Making It Meaningful

Past Year Review

08:32, Sunday, December 31, 2006 .. Posted in New Ideas .. 0 comments .. Link

This is from Doug Phillips at Vision Forum:

I. Outline and Chronicle the Many Providences of God

“Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” (Hab. 2:2)

First, using simple bullet points, outline the key events for every week of every month of the year. Take the time to do the research which will help jog your memory and allow you to make an accurate record. I find that reviewing bills, blogs, journals, newspaper headlines, letters, and even organizing my photographs chronologically are enormously helpful tools. Those individuals who were faithful to journal or keep a diary will have little problem reconstructing key events. Give yourself a good week to reconstruct your own outline of the year. Also, by making this a family project, you will not only build your list with greater speed and precision, but (in the hands of a loving patriarch) the very act of chronicling the providences of God in your life is a blessed tool for family discipleship.

Every family will have a different set of priorities directing what they should record. In addition to recording the key events and providences of the year chronologically, I try to take the time with my family to record some of the following information on separate bullet lists:

Where did I/we travel?
What were the titles and key texts of sermons I preached?
What books/articles did I write?
What significant household projects did we accomplish in 2006?
What were the most important meetings of the year?
What special friendships were made this year?
Which children lost teeth, and how many?
Who grew in physical stature and how much did they grow?
Who learned to read this year?
What diet and physical exercise regimen did I maintain to honor “my temple”?
What books did I read? Did we read as a family? Did my children read?
What Scriptures did my family memorize?
What loved ones died this year?
What were the great personal/ministry/national tragedies and losses of the year?
What were the great personal/ministry/national blessings of the year?
What were my most significant failures/sins for the year 2006?
What unresolved conflicts/issues am I bringing into 2007?
What significant spiritual and practical victories did I experience?
In what tangible ways did I communicate gratitude to those who have blessed me and invested in my life?
What are the top ten themes of 2006 for my family?

We won't be going through this list tonight, as it's too late...but I thought it was a great idea, and we'll prepare earlier to do it next New Year's Eve, God willing.

For more great ideas for the end of the year, visit Doug's blog.

Christmas is All Gone Bye Bye

10:29, Monday, December 25, 2006 .. Posted in New Ideas .. 1 comments .. Link

Wow, Whew, Aaah, Aaack, and etc. It's over. Well, the cleaning isn't over -- I'm doing therapeutic cleaning tonight and decompressing from all the noise, mess, sugar, cooking, sugar, chocolate, sewing and everything else. I'm feeling somewhat let down but suspect tiredness and too much bad (in content, not flavor) food to be probable causes.

This is gonna be a boring post, because I'm just having some ideas as I work, and want a place to"jot them down" or I'll forget. And if I write them on paper, I'll no doubt throw them away with all the trash laying around.

First of all: I want a new blog. I want to call it "Making it Meaningful" and in it, will be all sorts of ideas and plans and patterns for making everything in your life more meaningful. More scripture around the house (tastefully! Isn't some of the "scripture" decorating stuff awful! Good words are NO EXCUSE for bad taste!) More meaning to the times we sit down to eat, times when we gather with others, times by ourselves. Holidays; new ways to celebrate or old traditions to bring back; the people, places and meanings behind them -- whatever is meaningful and causes us to be reminded of our Father in Heaven, and what he did for us through Jesus. Things that remind us to live according to what we believe and why.

One thing I'd like to do in our house is to have a Thanks Night (once a week or fortnight or month or whatever.) I'm envisioning having a pretty little box sitting out somewhere convenient, with a small notepad and pen nearby. In it, during the day or week, we would write down when we were thankful for something. Perhaps my son would do something nice for my daughter; she would write it down that day and put it in the box. At the end of the week, fortnight or whatever, we would sit down to a nice meal with dessert, and pull out all those slips of paper, and read them. Then Daddy could say a prayer thanking God for each family member, etc. I'm envisioning this as a Sabbath type of thing, and I feel it would be meaningful in generating a sense of caring, thankfulness, and rememberance. I think it would also encourage our family members to do things for each other, knowing that their efforts would not go unnoticed or unthanked. I'm envisioning this as a Saturday evening feast type of thing.

I'd also like to have a night once a week where we have a very simple meal -- plain/meatless bean soup and hot bread, for example -- where we would count how much we had saved by eating so simply, and putting the savings into a jar. After a certain length of time, we could send that money to one of the Christian charitable organizations we support. I am envisioning this as a Sabbath/Sunday night type of meal.

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