In today's episode We're share a ton of things that we do for fun as a family but as we do, we talk about why planning is so helpful in creating a culture of having fun with our family,  and we talk about how we plan for our fun and at the end of this episode....and we bring on an extra special guest at the end. 

Somewhere along the way, we may have picked up the idea that to be a mature Christian means that we must be stoically serious all the time. Even if we don't believe that this is true, it might be the impression we give when we are discipling our kids if we forget to help them see that even our fun together is a part of our worship to God! Mature Christianity comes with a smile. As we've seen and will continue to see on today's podcast, the Bible teaches us that mature Christians enjoy life, they rejoice, and they are wonderfully happy in Jesus. In fact, Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We Christians take life seriously, but our deepest reality is joy. In fact, our ability to enjoy life and our happiness in Christ is a big part of our worship of God. We're going to deep dive into all of this together today on the podcast as we continue in our series on the importance of having fun together as a family.

Having fun together is simply a blast  - but another reason why we should diligently have some fun with our kids is so that we can teach them HOW to have fun. We all desire happiness, fun, enjoyment, and pleasure, and there are a LOT of good things that God has given to us to enjoy. But, because of sin, there are dangers and pitfalls to having fun. There is a way to enjoy the good gifts of God in a way that honors, glorifies, and pleases him and that same way actually maximizes our enjoyment in both the gifts and the Giver. But there are also ways for us to pursue fun and enjoyment that dishonor God and lead to heartache, pain, and even death. Having fun with our kids gives us the opportunity to lead our kids in how to have truly have fun and enjoy their lives. Training them how to have fun through a mixture of experiences and conversations can help save our kids a lot of heartache and hard lessons down the road.

Is fun a "lesser" thing to pursue? Among Christians, sometimes it seems like this is true! But today on the podcast we're going consider a higher view of fun. And what higher thing is there to consider than God Himself. So we're going to talk about 3 ways we're like God when we're having fun. One of my favorite things to discover about God several years ago was that He is the happiest being in the universe. And if you stick with us throughout this episode I think you'll be convinced, as I am, that God has a lot of fun.

How important is it to have fun together as a family? Maybe that's a question you're asking because sometimes having fun can seem frivolous and trivial. Surely we should be doing much more important things like reading the Word, praying, or worshipping God. And isn't having fun kinda dangerous? I mean, we need to be careful not to have too much fun, right? We don't want to idolize the things that bring us joy. These are good questions, but we believe that having fun is a crucial part of our family worship. That's why it's one of our six pillars of family worship. A pillar holds things up. Without a supporting pillar, the building falls and is unable to stand. If we aren't having fun together, we believe that our family worship isn't fully supported and will have a hard time standing. We believe we won't be as successful in disciplining our kids and one another if we neglect to have fun together. So today, we're launching into a new series that's all about fun. Over the next several weeks and episodes, we're going to talk about the important role of fun in our individual lives and our family lives. 

We are unlocking the podcast vault and letting you in on an exclusive podcast episode that has never before been released to the public! In March 2019, we recorded 10 podcast episodes, each featuring one of the songs from our "God of Generations" album, and we shared the inspiration, scripture, story, and process behind the song. In the coming weeks, we're going to be talking about one of our six pillars of family worship: Having Fun! To kick off this new series (and give us a little more time adjusting to 3 kiddos!), we wanted to share our thoughts behind our song "Praise God." This is a perfect song to kick us off because everything about "Praise God" was/is fun! We had so much fun writing this song, recording this song, singing this song live...and as you'll be able to tell, we probably had WAY too much fun talking about this song on the podcast. We hope you enjoy it, and we're excited to jump into a brand new episode with you next week!

Relationships require intentional time and energy. But, if we're honest, we struggle with this. Especially when it comes to long-term relationships. Relationships with God, our spouse, our kids - we can start to neglect the intentional energy needed to maintain healthy intimacy and closeness that we long for. In our final episode in this series on marriage, we're going to focus on 5 ways we can be intentional in our marriage. These are 5 small tips that can have a big payoff in our marriages.

Marriage is given to us so that we may enjoy it. God loves giving us good gifts. But He also gave us the gift of marriage for a greater purpose. Our non flashy marriages have the ability to change the world around us. There is something heroic about two people sacrificially loving each other to the end in a committed and exclusive relationship. How do our marriages change the world around us?