The Family Table

Dear LEFC Parents,

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are some nourishing items to set the table for disciple-making in your family this week:

Creating Meaningful Holiday Traditions with Your Kids

This week on the “Practice Makes Parent” podcast from Focus on the Family, Dr. Danny Huerta and Rebecca St. James share tips for navigating the joys and stresses of the season, from family traditions to the purpose behind it all.

Help Deck the Halls

Does your family like to decorate for Christmas? You are all invited to help ready our church building for the Christmas season tomorrow, November 25th. Plan now to join us starting at 6:30pm as we set up the tree, hang banners, and put all the other special touches in and around our facility. Questions? See Maria Jackson.

Updating our Nursery

The Family Ministries Team is looking at some potential updates and upgrades to our nursery in 2025. If you have children in that age range or plan to use it in the future, let us know how it could best serve you! We value getting your input.

Family Ministry Survey

Have you taken our quick Family Ministry survey yet? We value serving our families well and want the chance to hear your input. Please take a minute to fill it out here so we can better meet the needs of LEFC families.

Volunteering in Kids Bible Classes

Have you ever considered volunteering to help teach our Kids Bible Classes? We have several new families attending LEFC and therefore have more kids participating in our programs. We could use more teachers and helpers to help shepherd these kids well. The more volunteers, the less often each person will be on the rotation. Please consider whether the Lord might use you in this way. For more information, see Vicky Albert.

Advent is Quickly Approaching!

The season of advent will be here soon, beginning on December 1st. Have you thought about what your family might do to celebrate this season? We encourage all families to spend special time together at home engaging in discussion, crafts, readings, etc. to prepare their hearts for the coming of Christ! Need ideas? One place to start could be the recommended resources by Risen Motherhood from a recent The Family Table dessert!

Send Pastor Matt Your Kids’ Sports Schedules

Winter sports are here! I (Pastor Matt) love to drop in to see the kids of our church family play their sports, but I need to know when and where the games are. It’s hard to keep track of who is on what team. If you could send me your kids’ sports schedules for this new season, it will help me to make it to more games and spend some quality time with your family.

“The Suffering of Job” Kids Bible Class Devotional

You have free access to a family devotional based on the curriculum our kids are studying each week in KBC! It’s called “The Gospel Project at Home.” Today’s Bible Study is “The Suffering of Job” (Volume 1: Unit 3: Session 4), and the devotional can be found at this link.

Visit the Family Ministries page on our website for information about how to access The Gospel Project at Home for the first time.

There is also a QR code in the corner of each week’s take-home coloring sheet that will take you to the content. We especially recommend checking out the short weekly video with your kids to get conversations going! 

And for dessert…

This week’s recommendation for family discipleship is a fable and guidebook for providing a clear path from boyhood to manhood.

Outdoorsman, pastor, and author Zeke Pipher never knew his biological father and was never taught masculinity or Christianity as he grew up. He says, “Like many young me, I did a lot of foolish things trying to prove to myself and other men that I measured up.”

Many years later when his own son Aidan was turning twelve, Zeke felt a deep desire to pass onto him a concrete vision of manhood. “I decided to write a story for him to provide him images of strong, courageous, faithful masculinity. Many men today are looking to society (celebrities, sports figures, politicians) to give them a definition of masculinity; my hope was to show Aidan through these two books how the Scriptures and his conscience can provide the direction.” And so, The Wild Man fable was born.

Zeke quickly found that many other men wanted to pass on something similar to their boys, so he published the fable and guidebook for groups to discuss and put the principles in action. Pastor Matt read and recommended the first edition and led a class of teen boys through the contents.

This year, Aidan has gotten married, and Zeke has released a brand new edition of The Wild Man!

Pastor Matt has highlighted five things he really appreciated about Zeke’s writing in The Wild Man:

1. Zeke is doing his part to raise up godly men.
2. Zeke’s books are a valiant attempt at capturing masculinity.
3. Zeke knows that masculinity is not “one-size-fits all.”
4. Zeke’s vision of manhood is biblical, not cultural.
5. Zeke’s vision is the raising up of a generation (or more!) of wild, but not savage, men.

More:
– We recommended Zeke’s book of hunting-themed devotions this time last year.
– Access Pastor Matt’s interview with Zeke about the first edition of The Wild Man.
– Read and watch reader responses to The Wild Man at Zeke’s website.
– Listen to Zeke’s message “A Tenacious Faith” which he gave at LEFC after he spoke at our Wild Game Dinner in 2017.

The Wild Man is available in the church library, and we also have a free copy provided by Zeke to give away to the first dad to ask Pastor Matt for it.

We hope your family eats it right up.

Jordyn Skacel, Director of Family Ministry
Matt Mitchell, Pastor