The Family Table
Feeding the Faith of LEFC Families
TFT: Letting Your Kids Down
January 26, 2025
Dear LEFC Parents,
Welcome to 2025! Here are some nourishing items to set the table for disciple-making in your family this week.
You’re Invited to Family Night!
Join us for Family Night on the evening of February 21st from 6:00-8:00! We’ll have a time of fellowship together as families of LEFC playing games and socializing. Dinner will also be provided. Invite your friends to come enjoy a fun evening!
Register for Summer Camp!
Has your child ever considered attending a summer camp at Miracle Mountain Ranch? Now is a great time to think about registering for one of their various camps, as those who sign up by February 1st will receive a discount. Camps are available starting at age 6. Visit their website to learn more about camp offerings, dates, and costs. See Marilynn Kristofits with questions or for more information!
Easter Egg Hunt 2025
Mark your calendars now for the LEFC Easter Egg Hunt on April 19th, the day before Easter. Be thinking about how you might want to volunteer to help out in various ways. We will also be looking for donations of candy and prizes when the time comes.
Volunteer Opportunities for Family Bible Week
Family Bible week will be held July 7-13, 2025. We have several volunteer opportunities that we would love for some of our LEFC parents to fill. We need teachers and helpers for nursery, Pre-K-K, 1st-3rd, and 4th-6th, members of the decorating team, kitchen help, games helpers, members of the worship rally team, photography/videography, security, and a finale team. See Jordyn Skacel if you have interest in filling any of these vital roles, or to get more information about each.
“The People Grumbled” 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 People Grumbled” (Volume 1: Unit 6: Session 1), 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.
And for dessert…
This week’s recommendation for family discipleship is an insightful article about dealing with parental regret.
Every parent can probably relate to what Christian counselor and author Lauren Whitman writes:
“As we age, it’s natural to look back at years past. Reflection can be helpful—an important way we grow in wisdom. But for parents, this process can be painful when there are hardships or negative outcomes in our children’s lives. We may live with feelings of failure as we replay our missteps and ways we floundered as parents. Regrets swirl around and around in our minds on an anxious loop, and we don’t know what to do with them.”
Whitman suggests three major reasons why parents have regret and offers what she calls an “off ramp” for each one with a simple suggestion of how to talk to our children about each kind of regret, appropriately acknowledging where we have fallen short.
She says, “Rather than letting regrets anxiously swirl in our minds, we can take the off-ramp of reckoning honestly with what happened. Did you notice the pattern? It’s relational. Let your regrets move you toward the Lord, toward other Christians, and toward your kids.”
Read the whole thing: Parental Regret: How to Move Forward When You’ve Let Your Kids Down. It only takes a few minutes to read but might save you many hours of unhelpful worry, guilt, and shame.
For parents who are wrestling deeply with regrets, the author has written a booklet that helps us see Jesus’ compassion and receive the comfort he offers us in their distress: When Parents Feel Like Failures.
We hope our parents eat it right up!
Jordyn Skacel, Director of Family Ministry
Matt Mitchell, Pastor
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EXPLAINER: THE GOSPEL PROJECT AT HOME
For the last several years, our Children’s Church ministry has utilized The Gospel Project as our Bible study curriculum. The Gospel Project is really excellent–it takes our Little Learners and Bible Explorers chronologically through the whole Bible over the course of three years while always focusing on Jesus as the center of the big story. If your student was in Little Learners or Bible Explorers this morning, they received a coloring page and take-home sheet that corresponds to this lesson. You have also been given a full-color Big Picture Card that you can use to reinforce the lesson with your child, as well.
To reinforce what your kids are learning each week in Children’s Church, you can now access The Gospel Project At Home online. Each week in this email, there will be a link to follow to get this free resource which includes:
1. A guide to using the Gospel Project at Home.
2. Scripture to read and discuss with a recap video of the Bible Story (Preschool and/or Elementary).
3. Scripture memory verses and a song to sing together.
4. Prayer prompts and family activities that correspond to the lesson.
Please consider setting aside at least 10-15 minutes once a week for a family devotional time using this resource as a guide. We are hoping The Gospel Project At Home will help keep all of our LEFC kids “on the same page,” and feed their faith in Jesus.
This might be especially helpful if for some reason your child has to miss a week of Children’s Church. You can show them the Bible story video to keep them up to speed on what the other children are learning.
**Note: The first time you access the link, you will need to register a free account with Lifeway’s Ministry Grid. This will also provide you ongoing access through the “training” tab to many other discipleship resources including the Gospel Project at Home for previous weeks. Many hours of excellent things to absorb for free!