TFT: Becoming YOU
October 4, 2026
Fall Retreat is Coming Soon!
Our fall retreat is coming up in just under a month on October 16-18! We want you there! This is a great opportunity for your family to get away with the LEFC family and enjoy fellowship, teaching, and more. This year’s theme will focus on Hard Work and Real Rest. Registration is open! Register your family now to join us for a great weekend!
Tiny Theologians Podcast Season 7!
The Tiny Theologians podcast launched a brand new season a few weeks ago! This delightful podcast designed for kids follows characters TJ and Tory as they adventure through the ABCs of Scripture Memory. Each week highlights a new word or phrase according to the alphabet. Episodes are around 10-15 minutes long and make for great car ride listening or a calm break in the afternoon. Although the podcast can be enjoyed by many, it is ideal for preschool and elementary ages. Give it a listen on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform!
Tiny Theologians Advent Resource on Sale!
Believe it or not, Christmas is coming quickly! Currently, Tiny Theologians has one of their advent resources on sale for $10 off! ABC’s of Christmas is a card set designed to highlight various pieces of the Christmas story through one letter each day. Each card provides a simple definition of the featured word (or phrase) and conversation prompts to get your family talking. The Skacel family has used this resource for a few years now, and has enjoyed reading one card each night at dinner. Kids in elementary grades and under would be the ideal audience for these, but every member of the family can benefit from the discussion that is prompted by the cards. Order yours today to take advantage of this sale and familiarize yourself with them before December 1st!
This Week’s Challenge: Crisis Response Missions Team
You may have heard about our 5-person team serving in Florida with Crisis Response this week. These five LEFC women are serving in hurricane relief work this week.
This week’s challenge is to create dialogue with your kids about the work they’re doing and praying for the team. This could look different for different children. With teenagers, you might have a conversation about ways they can serve those in need or the brokenness of our world when unfortunate disasters devastate lives. With very young children, you might focus on compassion and teaching them that the team is displaying compassion to those in need. After discussing what the team is doing, take time to pray for their work and the individuals they are serving during their time there.
“Jesus Brings Life” 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 “Jesus Gave Life and Healing” (Volume 9: Unit 26: 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…
Our recommendation for family discipleship this week is dynamic duo of books for pre-teen boys and girls to understand, navigate, and grow through puberty.
Wise counselor and author Darby Strickland knows how hard this “growing up” time of life can be. In her honestly titled and very helpful article, “Help! My Child Is Entering Puberty,” she writes:
“Puberty is uncomfortable for nearly everyone, but it is especially so for the children going through it. Their bodies are changing in unfamiliar ways. They understand getting taller because that’s been happening all along, but this is different. Hair is growing in new places. They suddenly smell different. Their emotions rise and fall with surprising intensity. Voices, faces, and shapes begin to morph. Even ordinary moments like getting dressed, taking a shower, and walking into a room can suddenly feel complicated.
Parents feel the strain, too. Though we love our children deeply, many of us feel unsure about how to talk about bodies, development, privacy, safety, and growing up. We want to be honest without saying too much and clear without sounding clinical. We want to protect our children without making them afraid. And some of us are trying to offer our children something we did not receive ourselves: calm, faithful words about the body. So we feel awkward and wait for the “perfect” time to talk. Or we overexplain. Or we wait until a question, a smell, a mood swing, or a late-night worry forces the conversation. But what if this is the wrong approach? What if the awkwardness is not something to be avoided and is a sign that something meaningful is happening?”
Strickland encourages parents to embrace the awkward and engage the conversation(s), and she has teamed up with an expert pair of illustrators, Lourdes Navarro and Emanuel Wiemans, to create comprehensive Christ-centered guidebooks for boys and girls entering into those awkward years, Becoming YOU for Girls and Becoming YOU for Boys.
I (Pastor Matt) read through them this week and am totally impressed! These two books are simply excellent, covering sensitive subjects directly but tastefully and with great wisdom and care. Each page is well-designed and readable with biblical counsel offered at just the right level. Becoming YOU is chock full of “apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).
Here are just a smattering of the headlines:
“Your body is a gift.”
“Your body knows what it’s doing.”
“What is puberty?”
“Skin care and acne.”
“How can I tell if a touch is safe or unsafe?”
“Respecting yourself and others”
“Guarding your heart online”
“How to shave”
“Loving the skin you’re in.”
“Handling drama with grace.”
Not only do I wish that they had these two books when my kids were that age, I wish they had these books when I was that age!
If you have a kid soon to enter puberty, you might want to buy one right now and work through it with them. Remember, this can be hard stuff, so you probably want to preview them first before you put them into their hands. We also have them available for check out in the church library.
Darby reminds us, “God is up to good things in your child. They are growing in their understanding of themselves and the Lord, in how to ask for help, in their care for others, in practicing wisdom, and in how to see him as their faithful Creator. Our children are becoming who God made them to be. And by God’s grace, we get to walk with them.”
We hope your family eats it right up.
Jordyn Skacel, Director of Family Ministry
Matt Mitchell, Pastor