The New Year is upon us, and while you’re considering your all-important resolutions to a better body, better health, or better financial stability, take a minute and consider your resolutions to build a more Jesus-centered family.
Every new year means new beginnings, new goals, and new resolutions. There is something about the new year that brings a fresh zeal for change. We get charged to draw a line in the sand. A place to start something new. We get that superhero gaze in our eyes, put our foot down, and stand tall because tomorrow will be different.
New Year, New Resolutions
For some of you, it will be a new gym membership. For others, eating differently. Still others, saving more money, improving relationships, or getting that promotion. Simply put, you’re after a better version of yourself. It is a noble effort for sure.
But this year, rather than just focusing on yourself, let’s focus on creating a better version of your family. While 2024 certainly presents an opportunity to be more in shape, healthier, and happier, it can also be the moment your family grows closer together and closer to Jesus.
Let’s start today. It doesn’t have to be complicated or seemingly unattainable. So, as you prepare for the joy of bringing in a new year, let’s look at three simple yet critical ways that will drive your family to be more Jesus-centered with better habits, clearer purpose, and more compassion.
1. Resolve to Build Habits, Not Just Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are great. But you and I both know that sometime around late January, those resolutions become nothing more than distant memories. Great ideas are conjured up in the moment, but usually without regard for a plan to turn a decision into a lasting, life-changing habit.
This is step one—build better habits into your kids.
Your kid’s brain is hardwired to learn. It’s simultaneously more powerful and more vulnerable than at any other point in their lives. Every experience etching in neural pathways solidifies knowledge, habits, and even addictions. The bigger the experience or the more an activity is repeated, the deeper that pathway is etched, making it harder and harder over time to change behaviors. Everything our kids are exposed to creates an effect—intended or not.
This is especially true for how good habits are built.
When I was a young athlete, I prided myself on being able to shoot a basketball right and left-handed. I would spend hours in my driveway practicing left-handed layups and free throws. Carefully and meticulously, I taught my muscles how to move and shoot the ball properly. I knew when I would have it right—when it no longer felt awkward in my left hand. I knew I would have it when my brain didn’t know the difference between shooting with my right and left hand.
When we think of building spiritual habits, the same principle applies. It will feel odd and awkward at first. But careful repetition will create sound spiritual habits that feel as natural as tying our shoes. So, what are some spiritual habits you want to start as a family in 2024?
- Reading the Bible together?
- Diving into a deeper study?
- Prayer as a family?
- Dinnertime discussions about how God is working in your lives?
Don’t make it complicated. Just start with something and stick to it until it’s a habit. Get past the awkward and focus on building the ones that will drive your family closer to Jesus.
2. Resolve to Build Purpose Into Your Kids
In the Sermon on Mount in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus tells his audience to “Be perfect, as my Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Perfect? I know what you’re thinking, “nobody’s perfect.” So why would Jesus tell us to be perfect, and what in the world does this have to do with your family and the New Year?
The word we translate as perfect is the ancient Greek word telos. It conveys the idea of something or someone’s end goal or purpose. Jesus is forcing us to consider why we exist. What are we here for? What is our purpose?
Telos sets the stage for the mission God has given His people. Our intended goal is Christlikeness. It should be our obsession, what captivates our attention, drives our ambition, and animates routine life with renewed excitement.
This is step 2: Help your kids discover their purpose.
Helping your kids find how they fit into God’s mission and purpose for their lives helps create a deeper sense of focus. It helps prevent being sidetracked by the lure of countless distractions. One of your goals as parents is to help your kids discover their passions, purpose, and gifts—and, more importantly—how they can advance the gospel in their schools and communities. This year, help them use every available resource and tool to build the kingdom and move them closer to God’s intended telos for their lives.
3. Resolve To Build A Rhythm Of Compassion and Confession
Whether we want to admit it or not, face it or not, we are raising a generation of kids in a very toxic and dangerous world. While for some of us, it’s tempting to shelter our kids from all that could harm them—we’ve already seen how dangerous that can be. Anxiety, depression, addiction, and toxic self-image are more prevalent now than ever.
How we help them circumvent these insane challenges is not by not hiding them away but by fostering a home filled with compassion and confession. Because the more we are present, the more transparent our kids will become.
Parents, let’s be honest. We don’t love disruption to the family routine. We like it smooth and steady. So when a crisis happens, you want to fix it and move forward. But you also want kids who will be honest, own their mistakes, confess their sins, and willingly work toward being more like Jesus. That effort begins with your willingness to sit with them in their crisis.
Think of it like Jesus reacting to the death of Lazarus in John 11. Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick and is more than likely going to die within a few days. Now, Jesus has already proven he can heal from a distance. So why not heal Lazarus the second he hears the diagnosis? Instead, Jesus slowly makes his way, arriving after Lazarus has died. Everyone is now not only sad but a little angry that Jesus hadn’t done anything.
Jesus’ response? He sits with them in their mourning.
Yes, He eventually does something even better—raises Lazarus from the dead. But first, he just sits with them. Cries with them. The whole event was a disruption, yet Jesus took the time to sit with them.
Given all our kids are facing, use the disruptions to show compassion like Jesus. Trust me, it’s a game-changer.
Resolutions Require Help
While those personal goals or resolutions of self-improvement like going to the gym, losing weight, or eating better are noble efforts (and you should totally do them), they are not nearly as critical as investing in your family. Parents, you were divinely appointed to form your family, raise your kids, and prepare them for the world to come. There is no better time than right now to reset your course and dive headfirst into what is likely the most critical investment in your lifetime.
But you aren’t going at this alone. We will be here all year to offer practical tips, encouragement, education, and the occasional challenge to help you along the way. Establishing a more Jesus-centered family is quite possibly the most rewarding experience for your family. But you have to put in the work. The time is now.
Let’s go.
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