it seems silly and unimportant to you. They are watching how you respond and whether or not they share important things with you in the future will depend largely on how you react when they share things baking cookies.
  2. Patience. Pulling out the ingredients, mixing them together, rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes, waiting for them to bake, decorating them – it’s not a quick process. They (and possibly you!) will need to practice patience to have yummy cookies to eat at the end.
  3. Perseverance. If you pull out the ingredients, but don’t mix them together, there won’t be any cookies. It takes perseverance to see the project through to its delicious end. This is especially true if mistakes are made and things have to be done again.
  4. Teamwork/taking turns/sharing. Christianity is not done in a vacuum. Even Jesus had his Apostles. To be productive Christians, your kids will have to learn to work with others – including difficult siblings. The finished cookies can be a great motivator for working through sibling issues so the cookies can be baked and eaten!
  5. Serving others. Most recipes for cookies make more than a dozen. Why not take some of those extra cookies and gift them to someone who will enjoy them? Your kids may want to make artwork or write notes to go with the cookies. Delivering them personally also gives them an opportunity to provide companionship to someone who might be lonely.

Have fun with it. Do it more than once a year. Try cooking other things together. You may just find the kitchen is your family’s favorite room in the house!

Moms Have Feelings Too

I’m not sure why, but often the sweetest, most nurturing moms in the world have children who treat them in a callous manner. Ironically, these young people are usually kind to everyone else, but typically they take out all of their anger at their world on their mother.

I get it. It’s wonderful that your kids feel safe enough to release all of those pent up negative emotions on you. But there are ways for them to do that without crushing your feelings in the process.

Even very tiny children can understand, “That hurt Mommy!”. You don’t have to be harsh or lecture. Just let them know firmly, but kindly that you also have feelings that can be hurt and it’s not okay for them to say hurtful and mean things to you.

Teach them healthier ways of venting their emotions. They can cry, hit a punching bag, go for a run, paint a painting, talk about what’s happening and how they feel – there are lots of things they can do to release negative emotions instead of taking it out on you.

Moms take a lot of emotional hits in parenting. Many do it without a spouse sharing the emotional load, even if they are present. Some of those you can’t really avoid. But you don’t have to allow your kids to make you an emotional punching bag. If nothing else, remember that how you allow them to treat you may very well end up being how they treat their roommates and eventual spouse.

Be supportive of your children. Listen to them. Nurture them. Just don’t let them unleash their verbal ire onto you.

Fun Ways to Encourage Productivity in Your Kids

Christians are not saved by our works, but God expects His people to work and be productive. As soon as God created Adam, He put him to work tending the Garden of Eden. God himself worked on Creation for six days before resting on the seventh day. Our culture has reversed this pattern set by God, valuing “rest” over work, and no one is benefiting from it.

To be the Christians God wants your kids to be, they must bear fruit. They must do any work they do “as if working for the Lord” himself (Col. 3:23). They must “make the best use of their time” (Eph. 5:15). They must do good works (Titus 3:14). They must be productive.

Sounds terribly boring and hard, right? Thankfully, Mary Poppins was right – there are things you can do to encourage productivity in your kids that are actually quite fun. Here are a few of our favorites.

  1. Cooking. Most kids love to help cook. Cooking also teaches other Christian life skills like patience, perseverance and following directions (I.e. obeying commands). Go the extra mile and serve whatever they help cook when you entertain someone or take the food to someone who would benefit from the food, the visit, or both.
  2. Do a secret service project. Kids love to do things in secret. Have them help you plan and execute a project to serve someone without them finding out who did it. Make the project difficult enough that it requires some effort.
  3. Plant something. Plants are low risk pets! Have your kids plant and care for flowers or vegetables. Let them choose what they want to grow and plan fun things to do with whatever the plant produces.
  4. Encourage your kids to start a mini business. Most localities allow children to have lemonade stands or sell their art or beaded jewelry to friends and family without licenses. These little mini businesses are usually short lived, but teach your children some of the benefits of hard work.
  5. Encourage playing a musical instrument or pursuing an art or craft. Let them choose something they will enjoy and watch as they joyfully work for hours doing what they love.
  6. Encourage them to do something productive while watching media content. My parents had very strict limits on the amount of tv we could watch each day. In addition, though, they highly encouraged us to do something productive while we watched. It kept us engaged in the real world and often we stopped paying attention to whatever was on because we became so focused on the productive activity.
  7. Have family chore times. Chores are a lot more fun when you are doing them with someone. And have the tunes cranked up. Working together also makes it easier to knock out those bigger projects like cleaning out a garage or basement.

Have fun with it, but raise productive children. The world and the Church will be better for it.

How Well Do You Know Your Kids’ Hearts?

How often do you see an article about a teen or young adult who has just murdered someone where the parent says, “I had no idea my child was capable of that.”? Almost every single time. As a parent of a now adult child, I will tell you that one of two things has happened. First, the parent is lying through his or her teeth to avoid the accusations of poor parenting. Or, two, the parent is telling the truth and honestly doesn’t know his or her child at all. Both are scary.

As a Christian parent, one of your God given responsibilities is to know the hearts of your children. Then to help those hearts long to follow God all the days of their lives. Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Absolutely. There are Christian parents (even in these post Christian days) who successfully raise children who are faithful, productive Christians as adults. They are intentional. They put in the necessary effort.

But most importantly, they spend the time to really get to know the hearts of their children. It isn’t always easy. It can change from year to year. A young child who loves Jesus and wants to please him can grow into a teen who rejects God entirely. But it doesn’t happen over night in the vast majority of cases. The parents had plenty of time to notice early warning signs of weakening faith and make needed adjustments.

You can’t do that if you don’t spend enough time with your kids. Or don’t have meaningful, spiritual conversations with them. Or watch their reactions as you discuss spiritual things. Or listen when they share what is on their hearts. Knowing the hearts of your kids takes time and effort. If you don’t invest in your relationship with them, you risk setting up a dynamic where you don’t realize their faith is weakening until it’s almost too late to make a difference. There’s always hope with God, but helping your kids is easier at the very beginning of any issue than when it is full blown.

Don’t become that clueless parent on the news reels. Know, really know, your kids.