Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 253 | Ways to Serve as a Family During a Tough Season

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Ep. 253 | Ways to Serve as a Family During a Tough Season · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:04
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So, obviously, there's a lot going on right now. We want to talk about ways to serve as a family. I know that for a lot of us, we're kind of in crisis mode, but sometimes a way to deal with that isn't to wait until everything is great, but it's actually to carve out a little bit of time.
• 0:20
  during your week to serve? And so it's really important to think about, is there some way that you can uniquely serve? On Instagram, we published nine creative ways to serve. I wanna talk about three of those, and then Jeff shot out a really awesome email that really describes some of the ways he's thinking about this season in terms of service. But three of the ways were start an online Bible study, maybe for your neighborhood or friend group,
• 0:44
  Um, I've been on a couple of those. We've used Google Hangouts. It literally took me about five seconds to create a link to set it out to the group. And they're there. Some of you guys didn't you guys do it last night for like a youth group? What's that? Didn't you do it last night for a youth group? We did. Yeah. So we have, we have a whole group of high school students that come to our house every Thursday night.
• 1:02
  And so what we did instead was I just shot out this Google Hangout link and they were all on there. And we spent about two hours going deep into the word. It was so amazing to watch, you know, all the siblings sitting together in their different quarantined rooms. And then we had two kids in our house that were sick and Lisa and Sydney, and they both...
• 1:24
  But they were all they logged on. And so even even while they were sick, they were able to completely participate in this group and get out cabin fever. And so I just think everyone should probably be part of this. I'm going to be part of about three or four of these actually every week. But you can start those. Another is to start a neighborhood Facebook group or some way to communicate with the people that are closer to you.
• 1:44
  We've started one about five years ago here on our street. And so that kind of lights up at times like this when people can share needs or we can be constantly prompting them with questions. How are you guys doing? Do you guys need anything? And then a third way that's really been cool in our area is find ways to promote local businesses and help them. So if you hear a lot of us, like, for example, we have a sewing studio and we've come up with four or five creative ways for people to buy fabric and things like that during
• 2:14
  And every other business that I can see in Fort Thomas, they have listed those ways. And so all over social media, people are posting, hey, this is how you support this business, how you support this small business. And so I think doing some of that is really, really helpful during this time. But yeah, Jeff, how are you thinking about this? I love the verse you shared from Roman.
• 2:32
  Yeah, from Romans 12. And real quick, two more things on the business thing that I saw just on Twitter this morning. Really helpful practical tips of just like, you know, hey, if you want to support some artists and creatives, one easy way to do that is pay for future services, right? So if you're in a good spot and you know you need photos a year from now,
• 2:47
  then pay a photographer right now and say, hey, I need photos in 12 months. Or same thing with restaurants in regards to gift cards, right? Buying any type of gift card right now is giving them the money now, trusting they can offer you the service later. So similar as well, I think, is another helpful way. But yeah, so Romans 12, and I was just meditating on it a couple days ago, and it just felt so pertinent and potent for this season. And I love those verses.
• 3:08
  where you can almost chew on like each little cadence, you know, and this one has like 12 of them, you know, and it's like, let love be genuine, abort what is evil, hold fast to what is good. And it goes on and on. And I'm like, man, each one of those, I almost feel like I want to give it a day's worth of attention and meditation.
• 3:23
  And that's how our family's trying to think through these things is how can we, each one of these, how can we maybe spend a day or two thinking on that? Like, what would it look like for our family to let love be genuine together, but also to the outside world? How can we hold fast to what is good? What are things that the world's losing right now in crisis that the Lord says, no, I still want you to do that even in a squeezed process?
• 3:42
  time. Outdo one another in showing honor. I mean, what would it look like to you just go to your neighbor or, you know, write them a card or something that just kind of honors them, right? Who they are, how they serve, how you appreciate them. Be constant in prayer. Same thing. Like, what would it look like to just shoot off five texts every morning, right? Of just like, hey, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you.
• 4:02
  And here's why. I think it's also helpful to be a little specific of just like, hey, I was thinking about you this morning. I'm praying this verse over you. Just wanted to let you know this is the truth. And so I think, yeah, letting scripture kind of saturate this moment. What I think we forget is the New Testament was written in crisis, you know what I mean? Or at least a more familiar world of us now to them than our normal world to them, you know what I mean? Just like there's famine. There is diseases in the first century world.
• 4:27
  There is back and forth and shipwrecks and persecution. Like the New Testament was actually like a lot of these things that don't seem pertinent to us is because we aren't in the context of where they were written. And now we are at some level, you know, in a different way. And I just think that's so then it's like they kind of come alive more. And I think that's really, really helpful.
• 4:46
  Yeah. I love too, when you're saying like texting people, I, one of the, I was listening to a couple of years ago, Jamie Foxx did an interview with Tim Ferriss. You know, Tim Ferriss is obsessed with people's morning routines. Yeah. So Jamie Foxx is going through his morning routine and he said, like, then I get up and I just text three or four people, tell them I'm thinking about them, you know? And it was like, that's awesome. It was like a daily ritual. Yeah.
• 5:08
  Yeah, so I just started doing this during my prayer time. That's awesome. That ends up being thousands over the year. Yeah, yeah. Why not? You can immediately pray, especially now. Why would you spend your entire prayer time...
• 5:23
  all alone when right there on your phone, you can be communicating and like, Ooh, I'm praying for right now. Anything I can ask the Lord for you? Oh, I just, you know, I thought about this. I'm praying for this. I love that. Like even if you spend like five minutes in prayer, you could probably text three or four people during that time and have even better prayer time, but also encourage three or four people and maybe get some prayer requests back from those people. So yeah, just being creative to connect with people right now. This is, this is the time for that.
• 5:50
  Um, you guys, we, we are doing a free five day challenge to help, uh, families use this crisis to transform their families into a team. Uh, there is a opportunity to change the whole trajectory of your family. I know that there's so much negative stuff going on, a lot of fear, but there's also huge opportunity right now. And we want to help you guys go step by step through that. So Jeff, um, how can people get involved in that?
• 6:15
  Yeah, so you'll see us posting stuff about challenge and getting in, and it'll be via email. We're going to deliver all those resources to you. But you can go to familyteams.com. You can also go to our Instagram. If you follow me or Jeremy on Instagram, you'll see it there as well. And Facebook. Basically, any platforms will be posting out links by the time you're reading this. So just make sure to go there, look for it, put your email in, and you'll start getting all the awesome stuff.